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By chris, 14 June, 2013 8:00 am

With the GeoVation Environment Challenge camp starting one week today, we are delighted to announce that Jason Davies, winner of last year’s Transforming Neighbourhood Challenge, has agreed to join the judging panel for GeoVation Camp which runs from 21 – 23 June.

Jason and colleagues won £41 000 (including the GeoVation Community prize) for their innovation venture Community Payback Visibility. This looks to use Ordnance Survey map data in a mobile phone app for the public to use, to nominate projects for Community Payback.

Jason graduated in modern languages (French and Russian) following which he spent several years travelling and teaching English as a foreign language. On returning to London, he worked as a BBC subtitler at TV Centre, before moving back to his home town of Birmingham to set up the live subtitling unit at Pebble Mill.

Jason had an opportunity to use his love of statistics as a data and GIS analyst with the Probation Service and National Offender Management Service, a role which has expanded to include leading commercial and digital projects in the world of criminal justice.

Since Jason has agreed to join us for the whole of the camp, from the Friday evening kick-off through to judging on Sunday, participants will have an opportunity to quiz him on what it is like to go through the whole of the GeoVation camp experience and what to focus on.

Jason joins the rest of our judging panel of Alison Prendiville (London College of Communication), Ant Parsons (Environment Agency), John Carpenter (Ordnance Survey), Quentin Johns (Hub Westminster) and our panel chair Roland Harwood (100%Open).

Добро пожаловать в жюри Джейсон! (Welcome to the judging panel, Jason!)

We can hardly wait until next Friday’s kick-off!

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By viv, 3 June, 2013 8:00 am

With less than 3 weeks to go until GeoVation Camp, we can now announce the finalists who have confirmed their attendance.

The ideas were submitted to our GeoVation Challenge to look for ways that British business could improve their environmental performance using Ordnance Survey products or services in the solution.

Unfortunately some teams we invited were unable to make the weekend of 21 -23 June,  so we’ve been able to invite some teams from our reserve list.  Places at camp have been limited to 10 teams this year,  so that there will be more time to help develop ideas to into prototyped ventures and to work on pitches for funding.

The confirmed finalists are listed below – or you can find out more about the ideas by clicking on the links in our OS OpenSpace map.

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Continue reading '10 finalists confirmed for GeoVation Camp'»

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By viv, 22 May, 2013 8:00 am

Since we announced the GeoVation finalists who have been invited to GeoVation Camp, many of you  have been are asking for more information on camp and what you can do to prepare.

GeoVation Camp runs from Friday evening until Sunday evening and it is where the hard work and fun really begins.  It is important that you bring a team with you as there will be lots to work through. The camp is based around framework that Innovation = Problem x Solution x Execution and we’ve made a great video which explains more about this. It shows you what will happen at camp and you can hear about other people’s experience.

During the weekend you  will have the opportunity to think about questions such as what problem are you trying to solve? What would happen if you did nothing? What is the value of your solution?  How do you demonstrate success?

The weekend is a fun and collaborative process and their will be service designers, GeoVation team members and other people there to help you answer these questions and build your pitches for funding.

Find our more by watching the video. Information about camp starts about 2 minutes in.

Continue reading 'Watch our video to prepare for GeoVation Camp'»

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By viv, 17 May, 2013 8:00 am

Our GeoVation judging panel met this week and were delighted at the quality and scope of the ideas submitted to our GeoVation Challenge to look for ways that British business could improve their environmental performance using Ordnance Survey products or services in the solution.

The judging panel have now selected a short-list of 10 finalists who have been invited to develop their ideas further at GeoVation Camp,  held over the weekend of 21 -23 June 2013 at Ordnance Survey in Southampton.

The finalists who have been invited to GeoVation Camp are:

• “Virtual” national transport fleet.  An idea to create a connect-able, broker-free web of independent transport companies; breaking down the systemic big company / small company inefficiencies which exist.

• Creating an Energy Democracy: The Wasted Energy Network – This was the top voted idea on the GeoVation Challenge. The idea a platform for encouraging inter-business recycling, triggering waste based economies and identifying areas of opportunity for sustainable waste management and energy generation systems.

• RecycleLink The idea is to bring waste producers and processors together using a centralised trading platform that will facilitate collaboration and therefore reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.

• Which renewable energy scheme is right for you? This idea is based around finding out whether a particular business is suitable for different renewable energy schemes and will show the buildings that are suitable using OS OpenData Continue reading 'Environment Challenge finalists invited to GeoVation Camp'»

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By viv, 10 May, 2013 8:00 am

You entered 47 great ideas in our GeoVation Challenge to help business improve environmental performance and I thought it would be interesting to see where these are on the OS OpenSpace map below.  Follow the links within the markers to find out more about each idea and, while voting is over, you can still add your comments and questions to the ideas.

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The Judging Panel will be meeting next week  to select the best ideas to save the environment which will be invited to GeoVation Camp on 21-23 June and we’ll announce these at the end of next week. If you’ve entered an idea to the challenge and registered using social media, then please log in and enter your email details so we can contact you if your idea is selected to come to camp

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By viv, 2 May, 2013 8:00 am

Thank you for all the great ideas you’ve entered in our GeoVation Challenge to help business improve environmental performance.  47 ideas were posted between 6 March and 1 May 2013 and 260 people registered on the GeoVation Community during that time.

