Ordnance Survey and Land Registry have announced the three winners of the GeoVation Challenge
Proposals for a portal for community improvements, an online tool for monitoring energy usage and project to democratise development have won the support of Ordnance Survey and Land Registry under their GeoVation Challenge.
The two agencies have announced the three winners of the challenge, which was aimed at developing ways to use data to make housing better and attracted 43 submissions, of which nine were selected to pitch for funding.
The largest award of £29,000 went to Geo-vey from Swindon based Nautoguide. It aims to develop a free portal, underpinned by OS and Land Registry data, to crowd source ideas from improvements to local communities. The plan includes businesses and organisations wanting to gauge local opinion on infrastructure developments being able to use it for a fee.
MyHome Energy Planner is aimed at creating an online tool to show households their energy usage and ways of controlling and reducing consumption. It has been proposed by the Carbon Co-op, National Energy Foundation, OpenEnergyMonitor and the Urbanism, Environment, Design co-op and awarded £25,000.
The team plans to pilot the tool and work with local authorities and their existing network to raise market awareness
Small sites
Democratising Development,which has been awarded £24,000, involves using data from the agencies to identify small disused or unmanaged sites that could be used for housing. The plans have been drawn up by Andy Reeve and Joyit Sarjar from Birmingham and use the WikiHouse principles of building small scale houses, including the option for self-build.
Lynne Nicholson, Land Registry's representative on the judging panel, said: "It is exciting to see people using datasets to create solutions that benefit the wider community. Ideas that help people save money, think more strategically or improve their local community are real winners in my view.
"We are proud to support these start-up companies with funding and business expertise along with Ordnance Survey, helping them to turn their ideas into commercial ventures."
A new GeoVation Challenge is planned for a launch during the summer.
Image: Sheltered housing, Essington, geograph.org.uk, Creative Common Attribution Share Alike 2.0 Generic through Wikimedia
