Voice of Business: How digital is changing the business model Its impact has spread across all aspects of our lives, we notice it every day in retail but its impact on health care and industrials will have consequences that are just as profound. Connectivity has become so ubiquitous to people and devices that we are facing a real squeeze on the amount of spectrum available. Companies such as Neul and EVRYTHNG are at the forefront of what promises to be a profound behavioural shift for us all. One area where hyper-connectivity has never been so important is the charitable sector. At the 2012 London Founders Forum, we announced the concept of Founders Forum For Good, to be led by the indefatigable Martha Lane-Fox. Martha Lane Fox founded Lastminute.com in 1998 A year later, we were able to announce that Founders Forum For Good has partnered with Nominet Trust in order to start harnessing the greatest minds in the digital world, motivating them to use their technological and entrepreneurial skills to affect social change. Many charities and not-for-profit organisations benefit from the application of technology to carry out the great work they do. Indeed, many digital entrepreneurs are incredibly supportive of their own causes about which they are deeply passionate. Founders Forum For Good, however, will be the first organisation to focus specifically on the potential of the digital sector to catalyse fundamental change in the social sphere. We have launched the £1m Challenge, "Social Tech, Social Change," providing early-stage funding to support social enterprise start-ups directly. We need more creative ideas like Watsi, Big White Wall and Samasource to come out of Europe. Hopefully, this funding is just the start and, when directed by the leading entrepreneurial minds, it can start to produce real and meaningful change. Each year at Founders Forum, we like to give some of the most promising companies, our Rising Stars, a platform to talk about their vision. This year, we included some exceptional social enterprise start-ups for the first time. Apps for Good, which teaches children to create apps that can solve problems they care about in their world, was one that really caught the attention of the audience. The organisation, which is currently present in 400 schools and has reached more than 20,000 students, is a great example of how education, technology and social issues can all come together to effect change. Resolving economic inefficiencies and wastage was another major theme this year, and Alison Hutchinson's Pennies charity was a great example of how technology can facilitate this. Pennies noticed how the dominant local means of charity collection was still the collection box. By partnering with hotels, airlines and numerous other organisations they persuaded retailers to round up their tills to the closest pound and donate the difference. Donations have tripled in three years to £1.2m. The company that created perhaps the biggest stir, though, was Proteus Digital Health. In an extraordinary presentation, Andrew Thompson, Proteus's Founder & CEO explained how the company is seemingly on the cusp of fundamentally altering the world's medical landscape. Within three minutes of swallowing a tiny pill, Andrew's medical data had been transmitted back to San Francisco, into the Cloud and back to his iPad, providing information including his heart rate, blood sugar levels and iron ratios. Proteus addresses one of the major problems in the medical industry, namely medical testing and monitoring. Medical professionals need constant information to understand how well medication is working. Patients who don't take their pills make their lives even more complicated. By ensuring doctors are able consistently to monitor their patients" health remotely through the use of a device, Proteus can critically alter how we treat diseases such as tuberculosis and various disorders such as bipolar. It is fair to say that the application of technology hasn't so much altered the industry as created a whole new range of possibilities, immeasurably improving decades-old practices and norms. Not all companies can have the impact that Proteus is having. But without the financial support of the investment community, none of this would be possible at all. Investors remain positive about the opportunities in the market, though it has not gone unnoticed that private market valuations seem to be out-pacing those on the public markets in some areas. As ever, the main concern for investors and entrepreneurs is liquidity. US buyers are increasingly comfortable looking across the Atlantic for targets and as growth slows in Asia we may see some of the majors from that part of the world seeking out M&A opportunities here. The European IPO window, however, is only slightly open and to build truly substantial UK and European digital businesses, founders and investors must feel that the option for public market exits exists and is not overly burdensome. Government-backed initiatives, such as the London Stock Exchange's High Growth Segment, are part of the solution but the culture and attitude to risk must change, too. Jonnie Goodwin is founder of the merchant bank Lepe Partners and co-founder of The Founders Forum and PROfounders Capital