As a mission-led business, at Talking Medicines we have prioritised embedding social impact throughout everything that we do. Additionally, one of our core values is Community. To us, community involves working together for the greater good and ensuring that everyone has a sense of belonging.
What are some of the benefits of giving back? (Cantin, 2022)
- Getting to know your community better
- Meeting new people and make new connections
- Gaining a sense of purpose
- Empowering employees
- Improving company culture
- Helping others in an area that you are passionate about!
Source: Forbes
Our product, the PatientMetRx® data platform, was founded on the basis that it provides ‘data for good’, and it works to achieve better health outcomes for patients taking prescription medicines. However, we don’t just stop at that – there are other ways that we give back to others as a team of employees…
Entrepreneurial Scotland
At Talking Medicines, we work closely with the registered charity Entrepreneurial Scotland.
“Entrepreneurial Scotland Foundation is an independent charity that exists to equip you and your organisation with the mindset, skills and connectivity to deliver personal and business growth. We have 20 years’ experience supporting 1000s of talented people to unlock potential” (Entrepreneurial Scotland, 2022).
Entrepreneurial Scotland provides a great opportunity for Scottish businesses to be a part of a support network of like-minded entrepreneurs. This means that we can contribute to the success of other Scottish businesses at multiple levels, and vice-versa.
In fact, our own COO Elizabeth Fairley was a part of Entrepreneurial Scotland’s Saltire Fellowship Programme. The Saltire Fellowship Programme gave Elizabeth the opportunity to travel to Boston and San Francisco where she gained further skills in innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship. It was through being a Saltire Fellow that Elizabeth ended up working for us here at Talking Medicines!
A lot of Entrepreneurial Scotland’s work also involves nurturing the young talent who will be at the forefront of future entrepreneurship in Scotland. This is something that we as a company are very passionate about – many of our employees are young people and we involve ourselves in events run by Entrepreneurial Scotland to do our part in engaging young people. An example of this was just last week – on Wednesday 13th July, one of our founders Scott Crae attended an Entrepreneurial Scotland event where he spoke to Master’s students from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) about ‘Exploring Scotland’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem’. We are also involved in their Saltire Scholar Programme – an internship scheme for undergraduates at Scottish universities to create work experience opportunities. We are currently hosting a Saltire Scholar this summer as a Product Commercial Growth Intern.
Mentoring of young people
At Talking Medicines, a lot of young people work with us on our Annotation Team, with many being school leavers and university students. The annotation team work closely with our data analysts and play a key role in the machine learning of our AI data platform PatientMetRx®, helping to cut through the noise surrounding patient feedback and provide valuable customer insights to pharma marketing agencies to help them win pitches.
This allows us to provide young people with the opportunity to gain valuable professional work experience while being supported by our data analysts. Some of the skills that this experience helps them gain include:
- Presentation skills
- Teamwork
- Social/communication skills
- Ability to adhere to deadlines set
- Taking responsibility for their own work
- Analytical skills and critical thinking
These two examples complement our aims to be a company which strongly aligns with ESG goals (Environmental Social Governance) in everything that we do. To find out more about what we do as a company to remain conscious of ESG, take a read of some of our other blogs:
References
Cantin, D., 2022. The Importance Of Giving Back. [online] Forbes. Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/05/31/the-importance-of-giving-back/?sh=14e5a4067139> [Accessed 11 July 2022].
Entrepreneurial Scotland. 2022. Homepage | Entrepreneurial Scotland. [online] Available at: <https://www.entrepreneurialscotland.com/> [Accessed 14 July 2022].
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