£225K Digital Innovation Contest - Cross-Sector Exploration

£225k in funding to work with the UK’s leading creative brands



IC tomorrow is running the £225k 'Digital Innovation Contest – Cross-sector Exploration' to encourage digital innovation across three themes  - retail, events and analytics.

Winners will receive up to £25k each (excluding VAT) in funding and have the opportunity to trial their solution with the relevant contest challenge partner, including Argos, Procter & Gamble, Holition, SYCO, Live Nation, Penguin Random House, the British Film Institute, LIFT (supported by Saatchi & Saatchi), and The Barbican.  We are looking for great ideas that address one of the nine contest challenges.

Who should sign up: The contest is open to EU-based start-ups and SMEs; it is not necessary to have an existing app or service to apply, or to be currently active in any of the challenge sectors.

Briefing Event: Wednesday 29 January,  Rich Mix, London, E1 6LA
This event is a great opportunity for anyone who is thinking about entering the contest to ensure their application fits the judging criteria. We will also be running a live webinar for anyone who is unable to attend in person.
Register at: http://www.bit.ly/crosssector
 

Closing date for applications: 12noon, Wednesday 26 February 2013.

If you are a digital company and would like to learn more or apply, please visit  http://www.bit.ly/crosssector
Want to know more?
Go toIC Tomorrow _Connect
Contact the IC tomorrow team:
Helpline: 0300 321 4358 (Mon-Fri, 9am to 5pm)
Email: ictomorrow@innovateuk.org

Event - Creative Networks Online - 30th Jan

THURSDAY 30 JANUARY 2014, 5.45PM UNTIL 8.45PM - WWW.CREATIVENETWORKSONLINE.COM
BIRMINGHAM CITY UNIVERSITY, MILLENNIUM POINT, CURZON STREET, BIRMINGHAM B4 7XG

INCLUDING THE MUSIC NETWORK 4PM UNTIL 5.30PM - WWW.BIRMINGHAMMUSICNETWORK.COM
AND BIRMINGHAM SCREEN IMAGE NETWORK 4PM UNTIL 5.30PM -
WWW.BIRMINGHAMSCREENIMAGENETWORK.WORDPRESS.COM

Virtually On-Air ViLoR (Virtualised Local Radio) www.bbc.co.uk/academy/technology

Speaker: Geoff Woolf, Technology Development Manager, BBC English Regions

At November’s Creative Networks we heard from Graham Thomas about how BBC R&D is stretching the capability of broadcasting. In Birmingham’s Mailbox, BBC English Regions have been working on enhancing the tools used by programme makers. They’ve been developing a revolutionary new way to build a local radio studio. It will be a virtual radio station which is quick to install and can be set up anywhere where there is good connectivity. Geoff Woolf will explain the concept, how it works, why the BBC are doing this, the benefits, and where it could ultimately take the broadcasting technology sector.

Creative Networks brings together all parties involved in screen and sound media in the West Midlands, promoting both successful business development and collaboration.

5.45pm Registration followed by complimentary food/refreshments and networking in our Cafe
7.00pm Geoff Woolf
8.15pm Q&A
8.45pm Event ends

To join us for this FREE event, please register at www.bcucreativenetworks.eventbrite.co.uk or email
creative.networks@bcu.ac.uk or call 0121 331 5400.
Alternatively, register online at our website
www.creativenetworksonline.com

BBC Birmingham looks to a new digital future

We've had the following press release from our friends and colleagues at the BBC-

BBC Birmingham looks to a new digital future

BBC Director-General Tony Hall today returned to Birmingham to outline the start of a new creative vision for the BBC in the Midlands.
He spoke with the whole team in the Mailbox, the BBC's base in Birmingham, and said “I want to make Birmingham a really exciting and important part of what we do. This is just the start - but make no mistake, if you’re interested in new skills and digital innovation, this is the place to be.”
Outlining his vision, Tony Hall talked about some of the plans:

• The teams who deliver entry level training schemes, talent and skills development, including inductions, will be based in Birmingham. BBC apprenticeships and traineeships will also be run from Birmingham

• The BBC has agreed in principle with the Arts Council, England that Birmingham will become the new home for The Space, their pioneering digital arts partnership. Teams from Birmingham will also make a substantial contribution to the BBC’s Shakespeare season in 2016

• A new digital innovation team will be developed in Birmingham, working with the Creative City Partnership and local talent to tell stories differently and produce content in a whole new way. This is part of the BBC’s wider strategy to engage younger, more diverse audiences

• The BBC’s Outreach and Corporate Social Responsibility team, who work with local communities, educating and inspiring people right across the country, will also be moving to Birmingham

Tony Hall also outlined how the Mailbox would become an open skills and development space for people and his overall aim to build on the city's growing reputation for cutting edge digital work, its diverse talent pool, vibrant young audiences, strong arts scene and to celebrate Birmingham’s rich potential and ambitions for the future.

Tommy Nagra, newly appointed Head of Business Development for BBC Birmingham, will work with new Head of Regional and Local Programmes, David Jennings, and internal BBC staff and external partners to deliver the changes.

