A selection of great stories about projects at Glasgow’s CCA.
The Evening Times on Glasgow’s Guerilla Gardeners.
Rachel Devine of The Sunday Times gets to grips with “guerilla gardening”.
Planting the seeds of change in The Herald.
Scotland on Sunday reviews The Last Days of Jack Sheppard.
We’re donating our services to Wish For Rwanda, the charity set up by Edinburgh businesswoman Jackie Calder.
Here are a few of our favourite hits.
Jackie tells Daily Record journalist Laura Coventry about her first visit to Rwanda.
Jackie speaks to Victoria Raimes at Edinburgh Evening News.
The lovely Jonathan Melville gets behind WfR with his blog, It’s On, It’s Gone.
Coverage of our first event at The Balmoral Hotel in No.1 Magazine.
A selection of our favourite hits for personal finance application Money Dashboard and its founder and CEO Gavin Littlejohn.
TechCrunch breaks funding story and introduces “Mint-like” Money Dashboard.
Business 7 reports £1m pre-launch funding boost for Money Dashboard.
Gavin Littlejohn tells SmallBusiness.co.uk why a good website is an essential tool for start-ups.
Director Magazine picks Gavin Littlejohn as ‘one to watch’ for 2010.
The Scotsman reports Money Dashboard’s closed beta launch.
User Vision has announced the appointment of Jonathan Helm, Stephen Denning and Laurene McCafferty to its expanding staff.
An experienced consultant, Jonathan Helm will take on the role of Business Development Manager. His career has been spent predominantly in the design and branding industry and he has extensive digital agency experience. He most recently held the position of Commercial Director at Crombie Anderson in Edinburgh. Helm’s main focus will be on introducing User Vision’s services to new contacts while nurturing and maintaining links with existing clients.
User Vision currently counts Emirates Airline, the BBC and Nokia among its portfolio of well-known clients. The company hopes that having Helm on board will allow it to widen its reach into new sectors.
Helm, who has specialised in Business Development for over a decade, says: “I am delighted to be working with UV as they are a highly respected agency with a fantastic breadth of expertise. Operating in a fast-moving and innovative industry means that every day brings fresh challenges and new experiences.”
He adds: “User Vision already has an amazing client base and I hope to build and improve on these foundations in the coming months.”
Meanwhile, Stephen Denning and Laurene McCafferty will be joining the team as User Experience Consultants. The pair will be working closely with clients to provide a better and more effective experience to their users by maximising the usability of websites, mobile phones and services.
McCafferty studied for her PhD in Usability Engineering at the University of Edinburgh and will initially be working with the Student Loans Company.
She explains why she was attracted to User Vision and a career in usability consultancy: “Companies are beginning to understand the importance of usability practices, and projects are constantly offering new challenges. User Vision play an important and supportive role in addressing these issues.”
Denning completed a Masters in Human Factors in Information Design and has worked as a consultant for over ten years. He was previously a Principal Consultant at PA Consulting Group in London. In his new role he will be responsible for Scottish Widows, English Heritage and online personal finance tool Money Dashboard.
He says: “User Vision has an experienced team of talented professionals, all sharing a common focus of realising the maximum benefit for our clients. I’m passionate about user-centred solutions so it’s great to join a company that shares that enthusiasm.”
Tony Lucas, founder of Flexiant
Flexiant, the software and services company, was officially launched today following the completion of a funding round, raising approximately £1m. The funding round, which was over-subscribed, has allowed Flexiant to acquire Flexiscale, a cloud computing technology developed by XCalibre Communications Ltd, and provided Flexiant with working capital to further develop the technology.
Flexiant’s suite of software and services is designed for web hosting businesses, data centre operators, and telecoms companies, enabling them to offer cloud computing based services to their customers. Flexiscale’s origins are in the web hosting sector, having been developed by XCalibre in order to provide a flexible and highly cost effective service to its own customer base.
Flexiant will also continue to market the Flexiscale public cloud service which has been running for two years and has an established user base. Flexiant expects to announce a major software release early this year.
A group of ten angel investors have come together to back Flexiant. The group includes two Internet pioneers, Alex Bligh co-founder of Nominet UK and Laurence Blackall, behind the creation of Pipex Communications, as well as cloud computing trailblazer and software guru Tony Lucas, founder of XCalibre and architect of the Flexiscale platform. Lucas will be joined on the management team by Blackall as Chairman and by Bligh as CEO. The team thus has not just an outstanding pedigree but also a very real understanding of the market.
Flexiant will be in a powerful position to revolutionise the hosting market by allowing hosting providers to offer highly scalable services at realistic prices. Servers provided using Flexiscale technology can be provisioned or removed within seconds instead of days or weeks. Spare resources can be shared between servers with a corresponding drastic reduction in capital investment. The resultant reduced power consumption allows hosting companies to slash their operating costs and reduce their carbon footprint, whilst being able to invoice their customers earlier.
Alex Bligh comments: “Flexiscale is the most exciting internet infrastructure technology I have seen for ten years. Flexiant’s recently completed funding round will allow us to exploit the full potential of Flexiscale by licensing it to the web hosting market. Tony Lucas has pioneered cloud computing for the past five years and I believe that we have pulled together the right team to change forever the technology used for internet hosting.”
Tony Lucas explains: “I believe the next decade will see profound changes in the hosting market with affordable scalable services reducing both operating costs and carbon footprint. The success of Flexiscale to date means that we are in a strong position to lead the way as the sector evolves and I am looking forward to the challenges ahead.”
