What was the inspiration behind LocalEyes?

I (Peter Anderson) used to be the MD of Buzinet Solutions, a fairly large IT firm based in SW Wales. It was while running this company that many social groups approached us wanting to use technology and the web more effectively.

At this point I created a project that was to deliver the latest technologies to social groups, where these internet tools would be delivered to the groups by unemployed people on IT training programmes. So not only did the groups receive the technology, but also additional capacity and man power to good make use of them.

This project was funded by the WCVA (10k) and was successful in its aims but I realised that before the model could be rolled out on a nationwide basis we needed to create a comprehensive groups directory (the social equivalent of yell.co.uk) for the UK first.

This led me to the realisation that there is a huge amount of information about our own communities that is almost impossible to access easily. This is where the concept of a “Comprehensive Community Resource” for all 9763 communities and the UK’s “No.1 local social network” was born.

The next realisation was that we could not comprehensively capacity build with social groups until there was first a UK wide directory, (similar to yell.co.uk but for our social needs), so this became our primary objective.

Following on from this came the ideas for a local marketplace, local car sharing, local social networking, community carbon footprinting tools etc.

The most recent development has been "The VOICE" in response to the lack of communication & dialogue between governing councils and the citizens they represent.