Ben Parkinson has had an entrepreneurial history, selling his first business at 19 and continually inventing new ideas as a Marketeer in the 90s.  In addition to this he is a music professional, creating and developing ideas for many youth organisations and supporting young people in their talents for over 10 years.  In 1998, he set up Choice Music Limited, an innovative organisation designed to bring live music to the internet and within easy reach of booking by the general public.  The following year, he won an award for this concept, given by Marketing Magazine and British Telecom.  In 2002 he joined Jericho, a charity specialising in providing work-based solutions for disadvantaged people in Birmingham, UK.  By 2006, he had developed many new concepts for the unemployed and raised over £2m for the organisation, focused around breaking down the barriers to mainstream work.  His specialist area is Intermediate Labour Market, a mechanism, where trainees are placed in real businesses, as well as learning their trade and given personal development.  He managed contracts for ILM and other types of training for many Government organisations, such as Jobcentre Plus, Learning and Skills Council and Birmingham City Council.  He has also been a pioneer in bringing the concept of Social Accounting to the Public Sector, when selecting projects for funding.  In 2007, he founded Social Enterprise Solutions, to bring some of these ideas to a global community, where the need was greater than in the UK.  Through Ashoka, he met up with Emmanuel Nehemiah in March 2007 and is currently working with organisations in Hungary, Sierra Leone and Swaziland, as well as Nigeria.