Working with Fifteen

Last week I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with the team behind Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Foundation. Liam Black is quite a charcter and extremely passionate about the work of the organisation. For those who don't know anything about Fifteen, the foundation exists:

"to inspire disadvantaged young people - homeless, unemployed, overcoming drug or alcohol problems - to believe that they can create for themselves great careers in the restaurant industry.

We provide skills and experience in food preparation and service at the same time as helping our people to believe in themselves, to know that they can achieve anything they want in their lives despite what setbacks they may already have experienced"

It was quite humbling to see a group of very excited and eager young adults from disadvantged background getting their "whites" and entering the hot bed of the kitchen. I'm hopeful of being able to support them with some technology expertise as they look to use social media to extend the reach of the foundation and it would be a real pleasure to be able to use my skills outside of Microsoft and give something back.  Here's hoping Liam takes me up on the offer.

You can find out about their mission - I know technology can help them with this and I'm looking fowrard to helping some of the naysayers change their minds. First thing I need to help them with is fixing their Friends of Fifteen page!