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'»
We’re really excited! For many months now we have been working on 
creating a GeoVation booklet to include information on GeoVation Challenges and case studies on winning ideas – and now its published!
The booklet has some interesting facts about GeoVation which has been running since October 2009. In that time:
- 1448 participants have registered
- 509 ideas have been submitted
- 57 teams have participated in GeoVation Camps and
- 20 winners have been awarded a share of over £435, 000 in innovation funding to develop their ventures.
GeoVation Challenges are open to entrepreneurs, developers, community groups, government and individuals. They are focussed on finding innovative and useful ways of using geographical information, including open data and tools, to build new ventures that will generate social, economic and/ or environmental value.
We’ve made the booklet available online, so you can find out more about how you can innovate with GeoVation, the GeoVation journey, the ideas we have funded so far and the people who make GeoVation happen. We’ve also made the case studies available individually on line – see our case study map.
Download your copy of the GeoVation booklet and find out more!
Challenge 2009-10, Challenge 2010-11, Challenge 2011-12, Challenge 2012-13, GeoVation Team
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GeoVation, GeoVation booklet, geovation challenge, GeoVation winners, Innovate, innovating, innovating with GeoVation
In the guest blog below, Richard Fairhurst, one of our GeoVation Challenge winners explains how he’s been progressing with development of a website which will help businesses identify opportunities along the Wales Coast Path
Growing Routes is designed to help people identify business opportunities along the Wales Coast Path. By bringing together many sources of data, and presenting them in a simple, appealing way, it helps the would-be business owner the work out where their venture might have the greatest chance of success.
For example, Growing Routes might highlight areas along the path with a paucity of Bed & Bs and campsites, or areas with good wildlife (shown by Sites of Special Scientific Interest) that could attract visitors. By identifying the ‘sweet spots’ where all the favourable data comes together, it encourages successful businesses to start up along the Wales Coast Path.
That’s the theory. So what about the practice?
The core of the site will be a heatmap, draggable and zoomable like any modern webmap, but with a colour layer superimposed to show the best areas. The initial stages of work have been to build this heatmap, test the design, and feed sample data sources into it.
Continue reading 'Identifying business opportunities along the Wales Coast Path'»
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