Gavin Littlejohn, Money Dashboard's CEO
Money Dashboard’s eagerly anticipated beta testing programme launches today. Testing is by invitation only and thousands of people have already signed up to take part.
For the first time testers will get a feel for how Money Dashboard will finally look when it launches next Spring. Users can aggregate their bank accounts, tag transactions and use the budgeting tools provided. A forum to provide feedback is also now live.
Money Dashboard is a free online personal finance service for the UK consumer. It brings a person’s bank accounts, credit cards, store cards and loans together on one screen – giving a clear up to the minute picture of their personal finances, making it the one place to manage your money.
Consumers can access the Money Dashboard application from any PC and by using it for just ten to fifteen minutes a month it allows them to track spending, set budgets and helps them save. It will also send email and text alerts of budget overspend, suspicious transactions or important events.
Independent of banks, building societies and lending organisations, Money Dashboard is the consumer’s friend. It puts people in control of their finances and helps them identify suitable products and ways to save.
The feedback from Money Dashboard’s testers will help shape the final product and ensure that it can put the UK consumer back in charge of their own finances.”
Money Dashboard will be rolling the service out to those that are currently signed up over the next few weeks – applications for access are still being accepted at www.moneydashboard.com/signup.aspx.
Web hosting specialist, Webfusion, has acquired the hosting assets of XCalibre Communications to strengthen its entry level managed hosting business. The acquisition, for an undisclosed sum, will enable Webfusion to extend its offering and provide XCalibre customers with access to a variety of products, along with 24×7 support.
The remaining XCalibre business will transfer to Flexiant Ltd. Webfusion, in partnership with Flexiant, will trial the FlexiScale cloud computing platform and it is hoped that FlexiScale will eventually be offered as a service to Webfusion customers.
Thomas Vollrath, Managing Director of Webfusion, comments, “XCalibre has an excellent portfolio of hosting products and we are delighted to partner with them. The acquired Xcalibre customer base will benefit from an increased product set and more choice in entry level managed hosting packages. We look forward to the opportunities to widen our portfolio and present these customers with a greater choice of hosting and web security solutions.”
Tony Lucas, CEO of XCalibre, comments: “This partnership with Webfusion is very important to us and will allow us to strengthen our focus on the continued development of FlexiScale platform and other software products. Our roots are in hosting but our passion is development and going forward this experience will shape our transition into and growth as a software and services company, pioneering cloud computing.”
Customers of XCalibre Communications will become clients of Webfusion with immediate effect. There will not be any changes to control panels or services provided. In addition, customers will benefit from Webfusion’s UK-based data centre, round the clock support teams and access to a wider range of products and services.
Webfusion is part of the Host Europe Group, which is owned by Oakley Capital.
An open letter of thanks from Jackie Calder to the supporters of Wish For Rwanda
My goodness what an amazing start! And we haven’t even launched yet!!
Thank you to everyone who turned out in such fabulous style for Wish for Rwanda’s first fundraising fashion show and lunch on Saturday 28th November. Over one hundred of Edinburgh’s most glamorous ladies and gentlemen were there to help us raise money and create a real buzz about Wish for Rwanda.
The Christmas-themed event was held in the Balmoral Hotel and opened with a champagne reception. Clothes for the fashion show were provided by Booby Trap Boutique, John Lewis and Retucco. In addition to ticket sales, a charity auction and raffle raised money for the charity. Guests were also invited to leave personal messages on a wishing tree for a small donation.
My good friend and long-time supporter of Wish for Rwanda, Lisa Henderson, hosted the fashion show and took to the catwalk like a duck to water, ensuring the show ran smoothly and charming the crowd with her enthusiasm and good humour. Professor Gerda Siann, the Honorary Consul for Rwanda to Scotland, later joined her on stage for the auction and raffle.
Once again, thank you to everyone who has donated to Wish for Rwanda so far. Your contributions bring us closer to our target of raising £1million for the widows, widowers and orphans of the Rwandan genocide.
Our first project will be the building of a Health Centre in the district of Gasabo, near the capital city of Kigali. A health centre in this area will provide the community with stable healthcare and my vision is to provide well-equipped premises and trained medical staff.
We hope to build a brighter future through the introduction of clinics to educate the community about hygiene, child welfare, nutrition, family-planning and the avoidance of malaria and HIV/AIDS.
I hope to see you all again for our official launch event in the new year.
Wish For Rwanda is aiming to raise £1m for the survivors of the genocide
If you’ve been following the blog you’ll know that we’ve teamed up with new charity Wish For Rwanda. Set up earlier this year, the charity is aiming to raise £1million for Rwanda and it’s starting this month.
The first event will be a Christmas-themed fashion show and lunch at The Balmoral Hotel on November 28th. Guests will be welcomed with a champagne reception and models will be showing off this season’s must-haves from John Lewis, Retucco and lingerie boutique Booby Trap. For more information on the fashion show or to buy your ticket, please visit www.wishforrwanda.co.uk.
As well as gearing up for the fashion show, we’ve been getting the word about Jackie and her mission out to the media. Thankfully our hard work has paid off and the Edinburgh Evening News and The Daily Record both carried features on Wish For Rwanda this week.
You can read the Edinburgh Evening News story here and the Daily Record piece is online here.
Hopefully you’ll be sharing a glass of fizz with us on the 28th!