Peter Salmon, Director BBC North and tasked by Tony Hall to lead this project, said "This is the first phase of our plans for the BBC in Birmingham. We’re building a stronger BBC in the city and today’s announcements are the first steps in that journey. We will continue to work with Birmingham; the wider region and the wider BBC to increase our activity here."

These changes will take place over the next two years - and will bring around 80 jobs and £23.5m additional activity to the city over a three-year period.

Job Opportunities Spotted!

Rob, who's a member of the Digital Media Businesses Steering Group, emailed us yesterday to say 'Do you post Job Opportunities?' Well, yes! He'd spotted these job opportunities posted on LinkedIn and wanted to share them with the DM community.

The first opportunity is with Connecting Element, Digital and Social Media consultants based in Birmingham. They say 'We regularly scout for new talent to join our friendly team of digital professionals, which include consultants, content writers, social-media monitors, SEO experts, developers and designers.
Interesting in working with us? Call Karen on 07776 257932 or email your CV and one or two work samples to karen@connectingelement.co.uk'

The second batch of opportunities is with Red Eye, who say they are 'Conversion Rate Optimisation Specialists' with expertise in email marketing and web testing and optimisation. (I hope I got that right!). they have a whole list of jobs on their website, including this one for an Email Designer

'Email Designer / Executive – Milton Keynes
RedEye are seeking a talented Email Designer/Executive who will be responsible for the design, and building of emails for our client base. You will be creative, motivated and able to hit the ground running on a variety of tasks.'
Visit the jobs page on thier website for more http://www.redeye.com/about-us/jobs/

Innovation in Growing Cities - Nesta Event

We saw this event in Nesta's latest email newsletter... Sounds perfect for those with an interest in Birmingham as a centre of innovation

Date: 24.10.2013 10:00 - 16:00
Location: Birmingham
Join us at this major innovation event in Birmingham to explore the central theme of social innovation in growing cities.
This free two-part event will provide Local Enterprise Partnerships  (LEPs) and other organisations with the practical tools to grow jobs and use open data effectively.

To maximise the benefit of the event the day will be split into two distinct sections - a morning of presentations and conversations exploring innovating growth in jobs and an afternoon event workshop on Open Data Challenge Prizes.

The afternoon session has been designed specifically to bring together those with interest and expertise to offer to our open data challenge prize around energy and the environment and will be focused around a participatory workshop during which we will agree the challenge questions for our prize programme.

Following the session, we will issue an open invitation for ideas based on open data which address the challenges set, an innovation and creation weekend, development support to promising ideas and the opportunity to pitch for a grand prize of £40-50,000.
Speakers will include Birmingham City Council’s Leader, Sir Albert Bore and Nesta’s Chief Executive, Geoff Mulgan, amongst social innovators and experts.
You're welcome to attend one or both events but please register soon as places are limited.

Read more and book a place here

Awards Opportunity - closes 29th July

@BhamScienceCity's Susannah Goh tells us about an award for those working in digital technologies...

Image Credit: Kristian Dela Cour

Catching up on news from the ICT Knowledge Transfer Network, today, I came across the announcement of the  prestigious Next Gen 13 national competition for digital technologies within  ‘next generation access infrastructure’. (Details can be found at: http://www.nextgenevents.co.uk/awards ).  If you know of a business or initiative that will fit the bill, please contact awards@nextgenevents.co.uk   by 29th July.

The awards are:

• Urban (Fixed) – digital access infrastructure deployments in city and urban areas
• Rural (Fixed) - digital access deployments for rural and ‘hard to reach’ areas.
• Mobile – service developments in mobile cellular and public Wi-Fi connectivity
• Network Quality – initiatives and systems designed to improve the performance quality of networks and their design/deployment

(With the exception of Mobile the Digital Network categories are technologically neutral)

• Open Data – the use of Open Data in commercial, community or public service projects together with related Cloud Computing services, facilities and systems for large volume (Big Data) and the capacity for high performance processing.
• Digital Innovation – includes examples of innovative products and services and initiatives to improve ‘innovation capacity’.
• Digital Skills – Projects, Services and campaigns that increase digital skills levels amongst individuals, SMEs and charities, and that contribute to Go ON UK's vision of making the UK the most digitally skilled nation in the world.

All that the Next Gen team  need is:

• a contact name, email and phone number
• a brief summary statement of your work or project (maximum 40 words plus Web url) and
• the implementation status of your project - whether at design stage, in Beta testing or fully operational.

Good luck and let us know how you get on!

If you are would like to explore possibilities and collaborative partnerships, contact Susannah Goh at Birmingham Science City s.goh@aston.ac.uk

(Image Credit: Kristian Dela Cour)

Conference on Digital Health

Do you have the skills and expertise to innovate with Health Sector? Check out this free event:

Conference on Digital Health
Institute of Digital Healthcare at the University of Warwick
Thursday, 25th July 2013 0900 -1630

The Insititute of Digital Healthcare is a five year partnership with NHS, WMG and Warwick Medical School which aims to improve people's health and wellbeing through the development, evaluation and use of innovative digital technologies and services.

