GeoVation funding can help to get your innovative ideas off the ground. We’ve recently published some case studies in which GeoVation winners, explain what happened after they won funding, and how they developed their ideas.
For instance, Foodnation were awarded funding in our ‘How can Britain feed itself?’ GeoVation Challenge. Foodnation’s mission is to have neighbourhood Foodnation hubs within bicycle-riding distance of most households in the UK. It provides a platform to connect customers and farmers in their local area easily and allow them to make transactions to buy and sell local organic food and find fruit and veg box-delivery schemes around the UK. The idea came from Louise Campbell, who after receiving funding was able to set up the company in March 2011. 
After securing funding, the first steps in the project were to obtain the data and build a platform for transactions to take place. The pilot website was thoroughly tested and feedback fed back into the development of the site.
Continue reading 'Could you be a GeoVation winner?'»
Held at Imperial College, London between 8th April and 26th June, Urban Prototyping (UP London) is an International festival that brings more than 300 developers, technologists, academics, artists, government bodies and community groups together for a series of events that focus on the role that digital technology can play in creating sustainable society.
This year we were invited to participate and contribute to the agenda, which has a specific theme concentrating on the role that digital technology can play in harnessing the creation of resilient environments, economies and communities. We were delighted to accept the invite, as the festival presents an opportunity for us to introduce our range of products and services in such a context, whilst allowing us to engage with communities that might not have previously considered the many benefits geographic information can bring to potential innovations.
Continue reading 'Digital technology to digital economy – our involvement at Urban Prototyping Festival'»
Developer Engagement Events, Environment Challenge, Events, Open Data Master Classes, OS OpenData, OS OpenSpace, Uncategorized
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geovation challenge, innovation funding, London Cycle Map Campaign, Open Data Master Class, Ordnance Survey, OS OpenData, OS OpenSpace
We are currently running the ‘ How can we help British Business improve environmenta
l performance?’ GeoVation Challenge calling for your innovative ideas to help create a better place. The best ideas can win a slice of £100,000 in innovation funding to get their ideas off the ground.
If you’re thinking of entering you may like to know more about the GeoVation Challenge process. What is the basis of the challenge and what happened before we launched it? What happens after you submit your ideas and how are the best ideas chosen?
In our video below, we explain the GeoVation process and the steps to becoming a winner of innovation funding from GeoVation.
Find out about what happens at a Powwow and how we launch the GeoVation Challenge.
Hear from our shortlisted ideas about collaboration and what they gain from attending a GeoVation Camp.
Find out about the ‘Innovation = Problem x Solution x Execution’ formula.
Continue reading 'Find out how you could win innovation funding'»
Last year we ran a GeoVation Challenge asking how we could transform neighbourhoods in Britain. One of the GeoVation winners was Shout Crime – an idea for app to make it easier to report hate crime. Below David Williamson of Development Keys tells us how this is progressing.
Hate crime is one area of the criminal justice system that, evidence shows, often goes unreported. Recognising the negative impact that hate crime can have on individuals and communities, Ideal for All (IFA), an Independent Living Centre in Sandwell, decided to use its experience and resources to make a real difference. Drawing on the passion of one of its User Groups, a project was conceived to develop a new, flexible and accessible reporting system for hate crime. an application that would provide a crime reporting mechanism for individuals and a visual analysis tool for communities and agencies alike. Recognising the strength of commitment and the technical integrity of the project, Ordinance Survey decided to back the concept and awarded IFA £25,000 to develop the first application for both desktop and mobile technologies.
Building on the excitement of receiving the award, Ideal for All set about the detailed definition of the project that is ‘Shout Crime’. Our newly formed Steering Team, including experts in the field of Information Technology, crime reporting and community engagement, was supplemented with specific skill sets around project management and the delivery of successful web enabled applications. An Invitation To Tender was issued toward the end of 2012 with an aggressive set of requirements for delivery of the Shout Crime application by the end of March 2013. The New Year saw the development contract awarded to BoilerHouse Media, Birmingham and the project was up and running.
Continue reading 'GeoVation winner develops new app to report hate crime'»
Development funding from GeoVation enables innovative ideas to get started. We’ve published case studies in which GeoVation winners, like liftshare, explain what happened after they won funding and how they developed their innovative idea.
liftshare were one of the winning ideas awarded funding in our ‘How can we improve transport in Britain?’ GeoVation Challenge with their idea for a tool to create individual personal travel plans.
A personal travel plan in itself is not a new idea. However, being able to create a plan with all an individual’s options in one document, with a search time of under 30 seconds, is the innovative idea that was put forward by liftshare. liftshare is a social enterprise, which describes itself as mission-driven rather than profit-driven’ and whose aim is to encourage sustainable transport options and cut carbon emissions by car-sharing. It wants to get people to think about their travel options, but understand that this isn’t always easy, especially for those new to an area or working parents. myPTP’s are individual personal travel plans produced in a single document, which allow individuals to evaluate their transport options while considering CO2, financial and other implications such as calories burnt. This can be used to improve the commute to work and create a modal shift towards more sustainable travel options.
