HRH Prince William giving ReImagining Social Impact: Insights from the Homewards Panel with

At Olympia London this week, one of the most talked-about sessions at London Tech Week 2026 had nothing to do with AI product launches or Series A announcements. It was about preventing homelessness before it happens, and the people on stage to make that case were an unlikely but compelling mix.

The panel, titled "From Innovation to Impact: Homewards is Reimagining...", brought together HRH Prince William, Founder of Homewards, alongside Zahra Bahrololoumi CBE, President and CEO of Salesforce UK and Ireland, Linda Gibbs, Principal at Bloomberg Associates, Solange Chamberlain, CEO of Retail Banking at NatWest Group, and entrepreneur and podcaster Jake Humphrey.

The throughline was clear: homelessness is not an inevitable social outcome. It is a data problem, a systems problem, and increasingly, a technology problem that the sector has the tools to solve.

Homewards, Prince William's initiative, is built on the premise that prevention is possible when the right organisations coordinate early enough, share the right information, and act before crisis point. The London Tech Week platform gave that message a new audience: builders, investors, and operators who spend most of their time thinking about scale, not social impact.

Zahra Bahrololoumi CBE brought the enterprise technology lens to the conversation. Salesforce's work across the public and social sectors has demonstrated what is possible when data infrastructure is built with intention. Linda Gibbs, with her background at Bloomberg Associates, added the policy and systems-design perspective that often gets lost when tech dominates the room. Solange Chamberlain's presence from NatWest Group was a signal that financial services are not sitting this conversation out. Banking data, used responsibly, can surface vulnerability before it becomes crisis.

Jake Humphrey, better known for his media and podcasting work, served as a connector in the room, translating a dense subject for a broad audience and keeping the conversation grounded.

Spotted in the audience was Aaron Levis, Chief Data Officer at Ariston, one of several data leaders present who suggested the session drew genuine cross-sector curiosity rather than a polite crowd.

What made this session worth noting is what it asked of a room full of tech professionals: not just to innovate for growth, but to direct that capability at a problem that costs the UK enormously in both human and economic terms. Prince William has been consistent in framing Homewards as a long-term, systems-level initiative. London Tech Week gave it a stage where that framing landed with a new kind of weight.

The technology exists. The question being posed in that room was whether the will to deploy it properly does too.

LinkedIn tags: @ZahraBahrololoumi @JakeHumphrey @LindaGibbs @SolangeChamberlain @PrinceWilliam @AaronLevis