UK Government Launches Data Innovation Contest

IC Tomorrow - which is part of the UK government-funded Technology Strategy Board - is launching a 'data innovation' contest, offering five small companies the chance to win up to £25k each for ideas which will help businesses extract value from data.

Last week, Chancellor George Osborne announced funding of £42m for a new institute, named after WWII code breaker Alan Turing, which will focus on new ways to collect, organise, and analyse large sets of data. In addition, the Technology Strategy Board is investing up to £4.5m in R&D initiatives that address the technical challenges and business opportunities presented by the huge growth in data.

IC Tomorrow's contest will build on the wider Technology Strategy Board's commitment to helping businesses extract greater value from data, and the five categories and their respective partners are:

• Processing data efficiently - Ingram Content Group
• Commercialisation of mobile data - EE Limited
• Geospacial data mapping - Ordnance Survey
• Data visualisation and analytics decision making - Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust
• Vale of public domain data - British Library.

The five successful start-ups will each be awarded £25k in prize money and will have the opportunity to work alongside the sponsoring partners to develop their ideas. Matt Sansam, Programme Manager at IC Tomorrow, explains: 'It's not necessary to have an existing app or service, or to be currently active in the data industry. We welcome applications for innovative products, platforms or services from a range of start-ups and small businesses, even if they are only at ideas stage.'

A briefing meeting will take place on 9th April at BL-NK in Hackney, London - and as a live webinar - to give potential applicants the opportunity to find out more about the contest. More information can be found at: http://bit.ly/dicdata .