startups

Monday's talk at the Business & Enterprise Hub at Hub Westminster started with a keynote from Peace One Day founder, Jeremy Gilley, followed by Frontline SMS founder Ken Banks, in which they explored the people and organisations that are harnessing the opportunity the technology provides to overcome social challenges, the heroes of social innovation.

The rise of social media and social technology has demonstrated its power to revolutionise industries, change governments and empower social movements. In a very literal sense, the power to connect and collaborate is quite literally changing the world. Mobile technology and social networks enable groups to self-organise and campaigns to gain worldwide momentum.

In just over a week, we'll be joined by some of Korea's top tech talent, the winners of the Google Global K-Startup competition, in London from 5 - 9th November.

We know you'll be just as keen to chat with them as we are - so there's two opportunies where you can meet them: South Korea's Global K-Startups Pitch London (6th Nov) and Seoul2Seoul - An Evening of Networking for UK and Korean Startups (8th Nov).

You can sign up for both below, but first, let's meet the companies...

UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), in partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), is launching a unique competition for UK start-ups actively working in the consumer electronics space to attend the world’s largest consumer electronics show - 2013 International CES - in Las Vegas in January 2013 and CES Unveiled LONDON 2012.

UKTI’s competition will give the winning UK start-ups an unmatched opportunity to be part the world’s largest and most prestigious consumer electronics show.

Digital Mission will be returning with its fourth expedition to New York next Spring, from 18th - 22nd February 2013 to take full advantage of the 150+ events taking place during Social Media Week New York.

Following on from 2010's successful Digital Mission to NYC trip, this Mission to New York will co-incide with Social Media Week New York. We'll be putting together a Mission Programme (see more below) but we'd also like to make Digital Mission as open and collaborative as possible, so we'll also be holding a Meetup on Thursday 22nd November where you'll be able to suggest anything you'd like to see included in the trip.

IC tomorrow, part of the Technology Strategy Board, have launched a Digital Innovation Contest for Music.

There's £150k up for grabs in this contest to encourage digital innovation in the music sector. The contest has six challenges under three themes: rights and monetisation; digital and live music; and linking digital to physical.