Welcome to the Innovate 10 Launch Pad. The home of the Technology Strategy Board’s £600k competition for disruptive solutions for energy, digital, healthcare, & sustainability problems.
Congratulations to the 4 Disruptive Solutions Competition Winners:
Successful stage 2 applicants have now been invited to pitch for up to £100k in project funding at Innovate 10. You can view the 12 finalists original video submissions here.
About the £600k Disruptive Solutions Competition
Through a rapid process we are seeking proposals for three month projects, worth up to £25k. We also want to find out what you would do if you received up to £100k for a project lasting up to six months. In fact, you could be pitching your idea in front of a panel of judges at Innovate 10 on October 12 and receiving up to £100k in project funding. Read the full competition outline here.
The competition is being run in 3 stages: 1) an initial video pitch which is open to all – your £25k proposal and you decide what a video means: it's the idea that will get judged 2) a written submission for those that are selected from stage one – what would you do with up to up to £100k? and 3) a live pitch for £100k at Innovate 10 on October 12 in London for the 3 best proposals in each theme.
But you need to get in quick! You need to pitch your idea to us via video and the closing date for the first round is Thursday 16 September. To find out how to enter the competition click here. We encourage you to enter, and encourage you to tell colleagues and peers so that they can enter too.
We also want your feedback and opinion on the proposed ideas. Watch the video energy, digital, healthcare, & sustainability pitches here. Leave a review and we’ll use your opinion to help shape ours.
Why are we doing this? The Full Story...
To be successful at innovation is not easy. It requires recognition of a need and identification of a solution. After that, it needs development of the solution to the point where it is ready for widespread use, communication of the attractions of the solution compared to other solutions and so on….but it always starts with that coupling of need and solution. Getting those early germs of business and supporting them is a vital part of the innovation system.
Four areas where the underlying challenge can lead to huge opportunities for those who make this connection are energy, sustainability, healthcare and digital. Focusing on these, the Technology Strategy Board is running a new competition to stimulate innovative new ideas in these areas – but it is not a standard competition!
For a start, we are aiming it at small companies. We are doing this because it is often small companies who come up with the radical ideas but find it difficult to get the right sort of support to develop them through the early stages.
Then the selection and assessment process is very different from some of our other programmes. It starts with a two-minute video pitch. You will need to upload these to a dedicated website which will open next week. Once they are up, they will be available on the website for people to add comments to help guide the assessors for a couple of weeks. The assessment will test for understanding of the market you are aiming at, the strength of the capability you are exploiting and the potential size of the return if you are successful. These are complex issues and to capture them in two minutes will require clarity of thinking and speaking.
In each area, we will progress 15 applications through to a written stage. You will have a week to explain your idea as a small business case. The same sort of tests will be applied to your submission, and we will supply a standard application form to capture your ideas in the right format. These will be further assessed and three proposals in each area will go forward to Innovate 10 at the Business Design Centre in London on October 12th.
On the day, you will be given five minutes to pitch to a panel of four experts, and we will collect input from the audience as the fifth “judge”. The four sessions will be run through the day on the main stage and the results will be announced at the end of the day. The winner in each area will get £100k to progress their idea, but the others will get £25k. All will be included in future Technology Strategy Board activities in the relevant area.
This is a real opportunity for small UK based companies to get support to develop their ideas. It will test not just your idea but your ability to communicate it in a variety of situations. If successful you will get the money and the recognition. How can you not try?