The ACBN is funded by the London Development Agency and works collaboratively with a growing list of partners details of which are:
The London Development Agency (LDA) works to improve the quality of life for all Londoners and drive sustainable economic growth. It aims to improve the quality of life for all Londoners by driving sustainable economic growth and keeping the capital competitive. Its role is to bring together the right people, skills and resources to deliver real results in the long term, responding to the needs and ambitions of communities and businesses.
The LDA invests more than £400 million a year to create jobs and develop healthy, sustainable communities. It also supports London as a financial, educational and research centre. It tackles the barriers to employment for certain groups, encourages business and cultural activities and improves infrastructure and the environment. The LDA takes on major projects and difficult issues and is constantly looking for fresh ways of doing things and better ways of achieving sustainable growth. In this way the LDA ensures all Londoners can gain from and contribute to London’s economic success.
Allen & Overy is an international legal practice with a network of 27 offices in 20 countries. We have over 5,000 staff, including some 2,600 lawyers and over 470 partners. This year we were ranked number one in the Financial Times Law 50 and given the award of Most Innovative Law Firm in the FT’s Innovative Lawyers Report.
Allen & Overy combines a leading local law practice (with lawyers qualified to practise in over 30 countries), a leading international law practice and a leading US law practice, with over 250 US qualified lawyers across our network of offices.
It is crucial to the success of our business that we attract and retain the most talented people. We want to benefit from the varied talents of a diverse workforce and therefore must respond sensitively to the diversity of our people. We have done a considerable amount of work in this area and, in recognition of our efforts, were presented with the Excellence in Equality and Diversity Award at the recent Law Society Excellence Awards 2007. The judges “were hugely impressed by Allen & Overy’s commitment to diversity, led from the top by the Senior Partner. The wide range of activity to address diversity issues has brought clear results and sets a benchmark for the profession.”
Royal Mail Group is unique in reaching everyone in the UK through its mails, Post Office® and parcels businesses.
The Group has over 370 years experience of providing the public with postal services - through our trusted brands we reach everyone every working day in mail, parcels and express services and through our Post Office® branches.
Every working day Royal Mail collects, processes and delivers around 84 million items to 27 million addresses; each week we serve nearly 28 million customers through our network of 14,376 Post Office® branches and each year our domestic and European parcels businesses - General Logistics Systems and Parcelforce Worldwide - deliver some 337 million parcels.
Our continued aim is to put the customer at the heart of everything we do by - increasing value through excellent quality of service, our unique reach to every address in the UK, enhancing our trusted brands, becoming easier to do business with, retaining our profitable business, and developing innovative products and services for our customers.
GLE oneLondon, the business support subsidiary of Greater London Enterprise, is an innovative, not-for-profit, enterprise and regeneration agency, specialising in support for small and early stage businesses. Every year GLE oneLondon supports 7,000 new and established businesses with finance, training, advice, mentoring, and exploring foreign markets.
The Black Londoners Forum (BLF) is a proactive organisation, which seeks to advance the economic, cultural and social well being of Black and Ethnic minority Londoners. Its vision is to increase the level of civic engagement within London’s BME communities with the view of making London work for black Londoners.
BLF brings together organisations and individuals from varying sectors to facilitate effective consultation on Mayoral strategies and to directly influence the way that the capital is run. BLF promote open inclusive debate on issues that affect BME Londoners. BLF bring together BME organisations from the voluntary and community sector; businesses; faith groups; local and regional government; and other institutions.
BLF also play an advisory role to the Mayor; Greater London Assembly; Regional and Public bodies. BLF works closely with institutions that explore BME community concerns; policy proposals; policy development and service delivery. BLF’s paramount objective is to involve individuals and communities in socio-economic; cultural and civic discussion and to actively participate towards promoting a modern equal opportunities and human rights agenda.
The British Library Business & IP Centre is designed to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs from that first spark of inspiration to successfully launching and developing a business.
The Centre offers free access to the UK’s most comprehensive collection of business and intellectual property information, including around 50 million patent specifications, unique databases on trade marks and registered designs, thousands of market research reports, company reports, trade journals, business directories and guides to legal information and government publications. British Library information experts are on hand to guide you to the resources.
There is also a programme of workshops and events run by British Library experts and partners.
The Centre is free to use - all you need is a Reader Pass.
BEN Television (SKY 148) is a free to air channel that provides a bridge between consumer classes, showcases diverse programming contents and reaches out to an audience profile that cuts across different ages and ethnic communities.
BEN TV is the first and pioneering black/ethnic satellite TV Station in Europe received in North and West Africa (FSTV channel 9) and some part of Arab’s nations.
Since its launch in 2003, BEN Television has steadily won the hearts and minds of the viewing public. Its fresh mix of business information and entertainment has filled a void in the television media.
Screen Nation is a full service, film & television production company with a promotion and marketing component. The company works in partnership with industry and agencies to develop the African British audio-visual business community via a unique range of products and supports individuals within the sector via its not for profit arm. The company owns the rights to and produces annually the Screen Nation Film & Television Awards. The Awards are uniquely the only annual international celebration of achievement within black world cinema & TV and every year celebrates the cascade of achievements that have helped enrich world and UK cinema and TV with cultural diversity. The event has been dubbed by the media as the “Black Bafta’s”. The Awards are industry recognized, broadcast on UK TV and is fully supported by industry bodies, all major terrestrial and satellite broadcasters, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the House of Lords and the Mayor of London. The Company is led by independent producer Charles Thompson, who acts as Chief Executive. Charles Thompson founded both the company and the event and is an established independent film producer with extensive contacts in the sector and within the UK industry at large.
Fashion is an underestimated social, economic and cultural force. The overarching objective of KULTURE2COUTURE is to support London’s black African and Caribbean fashion designers by raising their profile, acknowledging their contributions to the fashion industry and helping them to achieve their potential.
Specifically, KULTURE2COUTURE aims to:
Barclays Bank Plc.