Szczepan from Animorph remembers feeling hung out to dry by mainstream sources of finance, and even by the co-op institutions. “We were starting to hallucinate that we’d made a crazy mistake, and were losing hope. We’re Solidfund members, so I ran it by a couple of people then made a request for help in the members' Loomio forum. Two weeks later, we had the £6,000 we needed to survive the crisis. I can hardly express how that simple, no-strings expression of worker co-op love helped renew our energy and belief.”
In fact, the co-op's project CrossSense - AI-driven wearable tech that helps people with dementia navigate the world, and so retain more of their autonomy and independence - was shortlisted for the Longitude Prize on Dementia a few weeks later. The £300,000 of interim funding that came with shortlisting allowed the worker group to donate their emergency distribution back to Solidfund.
Last week, along with five other teams, the co-op presented at a final Longitude panel interview. The overall winners will be announced soon, and those winners will receive a further £1m in development funding. We're crossing fingers and legs, but we also know that however wobbly things might have been for a few weeks back in 2024, and whatever the outcome of the prize competition, this collective is indeed crazily committed. If there's a way to bring CrossSense to market, they'll find it and do what it takes. So watch this space, and meanwhile check out this video published by The Sunday Times to coincide with a news piece in their print edition of 18th January 2025.
What do the stories of Animorph and Solidfund tell us? Well, we found out again what an impact we can make when when lots of people come together with small solidarity contributions. That worker-led cooperative technology and culture can be part of the future of care. What else? Well, Animorph returned their £6,000 distribution without a murmur, even though it was never a loan, or conditional on anything. So it tells us that when we act in a spirit of trust and mutual aid, 'what goes around, comes around'.