From October to December 2010, we’re running Bethnal Green Ventures nightschool: a ten-week, one-evening-a-week nightschool for ideas, projects and start-ups that use the web to tackle a social problem.

The idea is to bring projects together with all the people, advice and support they need to help an early-stage idea to launch and grow.

You can read more about how it’s going to work here. And there’s more about why we’re doing this here.

Right now, we’re looking for people who’d like to participate.

It’s free (although we’ll ask you to put in £5 each week for dinner) and it’s a chance to meet a whole range of interesting people – both those at the same stage of starting something as you are, as well as people to share their experience and help you work on anything from product development to raising investment.

Here’s a little bit more about the kind of ideas, projects and start-ups we’re looking for to participate:

- Using the web to create social impact: We’re looking for ideas that will reshape things that really matter; from health care to energy creation and education. Patient Opinion, Ushahidi, AMEE, Shiply and Patients Know Best are all good examples of the kind of ideas we want to see more of.

- Aiming to be revenue generating: Your idea might be for-profit, not-for-profit or somewhere in between, but in the long run it must aim to cover its costs by generating its own income. You might not be there yet, but ultimately, your idea shouldn’t be dependent on grant-funding or charity.

- Stage of development: You should be beyond ‘just an idea’ – you might even have some cash behind you, a prototype, a first customer or incorporated as a company – but you should be before getting your first serious money. You should also have a small team behind you.

If you think you might be interested in participating in BGV nightschool this autumn and you’d like to know more or you’d just like to know if your idea/project/start-up is the kind of thing we’re looking for, drop us a line: anna(AT)sicamp(DOT)org

Places are limited and we’re looking to confirm participants by 1st September 2010, so if you think you might be interested, get in touch!