News and Press - 2007

October 2007 - Hastings

Working with Hastings Borough Council, MegaNexus have launched an online employment network, ‘Hastings Skillsmatch’ (www.hastings-skillsmatch.org.uk) that connects together local employers and job hunters as well as organisations that support and train local people. MegaNexus’s online employment network creates an infrastructure for the Hastings Skillsmatch Partnership to co-ordinate its work to development employment and skills in the Hastings area.

Peter Crouch, Hastings Skillsmatch Manager, spoke about the project: ‘The site has been developed in partnership with organisations active in local regeneration, inclusion, employment and training. Keeping Partners fully involved and engaged in shaping the final online service has been a challenging and rewarding experience.’

On working with MegaNexus he said ‘MegaNexus has shown real understanding, sensitivity and enthusiasm in dealing with the individual and collective demands of the development group. Good communications and, swift and effective response times have been key to the success of the project and MegaNexus have been thoroughly professional in all these aspects throughout the developmental phase.‘Top

September 2007 - Development begins on COO-L (Choice and Opportunities On-Line)

A joint project working with Camden & Tower Hamlets Local Authorities to provide localised sports & cultural activities to disadvantaged youths. The project will offer youths between 13-16 the opourtunity to register on line and then book events with providers through an automated system. They will recieve a bursary each month into their account & this will finance a number of community based courses & activities.

Meganexus is providing the platform for individual accounts that will allow the youth to register on the system, book the events, track their account balance & express interest in future events. This allows the youths to liaise with proiders giving them the oppourtuity to partake in events otherwise beyond their means.Top

August 2007 - MegaNexus wins contract to supply Data Network for the South London HIV Partnership

MegaNexus have been awarded the contract to supply the Database and Data Network for the South London HIV Partnership. MegaNexus’s online secure network will play a critical role in helping the Partnership to co-ordinate and monitor its services as well as helping to raise awareness and access to services for people with HIV across South London. The system will also enable Service Users to give feedback about services to ensure that they receive a service that meets their individual needs. Another new feature of the network is that it will enable anonymous peer networking helping socially isolated individuals connect to others going through similar ordeals and situations in a safe and secure environment. This new phase of the South London HIV Partnership is due to launch in October. Top

July 2007 - Banking Science Institute commission network from MegaNexus

Meganexus has supplied the network for the Banking Science Institute – a University College London initiative connecting PhD students to opportunities in financial computing. Professor Philip Treleaven commented "Meganexus provided an outstanding solution to our brokerage challenge, and the speed and reliability of deployment has surpassed expectations".Top

June 2007 - X-Employ Launch in Wormwood Scrubs

MegaNexus X-Employ system assists ex-offenders to find employment. It has been designed to work within prisons and allows offenders (and their advisors) to create CV Profiles, simulate the job application process and provide access to additional support agencies (e.g. housing, training). Upon release, the individual accounts are be seamlessly transferred to a public online MegaNexus job brokerage service, providing them with ongoing access to further support services, and access to relevant job vacancies and training opportunities.Top

May 2007 - Leonard Cheshire Workability project Commences

MegaNexus will provide to one of the newest Leonard Cheshire projects – the Workability project – the electronic infrastructure to start operating across a few London boroughs. The project is in its early days, so come back and check for more news later.Top

April 2007 - Hastings Skillsmatch starts to take shape

MegaNexus has started a phased project with the Hastings Council Economic Development department. We are going to set up an online network that will provide a virtual infrastructure for job brokerage providers within Hastings allowing them to work together in partnership as well as providing comprehensive and standardised management information.

The Hastings MiniNexus will be deployed to support the Hastings Skillsmatch, helping this new programme to match individuals seeking jobs, apprenticeships and placements in construction with vacancies and opportunities. This online MiniNexus network will provide an interface with construction employers, jobseekers and a management information system for Hastings Skillsmatch.

The Hastings Skillsmatch MiniNexus will not be purely focus on construction and as a public-facing network will cover employment across all sectors in Hastings and allow other employment brokerage and training/support organisations to promote their services and engage with the local community. This will help form a Hastings-wide Employment Brokerage Partnership facilitating improved and co-ordinated provision to Hastings residents.

It is the future intention that the Hastings Skillsmatch MiniNexus system will be upgraded to a Hastings Skillsmatch MegaNexus system which will provide Hastings with an integrated tracking and monitoring tool allowing each Partner to use the system for caseload management work but also to provide Hastings Council with up to date, uniform, standardised data on employment brokerage work in Hastings. This will help identify skills gaps and feed future commissioning frameworks.

To strengthen the operation of a future Hastings Skillsmatch MegaNexus network that will support the needs of local people, providers and employers, it has been agreed that as part of this proposal MegaNexus will perform scoping and consultancy work. The result of this work will be a detailed report outlining the requirements for a successful fully-integrated Employment Brokerage network in Hastings.Top

March 2007 – KX Supply decide on an online business solution

The KX Supply supplier network is getting an upgrade from its original system. MegaNexus has been commissioned to produce an online database, where suppliers can apply to join, view the list of other suppliers in the Camden/Islington area, read latest news on the construction sector in their area, register for events, and most importantly find out about the latest sites with supply contract opportunities.

The new site has been developed in such a way as to encourage suppliers to use it on a regular basis to find the latest opportunities, and for the major contractors to see it as the best way to get the best local suppliers for their sites.Top

February 2007 – JU4J Information Network - Edinburgh Opt for MegaNexus Solution

MegaNexus Project Managers have been developing the Functional Specification for one of the largest projects undertaken by the company yet. In Edinburgh, while its unemployment rate is exceptionally low (approx 2%), there is significant work to be done in making that 2% employable. There are a large number of organisations in place performing precisely this function, reporting to a few large organisations funding the work and attempting to consolidate the work into a single cohesive plan.

Capital City Partnership are leading the way in bringing the partner organisations together. They have commissioned MegaNexus to create the system to manage reporting and monitoring of beneficiary progress; this will enable the control they need to create and enforce a plan. Top

January 2007 – Camden Housing and Employment Project LAA reporting MiniNexus launched

The Camden Housing and Employment Project is a project financed by the Camden Council Local Area Agreement that provides a free customised careers advice service to Camden residents. Joseph Kelly, the project's specialist training and employment (IAG) adviser, runs advice sessions in tenants halls and community venues across the borough for tenants who want advice on training courses or finding jobs. Joseph is actively using the MegaNexus system dedicated to his project to register clients, track his interactions and advice sessions with them, while Joseph’s manager, Kay Grifiths uses the system to pull off automatic LAA specific reports and send them to the funding bodies.Top

January 2007 – Campaign Manager Launches

This month, we launched the Campaign Manager on all our currently running MegaNexus. The Campaign Manager allows partners in each of the projects to send targeted emails or SMS messages to specific groups of beneficiaries. By selecting or deselecting a series of checkboxes, the complete list of jobseekers can be filtered to only those who would benefit the most from the particular offer being promulgated at the time. So for example, if a provider has a particular training package that for funding reasons is only available to people of a certain age range, this can be specified in the filters, and only suitable candidates will receive the invitation. Also, the campaigns are all named and saved, so that if there is a repeat requirement, it may easily be retrieved. Now that it forms a part of our core software, the Campaign Manager will be an integral part of every new MegaNexus we create.Top