I finally met the people who taught me AI

Months of Google Meets. Months of WhatsApp messages. All of it through a screen, with the people who changed the direction my life was going in, and who I owe a lot to.

On the 1st of September I went down to London on a train to sit in a room with them.

They'd asked me down to be filmed. I'd been pushing to come for a while, and I don't think the invitation arrived by accident. I'd earned the trip.

It was a professional setup and a friendly one. They knew what they were doing and made it easy.

I went in thinking of it as something they were doing for me. Sitting there, it occurred to me it works both ways. Breakthrough's whole ethos is that a life can go wrong and something can still be built out of it, and that's my story too. Someone who came through one of their cohorts saying that out loud says something about them as well.

Danny's invitation

In a previous post I mentioned emailing Danny Snelling about going on his business podcast. He emailed back inviting me to both BNI and his lunch club instead. This month I finally took him up on it.

First the BNI, the City of Norwich chapter, as a visitor. I liked it more than I expected to, and went back twice more as a substitute, which is how you get in the room without being a member. I can't be a member. The fees are real money and I don't have income yet, so that door's shut for now. What I got instead was the lay of the land. How the room works, what people say about themselves in thirty seconds and what they leave out.

Then right at the end of the month, the lunch club. Very lovely people. I talked about where I'm at, the seizure and what came after, and they were sympathetic without being awkward about it, which isn't always how that goes.

Two things I'm trying to make work

I want to run an AI workshop for autistic people. Teaching the thing that was taught to me, to a group who I think would get a lot out of it.

Breakthrough are behind it in principle, and have said they'll help me set it up if it gets off the ground. What I need now is a pilot, and I need it soon. The emails have gone out. I'm waiting on replies.

The honest problem is that a pilot won't pay me anything, and I need an income. So I'm also looking at something separate that does make money, to fund the part that doesn't. I haven't squared those two yet.

I've also signed up for a free cyber security course. Partly interest, partly because scams and fraud are already what SniffCheck is about and I'd like to know more than I currently do.

Still looking for testers

Salon still isn't out, and the reason is the same as last month.

Google Play makes you run a closed test before you're allowed to launch. Twelve testers, fourteen days, real people on real phones. Salon is a niche app and I'm struggling to find the right crowd for it.

So, again: if you've got an Android phone and you're willing to be one of the twelve, let me know. It's not much work and it's the only thing standing between the app and the shop.