Media Versus Dementia
A Walled Garden was usually part of the estate of a Big House owned by a family which entertained visitors, kept up with, and occasionally appeared in, the
news, raised and allocated money and recruited gardeners. It was all too common for the owners of a seemingly comfortable, efficient estate not to have sufficient funds to meet the running costs.
Endgame
In 2026 MedvDem will be the digital, niche, equivalent of Channel 4 - a low-cost platform which will not itself originate content but will offer producers access to people with dementia. ‘Personalised Interactive Multimedia’ [PIM] will be provided, via Jukebox 2025, to users who are authenticated, subscribed and safeguarded. MedvDem will draw its revenues as small percentages of revenues of content providers and from subscriptions.
Michael, Matthew and Sofie Blakstad are determined that future dementia sufferers should not suffer, as Tricia did, from lack of stimulus by media. They have donated their expertise, time and funds to Media versus Dementia but their resources are finite.
Winchester Seminar
In July 2022, Michael organised a seminar in Winchester to which he invited leading figures in the field (battleground?) of dementia most of whom had never met before. They included scientists, NHS, broadcasters, technical innovators and care providers, who were presented with the notion of the Walled Garden and the obstacles which faced MedvDem unless government took action.
Those who attended the seminar were unanimous in agreeing to support MedvDem and have been unstinting in their support. They represent a range of activities which are vital if the MedvDem were to succeed, and more have joined since the seminar.
By its nature, the project would not be able to attract seed money from investors.
They agreed to become partners in a Charitable Incorporated Organisation which is currently being registered with the Charity Commissioners. The CIO is a partnership of organisations whose representatives will be Trustees of Media versus Dementia.
Media Versus Dementia
Media Versus Dementia
At present a not-for-profit body registered in October 2022 by Michael Blakstad with advice and help from a number of the organisations represented at the seminar and then others who joined in 2022/2023 including miicare
And is currently applying to the Charity Commissioners for charitable status as a CIO
In 2022, following the Winchester seminar, Media versus Dementia was constituted as a CIC
Media Versus Dementia Team
Michael Blakstad
Michael has worked for the BBC where he edited The Burke Special, Tomorrow's World and The Risk Business, and in ITV, where he produced Alan Whicker in South America, Europe and Australia. He was the first Director of Programmes at TVS. His awards include BAFTA, the RTS (also elected Fellow) and the D&AD. He founded Workhouse Productions in Winchester which pioneered interactive digital media and mixed-media communications for corporate clients. He is an external professor of digital media, an Honorary MSC and MA (Hons, Oxon); his books include The Risk Business, The Communicating Organisation and his recent memoir The Mouth of the South. In July 2020 when his wife Tricia went into residential care in the teeth of the Covid-19 lockdown he accompanied her and spent two subsequent periods in care homes with her. Radio 4's Today interviewed him seven times about the effects on Tricia of the government's lockdown of care homes.
Sofie Blakstad
Sofie is founder and CEO of hiveonline, the first decentralised finance platform for African smallholder farmers; she is author of Fintech Revolution. She previously held senior roles in technology and business transformation in international banking including Lehman Bros, Citi, RBS, Nordea. She chairs the University of Edinburgh Futures Institute, and advises the UN and central banks on blockchain for sustainable development. Her company operates virtually, she lives in Copenhagen and has permanent teams in Stockholm and Kigali, Rwanda. Her work has been recognised by awards from: Cartier Women's Initiative, Vodafone Innovation for Women, PJ McGovern AI for Humanity, MIT Solve Digital Inclusion, Inclusive Fintech 50, Women's World Wide Web .. and more.
Matthew Blakstad
Alongside a career in research and consulting, Matthew has been a professional actor and is the author of three published novels, starting with Sockpuppet in 2016. Since 2008, he has worked in the public sector on retirement savings policy. In 2016, he co-founded NEST Insight – a research unit that helps policy-makers and the retirement industry achieve better savings outcomes for low to middle income workers. He now leads NEST Insight’s data and analysis programme, working with some of the world's most prestigious academic institutions, including Aspen, to raise funds and conduct research.
Dr Penelope Roberts
Dr Penelope Roberts OBE FInstP FIPEM FSRP has 25 years' experience of working in the NHS as a Medical,Physicist, culminating as Director of Medical Physics and Medical Engineering at Southampton University Hospitals. This was followed by nearly 20 years experience as a Radiation Metrologist working on international measurement standards at the Bureau international des poids et mesures (BIPM) based near Paris where she was appointed as the Director of Ionizing Radiation Metrology. She has over 100 peer-reviewed publications and has co-authored a text book for radiologists.
Kristy Warren
Kristy Warren graduated from the University of West of England with a BSc in Computer Science, she has worked within a healthcare environment supporting and developing a number of IT systems. She owns and operates several successful property businesses. She works part time for MedvDem and built the website.
Advisor
Rory Cellan-Jones
is a fellow Parkinson’s sufferer (Michael and he met through emails exchanged at 4.00am). Rory attended and wrote substack blogs about the July seminar. He has continued to provide high-level advice and contacts to Media versus Dementia, Rory takes a special interest in health technology, including his regular blog.
