Last updated Monday, 17th June 2013 at 2:39 PM
The government on advice from the Data Strategy Board has announced up to £8m of investment to help public bodies release more of their data. £850,000 will be focused on supporting companies seeking to develop new products and services from open data. The key route to support will be through events and competitions run by the Open Data Institute.
We will be running an Open Data Immersion Programme which will consist of a series of events run until the end of March 2015, convening a range of data owners and data users. This will help SMEs and start-ups to work with data providers, industry experts and business leaders to develop new ways to better understand how to reuse available data sets in ways which create business opportunities.
The series of events will focus on challenges formulated by industry experts. The winning projects at each event will be eligible to take their concepts into early product development. We are anticipating working in partnership with Nesta on prizes where we expect to make awards of up to £8k for pre-seed investment with a single final prize of up to £25k, as well as with other interested parties. Additionally the successful teams will be included in the ODI Start Up Programme. Further support for ideas is also available in the shape of Innovation Vouchers run by the Technology Strategy Board and the ODI will continue to support other open data innovation related challenges.
Each series will span over a nine month period and constitute:
- Applications open - the formal launch of the competition when applications for participation happen
- Participants confirmed - applicants are notified of the successful event participants
- Challenge definition day - convening data owners, data users and data consumers, thought leaders and industry experts to explore and shape the challenges for the series
- Development/Acceleration period - an opportunity for teams to form, ideas to consolidate and develop, data to be reviewed, improved and released
- Creation and Innovation Weekend - where the products and tools are developed, tested and presented to a panel of judges and seed funding is awarded
- Incubation,mentoring and review - further development of the funded ideas including access to relevant expertise, including the potential to enter the ODI Incubation Programme. A prize will be awarded at the end of this period
The first sector that will be explored through this process is Crime and Justice. The Crime and Justice series will kick off in March in London. Two further areas will be explored in 2013. Energy and the Environment will be the second challenge, kicking off in May, and the autumn will see the launch of a sector series around MiData. Subsequent themes may include Health, Transport and Welfare. The ODI is open to suggestions of other sectors which could be explored through this process.
The Crime and Justice Series events will be based in London. Subsequent events will be hosted in other parts of the UK.
How can you be involved?
The ODI is keen to collaborate with passionate and driven members of the open data community to ensure that these themes are a success. We would like to invite people/organisations to apply to lead on each series. The successful applicant will have experience of running open data events and initiatives, such as hack weekends, as well as an active interest in the sector and knowledge which would enable them to convene thought leaders, industry experts and activists. The total budget for each series is approximately £70k. This includes the cost of leading this activity.
If you would like to lead our Energy and Environment Series, please click here.
To apply to participate in the Energy and Environment series, please register here.
If you have any queries about the Immersion Programme contact briony.phillips@theodi.org