Tech For Good feat. Motion

Meet Zeezy, Founder of Motion, a trailblazing social enterprise transforming the social care landscape. We chat about how Motion’s digital platform addresses the challenges of care homes, enhancing residents’ well-being and fostering transparent communication with families. As part of our ‘Tech For Good‘ series Zeezy shares the journey of Motion and its pivotal role in shaping the future of care.

Can you please introduce yourself, what your business does and what makes your business and offering unique and a force for good?

Hi, my name’s Zeezy and I’m the Founder of Motion. Motion is a social enterprise that uses technology to address challenges facing our social care system. In care homes residents spend the large majority of their time inactive and unstimulated and the loved ones of residents struggle to remain connected due to a lack of updates and transparency. We’ve developed a digital platform that care homes use to boost wellbeing outcomes with person-centred activities and then automatically update families with what they have been up to. To date we’ve worked with over 130 care homes across the UK.

Can you share the story behind the origin of your business and Service / Product?

Motion started while I was studying at the University of Sheffield. I joined an extra-curricular programme called Enactus, which is essentially an opportunity for student volunteers to go out and tackle a social problem they care about while at University. It was through this I went out to local care homes to better understand the challenges they were facing that were related to wellbeing. It was through speaking to the care homes and resident’s families that I learned about broader issues facing the sector.

This wasn’t long before the COVID-19 outbreak, which was a catalyst for us using technology to deliver our services. Being able to see the impact we were able to have with individuals like Edith (pictured) meant I had to continue developing Motion beyond University.

Can you share some tech challenges or barriers you had to overcome to create a Product / Service offering with potential, whilst remaining ‘for good’?

There have been so many challenges along the way, but they’ve also been incredible learning opportunities. The sector we operate in isn’t massively advanced when it comes to technology so co-producing our technology with care home staff, residents and their families has been really important.

I fundamentally believe that the next great companies will be ones that successfully align impact (or ‘for good’) and commercial viability, so striking that balance is always something we are mindful of.

Why do you think is it a growing trend for tech professionals to seek out opportunities to work in purpose-driven businesses?

I’m perhaps not the best person to ask, since I’m a non-technical founder and wouldn’t consider myself a tech professional. But speaking to techies in my network it seems that many of them have a strong desire to use their skillset to address social issues. It’s no secret that the world faces unprecedented challenges relating to health, climate, news etc. and I think that young people have a responsibility to lead the way in tackling these.

What has been the key thing you’ve learned about ‘tech for good’ and your target audience specifically?

That the audience is literally the most important stakeholder. We’ve been fortunate that we have really strong relationships with our care home partners which makes co-production possible, but without this we’d probably have spent a lot of resources developing things that they won’t actually use or see much value in. Speak to users, build something, test it and repeat.

The purpose of the Tech For Good series of interviews is to create a platform that showcases and champions companies, products and technologists who are using technology as a force for positive change in the world.