Keynotes and pitch decks

This month, both of us had a chance to shine on stage. Danielle delivered a keynote at Learning Disability England on 22nd of March. A week before that, Daniel pitched in front of a panel of investors at the London Business School.

Self-advocacy, and why it matters

Danielle gave a 15 minute opening presentation at the annual conference of Learning Disability England. The event took place in London, on 22nd of March. The guests spent a day discussing about the “Good Lives” framework.

A wide range of learning disabled people’s organisations came along to listen, and share their ways of taking action, ensuring everyone is living a good life. The workshops and talks were lightened up by creative groups of learning disabled people exhibiting their performances and art.

Nervous at start, giving my first keynote, but as soon as I was up talking, it just come to me and the nerves gone away. - said Danielle after the event.

It’s important for us to be at events like this, and engage with the community. Attendees all agreed, we need to work together to make a bigger voice. Preparing for, and delivering the opening keynote was also a great experience, and good skill to start working on.

Our work rewarded with positive feedback and £10,000

In October 2022, we were selected to attend the “From innovation to market” course at the London Business School. During the first three months, we studied alongside other Master of Business Administration (MBA) students. Topics covered building a commercial strategy, understanding the world of investment, de-risking and creating value, intellectual property and much more.

Between January and March, we worked with a small team of MBA students to build our own commercial strategy, and put theory to action. We focused on one of our co-design research projects, Olli. The work involved talking to stakeholders, business modelling, and of course drafting a pitch deck.

The course concluded with an opportunity to pitch our strategy and commercial opportunity. Our team competed in the investment-ready category. The panel of judges, four seed-stage tech investors gave us lots of positive feedback, and asked constructive questions. And the cherry on top? We came home with the £10,000 pitch prize.

I learnt an incredible amount about pushing technology from innovation to market, and received stimulating feedback on how we can make accessible data visualisations gain momentum. - said Daniel after the event.

Some of the prize money is for the MBA students. The rest of the funds we will use to support the adoption of Olli and see it scale. This case is a great example of how far co-designing research with disabled experts can go.