Khalid Aziz
Khalid Aziz LVO DL FRSA is a former broadcaster with the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. He established his Communications and Executive Coaching company, Aziz Corporate, in the 1980s. His charitable activities have involved founding and raising several million pounds to construct two Children’s Hospices in Hampshire. Until recently Khalid was chairman of Enham Trust which look after over 7,000 adults, several hundred, many with dementia, in permanent residence at charity’s village of Enham Alamein.He has held visiting professorships at three universities and is Deputy Lieutenant of Hampshire. He chaired the July seminar.
Sir Muir Gray
Muir Gray has worked for the National Health Service in England since 1972, occupying a variety of senior positions during that time, including serving as the Director of Research and Development for Anglia and Oxford Regional Health Authority, and first establishing and then being the Director of the UK National Screening Committee. He founded the National Library for Health, and was the Director of Clinical Knowledge, Process, and Safety for the NHS (England) National Programme for IT, serving as the Director of the National Knowledge Service. He was the first person to hold the post of Chief Knowledge Officer of the NHS (England), also serving as the co-Director of the Department of Health’s Quality Innovation Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) Right Care Programme. Muir is author of several best selling books including ‘Sod 70 - The guide to Living Well’ and more recently, ‘Increase your Brainability – and Reduce your Risk of Dementia’
Colum Lowe
Colum is Director of the Design Age Institute at the Royal College of Art. Colum is a senior design leader with a significant track record of developing inclusive products and services in the private, public and charitable sectors. He has worked closely throughout his career with marginalised user groups and has been Head of Design at a range of organisations, including the NHS, Ministry of Justice and Sainsbury’s Homebase. His experience includes running the design firms Crabtree Hall and Caulder Moore and founding the Independent Safeguarding Service CIC. Colum has also spent 15 years helping the Design Council develop and deliver its flagship design intervention programme, Designing Demand.
James Henderson
James is a filmmaker and designer from Eastleigh . Since graduating from Bournemouth University's Film Production and Cinematography course in 2018, James has primarily worked as a freelance videographer and editor, producing digital content and commercial material for a range of companies and projects across a broad range of sectors.
Support
Richard Pearce
Richard Pearce has most recently worked in customer relations/operations with www.kraydel.com (a digital healthcare, IoT platform that uses a TV to provide video calling, photo albums and video, to elders, using a simplified remote control). Previously, he has been MD at many SME’s (and a serving British Army Officer).
Peter Kinkead
Peter Kinkead
is an experienced TV documentary producer/director who joined Michael's
Tomorrow's World and Industry unit in 1978 from his previous post in BBC Personnel. He subsequently followed Michael to Television South where he continued to produce mainly scientific documentaries on series including
The Real World
and
Earth Year 2050. He directed and conducted interviews at the seminar of the Walled Garden.
The Winchester seminar was managed and recorded on video thanks to the contributions of other volunteers.
Revenues
Revenues will not cover operating costs until 2026 when the MedvDem platform will be available throughout the UK. The first income from sales will come in 2024/25 when a Minimum Viable Product is made available to a small number of subscribers on a ‘commercial’ basis, i.e. it will test the level of subscription the market will bear, but revenues will still be minuscule; the development of the Walled Garden and Jukebox will depend on grants and funding from public sources.
Even if MedvDem is successful in securing grants by the middle of 2023, to deliver the pilots needed to establish the scientific case to conduct trials and prepare the prototype service and tools needed to proceed to Minimum Viable Product in 2024 will require a further £40,000, will require more funds than the Blakstad family possesses. We are therefore seeking donations to ensure that the opportunities to deploy media to counteract the pandemic of dementia and other degenerative diseases does not fail at this juncture.
Donations
So near and yet so far. We depend on donations towards the costs involved in maintaining the campaign Media versus Dementia between April and July.
A good time was had by all, with the possible exception of the treasurer. By common consent the star of the show was the auctioneer, Michael Kurn, TV presenter for the Premier League and charity auctioneer, who soon judged the mood of the gathering, wasted no time trying to find bidders for the premium items and chased every pound as the residents of Bishopstoke Park looked for bargains among the bottles and meal offers.
The seemingly effortless efficiency with which 93 lots were catalogued, displayed for preview, paraded during the bidding and consigned to their new owners, was down to Penny Roberts, director of Media versus Dementia CIC and chair of the Residents’ Association of Bishopstoke Park. No-one else could have identified and recruited so many residents and then managed their respective roles with such precision, even though she was out of the country until the morning of the auction.
And the treasurer? Doesn’t exist; the fundraising, of which the auction was the first event, is intended to enable Media versus Dementia to recruit and pay specialist managers and build a team to deliver the concept described in this website. Although none of the higher-value (over £200) items was sold at the auction, the afternoon's take was £1,600, enough to keep the existing part-time and volunteer operation ticking over for a month and a bit, but not enough to start building a full-time professional team. However, notable donations were made by people who couldn't be present and after the auction, sealed bids and online sales started to kick in and the off-line figure soon exceeded the total raised during the afternoon.
Many thanks to those who were so generous with their time, their money, their gifts, people
That's your lot!
undraising
F
On Tuesday 18th April, Media v Dementia held a charity Auction to raise funds to help run the upcoming pilots. It was a great event and we raised over £1,400, not all of the items where sold, below is a selection of the items we have available to buy online.