Continue reading 'An innovative idea to see your transport options'»
So what happens if you win funding from GeoVation to develop your idea? We’ve just published case studies in which several of our GeoVation winners explain how they went about developing an idea. One of these, AccessAdvisr, is a 
platform that enables members of the public to improve the quality of information relating to the accessibility of transport stops and stations, as well as public places. It aims to make difficult journeys easier for people with limited mobility. The idea came from Neil Taylor, of Integrated Transport Planning Ltd (ITP), and was awarded funding in our ‘How can we improve transport in Britain?’ GeoVation Challenge.
Insight from previous user-needs research conducted by ITP revealed that accessible transport networks and destinations remain ‘hidden’ from clear view. People with limited mobility must often piece together information about the location, quality and reliability of accessible transport networks and destinations from journey planners, online maps, discussion forums and destination websites. AccessAdvisr aims to be relevant to anyone who needs information about the accessibility of transport and places before and during their journey. It puts people who experience mobility impairments in charge of managing and maintaining accessibility information, so that it reflects ‘real-world’ user perspectives.
After securing funding, the key stages of the project were to review and broker existing data, recruit a team of
software developers, establish proof-of-concept software specifications and develop the software. Find out more about how the project has progressed by reading the case study. Continue reading 'Developing an idea to make difficult journeys easier'»
Last weekend (16 -17 March) we were busy supporting the env[:hack] organised by Environment Agency and Geeks of London. The event, held at the University of Bristol attracted over 50 software and hardware developers to look at the problems associated with environmental responsibility and create some cool and innovative demos showcasing how technology can help us all be more green.
The weekend kicked off with presentations from Environment Agency which highlighted some of the barriers to business in improving environmental performance, and how this can be turned to opportunities – such as re-use of waste? There were also examples of good practice.
This was followed by a presentation from GeoVation where participants learnt about the current GeoVation Challenge ‘How can we help British business improve environmental performance?’ in which successful ideas can win a slice of £100,000 to help make their idea a reality.
Continue reading 'Hacking for greener business'»
We’ve just announced our GeoVation Challenge calling for ideas that on ‘How can we help British improve environmental performance?’. As with previous GeoVation Challenge’s we’ve used our established Pow Wow
thinking to uncover the problems associated with the challenge and help you get your thinking caps on for ideas to help make business greener.
A group of 10 people with expertise in environmental problems engaged in a workshop where we asked:
“What are the barriers to businesses easily improving their environmental performance?”
“What are the barriers to environmental performance easily improving businesses bank balances?”
They came up with 51 problems which were grouped into themes ranging from business priorities and how to turn duty to opportunity, awareness, knowledge and communication and organisational behaviour and culture.
Continue reading 'You can help to make business greener'»
Yesterday we announced our new GeoVation Challenge ‘ How can we help British Business improve environmental performance?’ calling for your innovative ideas to help create a better place. Today we have a guest post from Anthony Parsons, Business Innovation Manager at Environment Agency which will help explain some of the problems and why we are running this challenge:
The Environment Agency works with businesses and others to protect the environment and create a better place. This is why I, and most people, work for the Environment Agency, have a passion for protecting people and the environment and doing the right thing.
Achieving both economic growth and protection of the natural environment is not always easy. And it will not happen without both effective regulation of the impact business has on the environment, and a commitment from businesses themselves to act as responsible neighbours and good corporate citizens.
Reassuringly, the performance record of businesses in England and Wales shows they increasingly recognise there is a value and opportunity in this broader sense of responsibility. Our Sustainable Business report 2011 shows that the vast majority of regulated businesses have a good record on environmental performance and take their environmental responsibilities seriously.
Continue reading 'Innovative ideas to create a better place?'»
We are delighted to launch our new GeoVation Challenge ‘How can we help British business improve environmental performance? ’
Following the successful format of the previous challenges we are calling for innovative ideas to help businesses remove barriers to easily improving their environmental performance.
How can we help business see the value in their waste?
How can communities and businesses work together, irrespective of geography and social demographic?
How do we make environmental performance a more attractive proposition for investment and innovation?
Using GeoVation’s established Powwow methodology to uncover the problems associated with meeting the challenge, we’ve identified a list of problems which form the basis for the challenge.
As with previous GeoVation Challenges we are looking for great ideas that address the identified problems using geography, technology and design. Ordnance Survey will be offering a slice of £100,000 in development funding for best use of our data, including OS OpenData and OS OpenSpace, together with other open data.
Continue reading 'Improving environmental performance in British business?'»
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