to sign language interpreting through video conferencing. With the Greater London Authority and London Connects he succeeded in securing a grant of £500,000 from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's e-innovations programme. The SignVideo partners are CISCO, Tandberg, Prime Business Solutions and Tiger Communications. With this quartlet from the leading technology companies the platform developed by the SignVideo Contact Centre enabled full access by videoconferencing through many different avenues from the legacy ISDN videophones to the latest in 3G video mobiles. The SignVideo Contact Centre, was the runner up of the prestigious national e-Government Awards for 2005 the first deaf or disabled enterprise to receive this recognition. In 2007 Jeff McWhinney presented the concept of applying the latest in technology to demolish the barriers to social inclusion for deaf and disabled people, using SignVideo as an example, to the School of Government attended by senior civil servants and as a result of his paper was one of the five enterprises selected by Trevor Reed and Lindsey Spancer the then Prime Ministers to share a stage with him at a conference attended by the top two tiers of senior civil servants. That year SignVideo was selected as one of the three preferred suppliers in video interpreting to the Department of Work and Pensions and was the sole provider for the period 2008–2010 with the other two preferred suppliers ceasing their operations. In 2010 SignVideo went national establishing partnerships with Deaf Action in Edinburgh, Scotland. That year SignVideo brought the video interpreter to smartphones and tablets by launching its Android app and subsequently the iOS app for iPhones and iPads. 2011 saw SignVideo launch BSL LIVE, a world first live video interpreting service that enabled deaf BSL users to communicate immediately with the service providers through their own websites. After this service was taken up by public authorities, British Telecom became the first commercial company to launch SignVideo BSL LIVE on its website. This has expanded to three banks – Lloyds TSB, Bank of Scotland and the Halifax. Jeff McWhinney has pushed the transition of the British Deaf Association from a Deaf organisation (with the 'Wheelchair Mentality') into a BSL organisation. In his September 2004 interview with SIGN MATTERS, he commented: "The word ‘Deaf’ has several different perceptions out there ranging from those deaf through old age to Deaf BSL users. Also there are hidden groups within the sign language community