On Friday July 17th, the Open Ventures community came together to celebrate over a Final Dinner and to hear which of the shortlisted ventures had been chosen for further development by Cancer Research UK. The selected ventures, and the winners of the Open Ventures Challenge in 2008, are:

• Project Rose
• Extraordinary Experiences
• Open Gym

These ventures are expected to raise over £10 million for Cancer Research UK over the next few years.

Project Rose

Lizze McLean started Project Rose when she was 13 years old and her mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. For a cost of £2.50, students in secondary schools and colleges can pre-order silk roses that are delivered anonymously to their friends or secret love on Valentine’s Day.

Project Rose

Open Gym

Open Gym is a network of outdoor fitness groups, providing weekly exercise classes in locak parks across the UK. Qualified fitness coaches provide one hour workouts every week and all the profits go to Cancer Research UK.

Open Gym

Extraordinary Experiences

Extraordinary Experiences is a national raffle venture that could win you a “money can’t buy” experience of a lifetime.

Extraordinary Experiences

What Next?

In September, we will hold an event for everybody in the community to get together, celebrate our progress, and help Cancer Research UK decide what should happen next. You can get involved with this now by joining the discussion in the “What Next?” forum.

On April 28th, the Open Ventures community got together to celebrate and to hear the announcement of the shortlisted ventures. Photos are up at flickr and our Facebook group.

Clare Cotton explains the OVC

Towards the end of the evening, David Simoes-Brown from NESTA announced, to an excited crowd, which ventures had been selected by Cancer Research UK to enter the final phase of the OVC:

• CRUK “Quit Smoking” Patches
• Kids of Steel
• Open Gym - a network of outdoor fitness groups across the UK
• Sail for Life
• What Money Can’t Buy - The Time of Your Life!

In the days before the event, we also ran a community vote where we asked you to choose your favourite ventures. After announcing the judges’ choices, we revealed which venture had won the community vote and would be joining the above ventures in the next phase: Project Rose.

David Simoes-Brown with Project Rose

How can I get involved?

The shortlisted ventures are working closely with Cancer Research UK to develop their businesses. However, they need your help! The ventures need to do research, build websites, spread the word, network, and more. Do you have a skill you could lend to a venture? Could you donate some time? Let the community know by posting in the Help Out section of the site.

In keeping with the spirit of the Open Ventures Challenge, Cancer Research UK is inviting the community to choose their favourite venture. Providing that the venture is not illegal and does not conflict with the CR-UK ethos (e.g. a cigarette brand is probably out), it will receive a “Community Choice Award” and automatically proceed to the final phase of the OVC.

For your venture to be eligible for the Community Choice Award, your venture leader just needs to include a 150 word summary of the venture on the venture submission form.

Check the box and enter up to 150 words about your venture.

At 9am on April 21st, the day after the submission deadline, the entries for the Community Choice Award will be posted on the website. Each OVC community member will have five votes to cast and can allocate a maximum of two votes on any one venture. The community has from 9am on the 21st until midnight on the 26th to vote for the venture they want to see shortlisted.

We will announce the Community Choice Award alongside the other shortlisted ventures at the Finalist Announcement event on April 28th. The event will take place at Cancer Research UK’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields research facility.

So spread the word and get ready to choose.

Today marks the launch of the Open Ventures Challenge forums: a space to connect and chat with the Open Ventures community.

Win friends and influence people

When we’ve talked at OVC events, a lot of you have said you’d find it useful to have an area for general discussion that wasn’t tied to a particular idea or venture. In the forums, you can swap success stories, help others work through problems, organise local meetups, or just hang out with all the exciting people in our community.

The forums are also the place to go if you have questions about the Challenge process, or have a suggestion for how to improve the site. The mo.jo team will be posting on the forums too, and we can’t wait to hear what you have to say!

If you have any feedback on how the forums work, please post in the discussion thread.

Submit your venture proposals now!

Ventures now have a form where you can upload your venture proposal for consideration by the judging panel.  Only the person who started the venture can fill in the form, but anyone in the venture team can see what’s on it. We’ll post more information about the competition process very soon on this blog. All proposals have to be in by midday on Monday 20th April, so get working on those venture plans!

Over the weekend, Alexandra Loggie became the 500th member of the Open Ventures community! Alexandra will receive a free mo.jo stein.

Size matters.

mo.jo steins are unusually capacious: they have the ability to hold upwards of 3 cups of coffee. For the chance to get your own, keep an eye out for future announcements involving steins. In the meantime, check out the venture Alexandra is involved in: CR-UK “Check ‘em” underwear (you can also see the original idea).  Kylie, bras and boxers. Surely a good thing.