It is usually about this time every year when I give bigger news than normal, and this is no exception! You may recall a few years ago I announced that I was stepping down as CEO of Rewired and Young Rewired State and moving to the board, and for the last two years we have been shaping the incredible organisation that is Rewired State, and working out how to scale Young. So… first things first:
Rewired State – the smart data agency
I cannot really put into words how proud I am of the achievements of this community of developers. Over the last seven years we have fought for and won many a battle for open data in public services (not alone of course, but with a small crew of like minded enterprises). Our move over into the commercial sector after we left our Guardian incubator was a forbearer of the greater acceptance and understanding of big data, and we began to realise true ROI for our clients.
Our brand remains resolutely strong with provenance, successful/beautiful disruption and a growing community of data designers, scientists, developers and thought-leaders.
The culmination, I guess you could say, of these last two years of really thinking about the positioning of Rewired State as we move forward is a full pivot with a clear focus on our core competencies in smart data, fully supported by our senior team leaders, the community and the Board.
We have brought in a strong commercial director: Joe Clark, who will steer future growth. I continue to work closely with Joe as Founder and Board Director, alongside my colleagues and the community. Check out our VD01 website over here and let us know if you would like to engage with this new, beautiful version of my first baby! I am ridiculously proud of it.
Young Rewired State
As those of you who know me know, this has always been my passion: this group of self taught programmers, giving them a community, real world challenges and introducing them to open data. So many of these alumni remain a part of my life and I feel like some kind of geeky Godmother most days!
It is testament to its success that it has grown to become this International community of thousands of young developers, mentors and alumni – it almost has a life of its own without anything we do centrally! However, we have a duty of care, and it is that duty that has led us to focus once again on how best to scale and fund what we do.
Now that Rewired State has completed its pivot and is already storming through with some fantastic clients and partners, it is time to lift up the hood of Young Rewired, and see how we can really enable and support scale.
We have been incredibly lucky an have been able to second the services of Oliver Wyman for a six week strategic review, looking at other ways talent is scaled internationally in other sectors, and how we might apply this to YRS. I am confident that together we will find a scalable solution to allow the developer in every child find a community, a network and future to be excited about.
This does mean that for the rest of this year, activity at the heart of YRS will be limited to supporting ongoing activities and focused on scale and funding the future. The senior management team are in discussions with some key partners for potential delivery of the Festival of Code 2016 – but those discussions are still in flow and I am unlikely to have any news on the Festival in 2016 until the end of February.
Me?
Well – I cannot tell you how ridiculously exciting the last couple of months have been – if not a little busy! I was contacted out of the blue to see if I would consider meeting with Natalia Vodianova and her team running Elbi Digital – an organisation focused on enabling everyday philanthropy. The brilliant (and kind) Joanna Shields had suggested I do so, and Eugenia Makhlin took up the challenge (she is the outgoing CEO – off to have baby number two and help steer this from the board). #womenintechnology
Natalia is a very determined lady and has already achieved an incredible amount with her Naked Heart Foundation in Russia and Elbi is her latest genius idea – to break open philanthropy and put it in the hands of all of us, in smart, beautiful and delightful ways.
Obviously this plays directly to my own personal core values and ‘things that push my buttons’. And over a long afternoon spent with Natalia and ginger tea in Paris last year, I fell in love with Elbi.
To my absolute delight, surprise and spine-tingling pleasure, I was invited to come on board as the new CEO, to bring all of the shutzpah (well, JFDI) and lessons I have learned about breaking things better from the last seven years with Rewired and Young, adding Elbi to my stable of passions!
And so it begins. I have just stepped in as CEO of Elbi Digital, our first product is live in MVP already (since late last year), go check it out on the app store (hunt for Elbi) and we will be rolling out version 1 this Spring and then the really special magic begins to happen.
Natalia has great vision, and it is truly humbling, inspiring and an incredible opportunity to be working with her, and I look forward to introducing her into the technology world we inhabit over the coming years.
Here is to the next stage of everything! I am so happy and really am thankful for all of the opportunities I get, and grateful to the massive support of those communities I am lucky enough to be a part of.
Happy New Year everyone
xoxo
Emma Mulqueeny 