The purpose of this workshop is to hold a collaborative event with NHS partnering organisations, industry representatives and University colleagues from the West Midlands. We envisage it will set the agenda for the future AHSN digital theme programme:

To create effective networks and contacts across the West Midlands region for moving forward the use of digital technology and informatics in the delivery of healthcare
Build a framework strategy for the digital work-stream of the AHSN
Demonstrate how IDH can support the adoption of innovation across the NHS
Identify possible future opportunities for innovation and collaborative working

Click here to book or for more info on the venue

'Up' your street smarts with Smart Streets - event

Designing Smart Streets – InfoLab21 event 25 June Lancaster University

Digital Birmingham is leading the Smart Cities agenda on behalf of Birmingham City Council. It is working with many of its strategic partners to ensure that we can maximise the city assets and resources and accelerate the release of data so that it can be used by businesses to create new applications, products and solutions to help the city achieve its strategic outcomes.   The potential benefits of Public Service Information have been estimated by Deloitte at £1.8bn of direct value with wider social and economic benefits raising it to £6.8bn.  The release of real time information by Transport for London has enabled new apps to be developed, promoting public usage and generating business opportunities.

The InfoLab21 event on 25 June at Lancaster University provides a great opportunity for businesses and organisations who work in app development or who have an interest in open Data to develop creative solutions for highways / street maintenance challenges and work on a competition entry for part of a £60K prize fund. The project is a TSB funded collaboration and will bring together project partners Carillion, Balfour Beatty and Amey and the small business community to explore how our highways can be digitally enhanced/enabled and, more importantly, what data might that might provide and how a range of stakeholders, particularly smaller businesses, can access the data and make money from it.

To register your interest visit:  http://smartstreets.eventbrite.co.uk/#
For further information please email: Paul.Rose@amey.co.uk or download poster at: http://www.digitalbirmingham.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/DesigningSmartStreetsPoster.pdf

3D Print event - do.CAKE 25th June

You are invited to attend the next FREE do.CAKE morning 10am on Tuesday 25th June 2013, at do.collaboration's Chowen and Garfield Weston Foundation Prototyping Hall. This month's exciting theme is 3D printing and there will be presentations from Black Country Atelier and 3D Creation Lab.

To find out more and register, visit http://docake.eventbrite.co.uk/

image credit Keith Kissel

Venue:

do.collaboration Hub
Chowen and Garfield Weston Foundation Prototyping Hall, 

Ground Floor, ERI Building
University of Birmingham, Pritchatts Road, Edgbaston
United Kingdom, B15 2TT

Digital Media start-up? Could you use this opportunity?

UK start ups with a winning idea in ICT could win an opportunity to pitch to 200 potential investors at Global Corporate Venturing's London symposium in London on 21-22 May 2013.

Although the emphasis is on ICT, we're sure that there are many Digital Media Businesses who fit the bill. Check out the full article here

Pioneers Into Practice- opportunity for Digital Media Businesses

Yet another fantastic opportunity for businesses in the Digital Media Sector, sent to us by Susannah Goh at Birmingham Science City.

If you are would like to explore possibilities and collaborative partnerships, contact Susannah Goh at Birmingham Science City s.goh@aston.ac.uk

Susannah's email:
Our partners, Katharine Fuller and Alexa Torlo-Hartwell, of BCU have informed me of a fantastic opportunity for creative digital businesses that would be interested in working in the fields of sustainability, low-carbon and climate change.

BCU has two places for professionals to work on applied knowledge-exchange within the university for one month, followed by a further month in an overseas placement (at a partner organisation within another European country).  The knowledge exchange works both ways, so the professionals (known as ‘pioneers’) will be learning from as well as contributing to very practical and hands-on work environments.  The two months are fully funded.  More information can be found in the email below and here:
http://www.climate-kic.org/entrepreneurs/professional-education

The current round of applications closes at the end of this month, so please contact Katharine as soon as possible if you are interested.   You will need to fill in an application form, but I have been told that this is a concise process and will not take time to complete.

Katharine can be reached at: Katharine.Fuller@bcu.ac.uk


Good luck and all the best!

Digital Opportunity

The third digital opportunity from Susannah Goh at Birmingham Science City- Thanks again Susannah!


If you are would like to explore possibilities and collaborative partnerships, contact Susannah Goh at Birmingham Science City s.goh@aston.ac.uk

Digital Innovation Contest 2013

Funding of up to £25K per award can be won for digital  prototyping.

The Technology Strategy Board notes the following:

The contest is offering seven awards… each to develop innovative commercial prototypes that meet the following challenges:

•     Beyond the ebook, in partnership with HarperCollins
•     Social and recommendation, in partnership with Constable & Robinson
•     Next generation location specific advertising, in partnership with MediaCom
•     Innovation in outdoor signage for brands and advertisers, in partnership with Ogilvy and JCDecaux
•     Enhanced digital content, in partnership with FreemantleMedia UK
•     Developing the TV, in partnership with Samsung
•     Exploring mobile-influenced content, in partnership with YouTube

The submissions deadline is 24th April.

For further details go to:

https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/digital-innovation-contest-2013/overview

There will be a briefing event in London and a briefing webinar, to book either click here