Nominet Trust Launches Fourth Annual Search for World’s Most Inspiring Social Tech

- Fourth annual NT100 will celebrate ‘Everyday Tech Heroes’, the inspiring people using technology to make an extraordinary difference to our world.
- From today, the public can submit their favourite ‘tech for good’ projects to be considered for the 2016 NT100 here: http://www.socialtech.org.uk/nominate/
- Nominet Trust welcomes back judging partners Big Lottery Fund, Comic Relief, Nominet, Oxfam and Telefonica O2, who all join forces for a second consecutive year to select the 2016 NT100

London, UK, 30 June 2016: Nominet Trust, the UK’s leading social tech funder, today launched the call for nominations for its fourth annual NT100 - a quest to find the 100 most inspiring social tech innovations from across the globe.

For the past three years, the NT100 has highlighted the world’s most remarkable examples of social innovation, where the internet and digital technology have been used to tackle critical social challenges. These projects are revolutionising healthcare and emergency response, transforming education, protecting the environment, and empowering communities. Previous alumni range from Google’s Project Loon increasing online access in remote communities and ZSL’s conservation tech, Instant Detect, to projects like Andiamo – a family start-up using 3D scanning and printing to produce children’s orthotics in just 48 hours, opposed to the standard 13 weeks! Since being featured in the 2015 NT100, many alumni have gone on to tackle emerging social challenges. Geocoding system What3Words, for example, is now helping to track the Zika virus in the US and Cholera in Tanzania.

Now in its fourth year, the UK’s largest tech for good campaign will focus on celebrating the organisations and people driving the use of digital technology to change the world for the better. Adopting a theme of ‘Everyday Tech Heroes’, the 2016 NT100 will profile inspiring people who have seen the effects of a problem in their communities and creatively deployed technology to tackle it. By shining a spotlight on these ordinary people doing extraordinary things, Nominet Trust hopes to inspire more individuals to use technology to make a positive difference in the world.

Candidates for the 2016 NT100 will comprise a combination of public nominations and Nominet Trust’s own research. From today, people around the world are invited to nominate the projects that have inspired them by visiting the Social Tech Guide – home of the NT100 – featuring all 1,300 ventures discovered since 2012. Just complete this short online form: http://socialtech.org.uk/nominate Nominations will be open until Friday 30 September 2016.

Vicki Hearn, Director of Nominet Trust, said: “In its fourth year, the NT100 is now well established in the tech for good calendar. We continue to discover impressive examples of the world’s most innovative social uses of the internet and digital technology. Many of the most inspiring initiatives are led by individuals who have seen a problem first hand and are creatively using tech to address it. These wonderful people are changing the world for the better and have inspired our special focus for this year – ‘Everyday Tech Heroes’.

“I’m so excited to be embarking on this journey once again, with fantastic partners to help us select the 2016 NT100. I can’t wait to see what amazing social tech projects we uncover this year.”

Nominet Trust welcomes back judging partners Big Lottery Fund, Comic Relief, Nominet, Oxfam and Telefonica O2, who all join for a second consecutive year, alongside new partners joining for the first time. The 2016 NT100 will be revealed in December.

Visit socialtech.org.uk for more information.