Tips for pitching at a Social Innovation Camp

Although we haven’t organised a Social Innovation Camp in the UK for a little while (we’ve been a bit busy with Bethnal Green Ventures), we do help people in other countries run them. The most recent was in Kosovo last weekend and Dan asked me for a few tips for the teams about what they should include in their pitch. Here’s what I suggested for five slides:

  1. Tell a story to get people emotionally engaged with the problem you’re trying to solve and show how important it is.
  2. Explain your solution in words as simply as you can — show people a demo if you have one
  3. Explain how people will find out about your solution
  4. Say a little bit about how it will make money — show proof that people want to pay for it if you have some
  5. Tell them why you’re the best team to make it happen and what help you need.

Of course this won’t work if you’re pitching at an AngelHack Hackathon for McDonalds (oh good grief)- but that’s probably for another post.

The future of cities

Diane Coyle has a great post reviewing various books about the future of cities. This is the money quote for me:

Is this the dawn of an era of powerful cities and weak nations — much like the age of city states half a millennium ago? It seems highly likely. More than half the world’s people live in urban areas now. Most economic activity consists of trade in ideas and people and goods and services between cities. Mayors are important figures, who for the most part feel less bound by the constricting conventions of national party politics. As ever, though, political and social institutions lag behind technological and economic trends, and in centralised polities like the UK urban renaissance would involve some big changes.