Launch of the Aspect Members Platform with getTWOit
Firstly, get-TWO-it…am I saying that right?
Ha ha yes that’s right. In essence we are about collaboration, and that takes at least two parties, so that’s where it came from.
Very good, thank you. And what is getTWOit exactly and what does it provide for Aspect Members?
getTWOit is a customisable private network designed to facilitate knowledge transfer and reduce the workload for organisations in creating and managing their communities.
It’s actually a series of interconnecting networks, as people can be part of one community with its own content, events, members etc and then jump to other communities at the press of a button.
Much like Aspect, one network may be a university with its own community, another may be project-based combining people from several universities, and another may combine multiple universities and multiple projects.
What this means for Aspect members is that they have a place to connect and communicate with each other, share opportunities, search and match other members based on subject or interest areas, and build their own project communities as those develop.
You are now sponsoring a version of getTWOit for Aspect and Aspect Members at aspectnetwork.gettwoit.com – how did that come about and why?
Last year we partnered with Aspect to deliver the online Aspect Festival which went really well.
While there were many options, getTWOit offers a flexible ecosystem that allows the management of large numbers of people with a focus on education, connection and inspiration, by even just one “event coordinator”.
getTWOit’s origins are partly in events and so we understand what makes a good festival, things like unexpected encounters with people of the same mindset are part of what the platform facilitates. So we agreed that this is a good opportunity to use the platform in this context.
Aspect is a growing community of people and institutions with shared values and who can benefit from collaboration, so it feels like a natural marriage for us. Some sort of tech infrastructure was needed to benefit the growing member base, social media is always an option but as we have all seen, echo chambers can be damaging. We believe that the antidote to this is building strong communities with a core focus and positive shared values, where tech enhances a wider framework. In this respect, Aspect is that framework, and its members are part of a shared movement which fully aligns with our beliefs in positive social change.
And you have mentioned you consider yourself a SHAPE venture – why is that?
It may sound odd considering we are a tech offering, but we do not really consider ourselves a tech business in the classical sense, we developed from a background in the social sciences and humanities, and our real focus is on societal change, we consider ourselves firmly in the camp of ‘tech for good’.
Like many SHAPE ventures, we started in consulting – working with organisations to look at ways of developing ideas and solving problems that involve disparate people, from across the world, in different professions and backgrounds, but with a few shared interests or agendas.
As mentioned above, we believe that technology itself can’t provide all solutions, but technology can support and facilitate people in coming together on their own terms.
Lastly, unlike the normal tech company route of finding market fit and then scaling, we have worked very closely with select clients, tailoring functionality to their needs, before creating a standardised platform out of the similarities we were seeing. Universities have been a large part of this, with people like LJ Silverman from LSE’s entrepreneurial division LSE Generate and Emma Robinson from LJMU being a particular inspiration for us. This process of developing getTWOit has been hugely fulfilling, as we feel that our platform is really born from collaboration and continual experimentation, values we see in Aspect which really resonate with us.
Lastly, what does the future hold for getTWOit?
Firstly and always we want to keep building safe communities for organisations that share our values, where people-to-people interaction is central.
On top of this, we see a strong future in micro-credentials amongst communities that support their endeavours, whether they are at school, or university researchers, start-ups or NEETs. We believe it is possible to build up stronger founders and individuals through micro-credentials, courses and community in a way that works with, and enhances, the ecosystems they are already in.
As such, getTWOit has started issuing open badges that a person can earn based on their activity within that community. An open badge is essentially a micro-credential that could be as simple as a small self-learning course, an accredited course or certification and we are in the process currently of adding these to the blockchain so they can’t be faked.
These badges represent a person’s reputation and accomplishments to bolster people’s social identities, making it more difficult for others to impersonate someone, and easier for prospective employers to verify history or training when considering hiring, or for investors when considering the merits of a venture. Apparently, over half of LinkedIn profiles contain falsities, and nearly 90% of recruiters use LinkedIn for hires. Meanwhile VC’s spend on average 120 hours just evaluating the human capital potential of an entrepreneur. So, adding transparency and efficiency to this is much needed.
We are deploying this currently across schools’ communities in relation to their extracurricular activities, and see a potential use for it in SHAPE ventures where the route market is not necessarily straightforward and so could benefit from validation steps, whether it is the level of research present that is being validated or the participation in accelerators, mentorship or workshop programmes. It’s a very exciting space, and anything that helps the SHAPE agenda and investment into ventures born of SHAPE research, we are 100% supportive.
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If you would like to find out more about getTWOit you can get in touch via their website here.