A century of voting for women in the UK and the #BEGC campaign

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan
announced his major new gender equality campaign
#BehindEveryGreatCity #BEGC
Photographer: Caroline Teo.

I've just been reading about London Mayor, Sadiq Khan's new campaign. To mark the centenary of the first women in the UK winning the right to vote, and to drive forward gender equality across the city of London, the Mayor has launched a year-long women's equality campaign called #BehindEveryGreatCity. You can read more about it here on Marie Claire and here on the Mayor's website.

The campaign includes a year of promoting women's art on the underground, a series of events, initiatives to tackle gender pay gap, including men in the conversation (after all, this is about equality for all and not men vs women) and in Parliament Square, the first statue of a woman will be unveiled - Suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett. If you're ever wandering around London, you will see that although there are a lot of statues in Central London, there are very few statues of women. This sounds like a great campaign and I look forward to participating in it next year. Maybe 2018 will be the year of the woman, at least in London.

It's hard to believe that both my grandmothers were born in an age where women did not have the vote. And although they got the vote as they grew up, their mothers and their grandmothers did not. It is worth noting that it was only some women who got the vote in 1918. You had to be over 30 and fulfil certain property criteria. It wasn't until ten years later in 1928, that all women over 21 got the vote and had voting equality with men. That's not very long ago.

I shall be mulling over all of this during the Christmas Holidays and thinking about how to support both the Mayor's initiative and also support the female entrepreneurs and female execs working in mobile. There will at least be some more of my meet-ups for women working in and around mobile, but with a bit of luck, I'll come up with something new. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas, feel free to share.

Day 20/25 Blogmas

Vote for your favourite start-up and help them win Vodafone Mobile Clicks

Some of you may know that I’ve been working with Vodafone UK & NL on the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition. I helped to organise it and was also one of the judges for the first heats.

We're now coming to  the end of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition now and we have our 6 finalists. They'll be off to PICNIC next week in Amsterdam to fight it out to win hard cash for their start-up. There's 150k Euros up for grabs so it's a tough one. And there are six excellent finalists to choose from too. It wasn’t easy to get to the final six, but we did. There are three finalists from the UK and three from the Netherlands and there are 3 cash prizes up for grabs out of a total prize fund of 150k Euros.

The jury for the final is Richard Titus, Lee Epting, Rudy de Waele, Vincent Everts & Heike Scholz.

But it's not just down to the jury. Mobile Monday London members have a part to play in the process too. There has already been public voting which closes this Friday which is open to anyone http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/vote/ but in addition, we have been asked to create a poll so you can choose your favourite start-up and who you would give a prize too. The votes from Mobile Monday London members will be weighted more heavily than the public vote, so your vote really does count.

I've opened up the poll over at Yahoo Groups (I couldn't find a better way to run it so that it was one vote per person). If you're not already signed up to our Mobile Monday London Yahoo Group, then please sign up and make sure you fill in the bit that says why you want to join the group so we know you're genuine.
Our friends at Mobile Monday Amsterdam are going through a similar process and have already been busy voting.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/momolondon/polls

There is just one vote so use it wisely, but please DO vote! The poll will be open for a week only and will close on 22nd September in advance of the finalists heading off to Amsterdam.

And in case you're wondering who the companies are and would like a bit more info, then here you go...

Woobius http://www.woobius.com/ (UK)
A service for the construction industry allowing them to collaborate by gathering all info & data in one place with access for the team. With the help of Woobius Eye for mobile, it is possible to solve problems & reduce build costs & the number of mistakes made.

Rummble http://www.rummble.com/ (UK)
A service that recommends content to the user, based on people with the same interests and hobbies. By sharing information and creating a trust network, the customer will get more interesting & relevant content.

Mobypicture http://www.mobypicture.com/ (NL)
Share photos, videos & audio with friends at social network sites like hyves, facebook and twitter with one press of a button.

Audioboo http://audioboo.fm/ (UK)
Directly record audio (eg interviews or quotes) & share it with social network sites like twitter and facebook. The last recorded, most popular and featured "boos" from the community can be played as well.

Layar http://layar.com/ (NL)
A browser that uses 'augmented reality' so a user can see what is in their surroundings by looking through the camera of their handset.

MyNameIsE http://www.mynameise.com/ (NL)
Connecting people on & offline by gathering their profiles on various social networks in one place. These can be shared in real life via mobile or bespoke device, The Connector.

Thanks everyone and please get voting!

Technorati Tags: Mobile Monday London,vote,Vodafone Mobile Clicks,competition,start-up,Rummble,Woobius,MobyPicture,Audioboo,Layar,MyNameIsE

Vote George Kidd NOW!!

It's the New Media Age Awards soon and they want to know from all of us who's had greatest influence in the last 12 months. There are some heavyweights up there, of course, like James Murdoch and very disappointingly, no women. But putting that aside, I reckon a vote for our very own George Kidd from ICSTIS wouldn't be a wasted vote. Yes, I know ICSTIS is the regulator, but for a regulatory body, they do a pretty good job and are helpful rather than antagonistic (well, that's been my experience of them to date) and in operating that way, help drive the industry forward. And then today I received an unofficial pitch from an "insider" on the Support George Kidd Team:

"So to paraphrase Elvis, 'A little less conversation, a little more action', ICSTIS is the regulatory body that helped monetise mobile, spike spammers and tame the tellybox. It delivered 100% per annum growth to £1.2bn, a 70% reduction in complaint levels and a funding levy a third the rate it was 10 years ago (sounds good so far - Ed). A body that has delivered Codes in a fast-changing world, reformed its governance and increased its openness (there are a few other Government body who could take a leaf out of the ICSTIS book). We have prosecuted without fear(mostly) when we had to, but tried wherever possible, with increasing success, to work with the industry to design its way out of having to.

Regulating premium rate can seem like riding a tiger, but Mr Kidd, at the helm of ICSTIS, have done so for many years and developed a framework that has been studie and copied in Europe, the USA, Australia, Africa and Asia.

Despite a shameful lack of language skills, George's capacity to make a memorable impact , often with sign and body language, has made ICSTIS legendary from Tower Bridge to Tokyo, from Bermondsey to Budapest and from Sydney to Swedish Beers nights."

It's dead easy to vote for George so there's no excuse. You just text NMA 4 (there's a space between NMA and the 4) and send it to 83338. Get your votes in before the 1st June. Winner announced on the 28th June at the NMA Awards at the Grosvenor House Hotel.

VOTE NOW!! You know it makes sense ;)