Edgeryders Ltd., a social enterprise incorporated in the UK, acts as an interface for the Edgeryders global community to engage with more traditional organizations. As the community is considering involvement in the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program, the board of Edgeryders Ltd. has registered it onto the program’s participant portal and received PIC number 949709541. We fall under the European definition of SME.
If you have a great project and find yourself in need of a cutting-edge partner, consider us. We offer:
- access to a great, super-smart, super-active global community of social innovators, hackers and changemakers (2000 members and counting at the time of writing).
- a fully free-and-open online platform where this community hangs out and engineers collaboration.
- ten years of experience in the core team in dreaming up, writing and executing cutting-edge research projects.
- top-notch international experience, working in or with the Council of Europe, the European Commission, the United Nations Development programme, UNESCO, Rockefeller Foundation.
- solid track record in online ethnography.
- solid track record in delivering international cutting-edge events – we have our own Living On The Edge series.
- in-house, analytics-driven team of communicators.
- a partnership with the Italian city of Matera, which is willing and able to host prototypes of citizen-led innovative initiatives. The unMonastery, Edgeryders' flagship project, has a live prototype in Matera as I write this.
- a hard-working, solid, diverse core team.
We would like to work on projects related to social innovation; smart communities; reduction of dependencies; the sharing economy; resilience; community stewardship of assets, both physical ones like real estate and digital ones like data. But we will consider proposals in other areas as long as they are consistent with our vision and values.
We consider taking on work packages related to research; (some) tech dev, esp. software and web development, when it is near to our research expertise; community building, engagement and communication.
We require:
- projects aimed at solving important problems for the benefit of all. The community will refuse to engage on projects it considers evil, pointless or overly commercial.
- a commitment to free and open source software, open data and more in general to sharing knowledge.
- a commitment to transparency, "working out loud" online. Meetings are bad and should be kept to a minimum. Intra-consortium communication should be many-to-many and trackable insofar as possible.
- a commitment to diversity, making space for gender, cultural, age, and whatever diversity. The more the better. If you partner up with us, you are likely to find yourself working with people you might find unusual, and we will expect you to make an effort towards making them feel respected and welcome, and working together despite differences.
- a lead partner with rock-solid administrative competence, and the will to support us in our very first Euro project.
At its onset, Edgeryders was embedded as a joint project between the Council of Europe and the European Commission: we understand the culture of European institutions, and appreciate the European Commission’s need for accountability. At the same time, we know that dealing with European funding can be cumbersome. So we take project administration very seriously: we guarantee our full commitment towards a flawless management of deliverables, work packages, tasks and all the rest of it – and we demand the same of you.