Up to £8 million of Scottish Government funding is being made
available to help start-up businesses and entrepreneurs solve
public sector challenges.
The latest round of the Scottish Government CivTech programme
invites companies and individuals to come up with innovations and
products that will improve lives and practices across a wide
range of public sector areas.
Applications to submit ideas to tackle nine different challenges
are now open. They range from cutting pharmaceutical waste to
using technology to improve public engagement in policymaking.
Additional “wildcard” challenges are anticipated to launch in the
coming weeks.
Successful applicants will work with their Challenge Sponsor to
develop their proposal and pitch for a place in the programme's
Accelerator phase, which offers both financial and practical
support to develop the business and market the concept to the
public sector.
Since it launched in 2016, around £20 million of Scottish
Government funding has been invested in the CivTech programme,
with 90 companies and entrepreneurs helped to grow and develop.
These include bioscience company SilviBio and Tape for Trees,
which developed new seed germination technologies to help
Forestry and Land Scotland increase the efficiency and survival
rates of its tree seedlings.
Employment and Investment Minister said:
“Driving entrepreneurship and innovation is important to helping
unlock each of the Scottish Government's priorities of
eradicating child poverty, boosting economic growth, achieving
net zero and improving public services.
“In CivTech, we have a way to stimulate progress across each of
these priorities so that, together, we can improve people's lives
and achieve our ambitions as a nation.
“This funding offers a unique opportunity not just to foster and
support the innovators and entrepreneurs as part of a vibrant
economy, but harness their ideas and inventions to continually
test and improve our public services and our way of life.”
CivTech 5 participant Angela Prentner-Smith, Founder and CEO of
This is Milk said:
“CivTech was a launchpad for us. We got the amazing opportunity
to develop a world-first platform directly with Government
stakeholders, who trusted us to develop the product in line with
user needs.
“My CivTech journey started with my 3-person band business, my
five-year-old and a two-week-old baby called Neve. I showed up to
the accelerator, baby in hand, through Covid lockdown and the
team couldn't have been more supportive.
“The result has been Neve Learning, the most accessible and
inclusive, hybrid learning platform on the market. We've
worked with the public sector for many years, and never found a
fit for purpose procurement opportunity that genuinely provides
the platform for innovation and human-centred product design.”
Background
CivTech 10 challenges: https://www.civtech.scot/civtech-10-challenges
Details on the CivTech process: The CivTech Process —
CivTech
Notes to editors
Case studies:
SilviBio and Tape for Trees have developed innovative solutions
which have helped Forestry and Land Scotland greatly improve the
yield from its seed bank, including a huge increase in seed
germination and survival rates, significantly improved
efficiency, and a world record one million seedlings planted in a
day (the previous record being 60,000). The entire FLS business
model has now shifted, with significant investment being made in
a new glasshouse that's almost as big as two football pitches and
capable of producing up to 19 million trees a year for planting
out, is being built in Newton, near Elgin.
Novoville worked with the City of Edinburgh Council to create an
app to help owners of shared properties stay on track with
building repairs. The app was quickly rolled out in Edinburgh and
is now live in almost 10 Scottish Local authorities, helping
people living in tens of thousands of properties across Scotland
carry out millions of pounds' worth of repairs. Over the last two
years, Novoville has been expanding the scope of its app to
support owners carrying out decarbonisation work, which is seeing
it expand to the rest of the UK, with Birmingham Council recently
signing on as client.
