Image source: govscot, Open Government Licence v3.0
A selection of challenges for technology to improve Scotland’s public services has been announced in the latest round of the CivTech programme.
The organisation, which is backed by the Scottish Government, has published details of 11 challenges for round 10 of the programme, saying that up to £8 million in funding will be made available to support relevant projects.
The process is aimed at encouraging start-up businesses and entrepreneurs to come up with solutions.
Successful applicants will work with the relevant challenge’s sponsor to develop their proposal and pitch for a place in the programme’s accelerator phase.
The new challenges are as follows:
- Using technology to improve situational awareness – sponsored by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.
- Identifying and measuring firefighter exposure to contaminants – Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.
- Improving the monitoring and inspection of seabirds – National Trust for Scotland, NatureScot and Oxford Brookes University.
- Using AI, automated data analysis and other technology to make the sharing of data between organisations with separate legal obligations as seamless as possible – Scottish Government.
- Understanding the supply and demand of digital economy skills at regional level – Glasgow City Council and The Data Lab.
- Better administration, measurement and prediction of performance in regard to Woodland Carbon Code and Peatland Code projects – Scottish Forestry, IUCN Peatland Programme.
- Using technology for high quality public participation in decision making – Scottish Government.
- How can technology reduce pharmaceutical waste – Scottish Government.
- Technology for increasing circularity in the NHS Scotland supply chain – Scottish Government.
- Technology to make teachers’ workload more manageable – Scottish Government, Aberdeenshire Council and Dumfries and Galloway Council.
- Information, advice and other forms of support for early stage entrepreneurs – Scottish Government.
Employment and Investment Minister Tom Arthur said: “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.”