The next stage is for the judges to start reading your ideas and select which of these offer the best solution to the environment challenge theme and are innovative, use technology and of course, use Ordnance Survey geographical information in the solution.  The judges will be meeting in a couple of weeks and we’ll announce the finalists to be invited to GeoVation Camp in Southampton over the weekend of 21-23 June.

Meanwhile, find out who the judging panel are below.

The Judging Panel Chair is:

Roland Harwood who is co-founder of 100%Open, the open innovation agency that works with the likes of LEGO, Orange and Oxfam to co-innovate with their partners. Roland was formerly Director of Open Innovation at NESTA, the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. Graduating with a PhD in Physics from Edinburgh University, he has held senior innovation roles in the Utilities and Media industries and in addition has worked with 100’s of start-ups to raise venture capital and commercialise technology. In addition he has worked as a TV and film music producer for SonyBMG

He will be joined by:

Continue reading 'Environment Challenge – time for the judging to begin'»

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By viv, 1 May, 2013 8:00 am

With only a few hours left to enter the GeoVation Challenge to help business save the environment, I thought it would be good to see where, in the UK, the ideas that have been submitted are from.  Take a look at our OS OpenSpace map below and you can use the links within the markers to find out more about the ideas and comment and vote on them.

If you’ve got an idea to  help British business be greener then it’s not too late to enter your own ideas  too . You have until 12 noon today (1 May)  to enter the GeoVation Challenge. We are looking for ideas that use Ordnance Survey data, including OS OpenData and OS OpenSpace, together with other open data. The best ideas will be invited to a weekend GeoVation Camp from 21 – 23 June 2013 where you can work on building your idea into a prototype and pitch to the judging panel.  Successful ideas receive a share of £100,000 funding to get started on developing their ideas.

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By viv, 29 April, 2013 8:00 am

You have just a few days left to enter our current GeoVation Challenge to help British business improve environmental performance  – with a chance to win a share of our £100,000 innovation funding pot. The following guest post from David Simoes-Brown of open innovation agency 100%Open,  shows how they help organisations create value by innovating with others.  This could help get you thinking of ideas to create value from waste.  

Here’s an example of how a small British business helped a global corporation improve its environmental performance using a partnership approach. 100%Open helped Interface, the world’s leading designer and manufacturer of carpet tiles to team up with the Zoological Society of London to develop an innovative approach to tackling the problem of discarded fishing nets in developing countries.

This partnership is known as Net-Works and aims to work with local experts and coastal communities in the Philippines and beyond to develop a community-based supply chain for discarded nylon fishing nets. These are recycled into carpet tiles having been collected, cleaned, tested, baled and shipped to Europe.  This will improve the coastal marine ecosystem, create livelihood opportunities for those communities and demonstrate that cross-sector collaboration can create a sustainable business model with commercial, environmental and social benefit.

Continue reading '£100k innovation funding pot to help greener business'»

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By viv, 24 April, 2013 8:00 am

There’s only a week left to enter our current GeoVation Challenge in which we’re offering a share of £100,000 in funding for the best ideas to help business to improve environmental performance and so we’ve been busy spreading the word amongst the developer and entrepreneurial community.

On Monday night Chris and Viv were at the Google Campus for a Dreamstake Founders event to promote the latest challenge to the entrepreneur community there.  The Dreamstake Academy consists of a series of workshops focussing on the fundamentals of launching and building a startup and Monday night was part of their series of ‘Learn from Founders’ Startup Stories evenings in which presents an opportunity for new start-ups to learn how to create a successful startup and avoid the obvious mistakes.

The evening kicked off at 6.30pm as Chris delivered a keynote presentation on GeoVation and the role of geography in innovation to an audience nearly 100 people.   Chris explained how our innovation challenges are focussed on finding innovative and useful ways of using geographic information, including open data and tools, to build new ventures that will generate social, economic and environmental benefit.   He introduced the community to our latest GeoVation Challenge, ‘How can we help British Business improve environmental performance?’ which is calling for innovative ideas that address the identified problems using geography, technology and design. The challenge is supported by the Environment Agency and runs to 1 May 2013.

Continue reading 'One week left to enter our Innovation Challenge'»

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By viv, 22 April, 2013 8:00 am

Time is running out to submit your ideas to our latest GeoVation Challenge. We’re offering a slice of £100,000 in funding for the best ideas which use geographic data to help business improve their environmental performance and I’ve been finding examples to help to get you thinking.

When Ordnance Survey moved offices in January 2011, we down-sized from a building designed to accommodate more than 3,500 people to our new location which was built for around 1,000. This meant we had a lot of excess furniture which we wanted to ensure was disposed of in an environmentally friendly way.  The excess furniture included racking and shelves, desk screens, filing cabinets, cupboards, desks, desk chairs, meeting chairs, plan chests, pedestals, soft seating, plants and much more.

We used a company called GoGreen  to help us manage disposal of the furniture.  GoGreen provides an end-to-end sustainable proposition with a zero-to-landfill guarantee which, for unwanted surplus items, includes donation to UK charitable and other third sector beneficiaries. They processed some 17 895 items amounting to 484.6 tonnes – and nothing went to landfill.

Continue reading 'Go Green – and reduce our environmental impact'»