LTW26: The Proximity Advantage: Building from and for the Edges

London Tech Week Olympia - 10th June 10.30-11.00

Apart from lived experience, various other essential ingredients in the ecosystem must adapt and coordinate to enable innovation from the edges, including reframing this with social impact and how other such players come into the mix.

This London Tech Week Conference session on the Ignition Stage brings together perspectives to make an urgent argument to the startup and investor community: proximity to a problem is a competitive advantage, and the ecosystem is systematically undervaluing the founders and organisations who have it most.

We'll aim to touch on points like:

• Designing from the edges — Why this consistently produces technology with broader reach than it was originally scoped for. How can startups design for edge cases from the start to unlock innovation that benefits all users? And how does that impact compound when the founders themselves bring lived experience of disability and neurodivergence — when the makers, not just the made-for, come from the edges
• Tech for social good as an innovation model — how third sector organisations — charities and social ventures working directly from frontline service delivery — are pioneering a form of co-production that VC-backed startups rarely achieve, and what the wider startup ecosystem can learn from building technology where impact is the primary metric, not a secondary one
• Co-production on all levels - What does authentic co-design look like inside the accelerator and incubator programs that shape neurodivergent founders themselves — moving beyond performative consultation in product design and beyond bolt-on accessibility in program design?
• Supportive environments - Why do support ecosystems fail certain founders? What resources, accessible spaces, funding models, and third-sector innovation partnerships are needed to unleash neurodivergent and disability-led talent — and what does mainstream tech lose by not building that infrastructure?
• Where products lose people — and why — using self-determination theory (autonomy, relatedness, competence) as a practical diagnostic for founders and investors to understand where technology is failing to serve specific audiences, and how closing those gaps tends to improve outcomes for everyone

Our panel of speakers will be moderated by:

Coté Auil, Global Disability Innovation Hub - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariajoseauil/ with:

Matthew Bellringer - https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-bellringer/

Marc Goblot, Digital Diversity Lab, Tech For Disability - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcgoblot/

Kathy Marcham - https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-marcham/