Artificial Intelligence, drones and satellites among the cutting-edge tech solutions selected to impact Scotland’s public sector challenges.
Innovative technology to help women deal with menopause symptoms in the workplace, satellite monitoring to limit the spread of disease in trees, and cutting-edge drone and thermal imaging systems to manage deer populations are just some of the solutions which have been selected for the Accelerator stage of CivTech Round 9, a Scottish Government funded programme.
A total of 13 companies have made it through to the final stage of the CivTech Accelerator, responding to a range of environmental, healthcare, economic and cyber-crime challenges facing the public sector.
The winning companies will spend the next few months working closely with their Challenge Sponsors to develop their solutions with a view to developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The CivTech Round 9 has a total of up to £7.48 million investment from the Scottish Government and at the end of the process, the businesses will hope to win contracts ranging in value from several hundred thousand pounds to £1.3 million.
CivTech is the world’s first Government-run accelerator for digital public services, and previous Challenges have seen the development of numerous innovative solutions including a Virtual Reality programme to familiarise people with the experience of giving evidence in court; an app to make it easier for people in tenement buildings to organise and pay for repairs; and AI and voice recognition technology to help people connect more simply and quickly with their local Citizens Advice bureau.
Revealing the winning companies today (Thursday 18th) at the official launch of the Accelerator Stage, the Innovation Minister Richard Lochhead said:
“Solutions being developed through the latest CivTech Accelerator promise to have a positive and meaningful impact on Scotland’s society and people. Using the very latest technology, including artificial intelligence, we are tackling real world challenges to help build a stronger and fairer economy.
“Our investment in the CivTech programme is creating tangible and accessible solutions. This shows the tech sector’s appetite to use advances in areas such as, machine learning, satellite and drone technology to make people’s lives easier and better.
“Our focus is on creating opportunities for a highly productive, competitive economy, providing new jobs, embedding innovation and boosting skills.”
Full list of Challenge winners and Sponsors:
9.1 – How can technology help us rapidly and accurately gather and analyse stress, pests and disease data in trees and wild plants to aid early detection at national levels?
Sponsored by: Scottish Forestry, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh
Challenge Winners: 2Excel Aviation and AAC Clyde: aerospace technologies to deliver early warning on stress, pests and disease in trees and wild plants across the country.
9.2 – How can technology help empower women to better understand menopause and access the right support for their individual needs at the right time?
Sponsored by: Scottish Government’s Chief Scientists Office
Winners: Adora Digital Health, Lumino, and Cohesion: empowering women to better understand menopause and access the right support for their individual needs.
9.3 – How can we help Wildlife Rangers identify the exact location of every animal larger than 5 kilograms in a specified area in real time, to improve forest management and ecological restoration?
Sponsored by: Forestry and Land Scotland
Winners: 2Excel Aviation and BH Wildlife Consultancy: tracking the exact location of deer in real time identification to improve forest management and ecological restoration.
9.4 – Challenge did not progress.
9.5 – How can we use technology to create the most efficient and secure supply chain for public sector procurements?
Sponsored by: Scottish Government Directorate for Digital, Cyber Security Unit and Digital Transformation Division
Winner: AR-SQ Limited: creating the most efficient and secure supply chains for public sector procurements.
9.6 – How can technology help Scotland’s public sector protect against ransomware and other forms of cyber-crime, and should they occur, mitigate, and recover from their effects, including data loss?
Sponsored by: Scottish Government Directorate for Safer Communities: Defence, Security and Cyber Resilience Division
Winners: Lupovis and Swordbreaker: protecting against, and mitigating and recovering from ransomware and cyber-crime attacks.
9.7 – How can technology help increase access to public services and products by making use of the trusted relationships people already have?
Sponsored by: Scottish Government Directorate for Digital, Cloud and Digital Services Division
Winner: Interrobang: developing approaches to make access to public services and products easier for every person in Scotland.
9.8 – How can technology offer everyone an individualised communications channel that is endlessly adaptable, never goes out of date and interacts with public sector services securely and in a timely way?
Sponsored by: Scottish Government Directorate for Digital, Cloud and Digital Services Division
Winner: Netcompany: building a secure communications channel so every individual can interact with public sector services in the best way possible.
9.9 – How can technology and data create a streamlined experience to help people and businesses across Scotland get access to training, guidance, support, and approval for the licences they need, starting with tobacco and fireworks products?
Sponsored by: Scottish Government Directorate for Population Health and Scottish Government Directorate for Safer Communities
Winner: Zudu: making licence training, guidance, support and approval as fast, secure and effective as possible.
Read more on the CivTech blog at https://www.civtech.scot/blog/press-release-winning-innovators-revealed-for-civtech-9-accelerator.
