Digital Currency for Community Accelerator

Currently the business support that is available to Micro-enterprises in the UK is not fit for purpose. There are no incentives to properly support pre start businesses or start-ups.The extent of the support is mainly in grants that are often not accessible to them or else they are given substandard support on how to write a business plan but never fully supported with the venture through access to tailored support from people local to them.

The Crosby and Park Ward is the largest ward in North Lincolnshire and it has 4 neighbourhoods (LSOAs) ranked within the 20% of the most deprived in the country, this represents approximately 50% of its resident population. Income deprivation has a severe impact on the health and wellbeing of local people, and our goal with Oasis Hub Henderson Avenue and the development of the Crosby Collective has been to create a not-for-profit business incubation facility that can foster an entrepreneurial climate in the community, diversify the local economy, build and accelerate new businesses and create job opportunities for local people.
 
North Lincolnshire has a strong culture of micro business (5,070 businesses) 88.7% of its total business stock have 0-10 employees, and higher than average levels of self-employment (13,100 people) 12.4% of those who are economically active compared with 8.4% in Y&H and 9.4% nationally (ONS Annual Population Survey, 2022).

The solution is to develop a platform for micro enteprises to earn a digital currency by providing their service to other micro-enteprises in their local area. As new businesses register on the system they are given an account with some digital currency to spend on getting something setup (ie: design a logo ( graphic designer ) , product photography , marketing support ( flyers/website). They can choose what they need to give them a experience of the system. From then on they are able to earn currency by trading their product or service with other microbusinesses or else from attending self improvement activities ( ie : volunteering , fitness, pitch coaching etc)

We will develop the business model for helping to sustain the ecosytem that is created post funding. The concept has been trialled in part as part of Zlto Biz but what we hope to do is create a scalable model that can then be used in a UK context and expose start ups to a new way of accessing support. 

We are also working closely with a micro finance group called 'Purple Shoots' that work with Philanthropists to loan small amounts of money to those in need. We are going to use the currency as a way to show validity of an idea if they seeking finance from Purple Shoots. 

The zlto platform has worked successfully within a developing context but feel the technology has massive potential in the business support sector which is ripe for disruption as it moves out of European Funding that it had become so used to accessing but now the 'left behind' towns in the north are feelings the gaps.

We are aiming to serve the people living in Scunthorpe that are either running a small business or individuals who have an idea and are seeking to develop their idea into a business. We currently working with a huge age range of people from 18 - 65. 

The services that are available to small businesses currently in North Lincolnshire e.g. Chambers of Commerce, Federation of Small Business provide access to a toolkit of resources on a high-volume, low specificity membership model that is likely to be favoured by established small businesses and less useful for entrepreneurs where they need a higher level of support to ascertain whether their business idea has commercial potential as well as access to other facilities and resources.
 
NLC’s Inward Investment Team and Growth Hub provide a business engagement service which has coverage of the whole of North Lincolnshire (6,895 business units) and is funded by public subsidy they facilitate events, networks, sectors, inward investment enquiries and access to funding, it would be unrealistic to expect Officers to also provide 1-1 intensive support to start-ups in the community with the limited resources.
 
Currently in Scunthorpe there is no concept like Crosby Collective that includes a co-working space, business growth support and a makerspace as well as community hub- a physical location where people gather to co-create, share resources and knowledge, work on projects, network, and build.

We delivered an ERDF( European Regional Development Funding) and ESF (European Social Fund) CLLD (Community Led Local Development) funded programme to support entrepreneurs, new enterprises, and existing enterprises through a new managed workspace (workshop, co-working, makerspace) in the heart of the Crosby and Park Ward 2020-2022.
 
The programme successfully delivered a thriving community hub that provides quality, flexible space for local businesses and entrepreneurs and a range of co-located community services. Our project was delivered during the unprecedented COVID-19 Pandemic and restrictions on businesses and social contact resulted in significant delays to the completion of the building works and opening of the facility.
 
This had detrimental impact on our ESF CLLD revenue project reducing the time available to work with businesses. Despite these challenges, we recovered much of the lost ground and delivered several accelerator and business incubation programmes that resulted in new jobs, businesses in the community. The legacy of the project is a vibrant space where people and ideas converge to create opportunities. We have learned from these experiences how best to support local entrepreneurs through facilitating access to co-working/workspace, resources, expertise, and connectivity.
 
We have also completed 5 pilot projects as part of Community Renewal Funding that saw local business supported through the development of a local market, access to micro finance through Purple Shoots, access to women’s events that promote empowerment and collaboration, Barista training and coffee development and finally the development of a new container space that will give businesses access to space to market themselves to the general public, test what works and develop their ideas further.

The Zlto Biz pilot has been tested in the South African context and has seen 50 businesses supported through it. We are hoping to move it across to the UK and embed many of the learnings from their initial pilots. We are planning to work with Marlon and his team of developers .

We are at the stage now where being given the access to the right networks and advice will go along way to helping us develop and scale the concept. We have spent the last three years developing the perfect space for this pilot to develop and thrive but now we need scaffolding that Solver could provide by their expertise and access to partners .

The business support model has remained unchanged and overly funded because local councils in the UK have struggled to recruit business advisors that have real experience as entrepreneurs . 

We believe this platform levels the playing fields by allowing startups to be the support mechanism that is needed to develop the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Rather then 'experts' and 'masterclasses' being run lets democratise business support to allow the businesses that need the support to develop it themselves. 

We hope that through developing both the physical and technological platforms for micro businesses to develop and grow in cities and towns around the UK. We are supported by a larger organisation in the form of Oasis. We are a local charity that has many social enterprises that sit within it. 

We are hoping to scale this across the 18 Community Hubs as well as embed it in the 52 local academies so that the option for self employment is shown to young people and we are able to lean on the zlto concept by giving schools access to the platform

Oasis is working in 40 neighbourhoods throughout the UK, we have 52 local Academies, 18 Community Hubs, Basis Drop-in Centres and supported housing projects. This organisational infrastructure provides an underpinning community of expertise and resources that can be draw on to assist in delivering local priorities within communities.

We have been using he EVIDE system to monitor our support for businesses. The EVIDE system was used to monitor many European funded projects across the years. It helps us report on impact across all of our support programmes. 

We believe that through giving startups access to a platform that allows them to choose the support that they need while at the same time as exposing them to new clients through opportunities for other micro businesses to buy in their product or service. It will result in concepts and businesses that have the resolve and ability to adapt to what is needed and slowly emerge into the fiscal economy knowing the value of their product or service and having the confidence from the experience they have had through utilizing the platform.

Block Chain - https://www.zlto.co/services

We are a local charity that is registered with the Charity Commission. We received infrastructure support ( finance / HR) from Oasis Community Partnership which is a National Charity in the UK.

Oasis as an organisation has inclusivity at its heart - we recently were part of Break the Cycle : Break the Cycle is a national grassroots movement, hosted by the Oasis UK charity, aimed at tackling the current massive under-representation of Black and Asian heritage leaders in education by promoting African, Caribbean and Asian leadership across education and youth work in the UK. Below you can find more about the aims and achievements of Break The Cycle as well as video resources from previous conferences.

I am happy to provide our Business Canvas that we completed that builds on our existing model which is about providing coworking space and event space as an integral back bone of the model that we are seeking to develop.

If I can refer to the business canvas that I can provide to showcase how that works

We have received large grants from ERDF and ESF to develop the space already and are in the process of securing funding from Shared Prosperity Fund in the UK