Edinburgh Napier graduate on fast track to success after funding boost
An Edinburgh Napier graduate is paving the way for low-carbon innovation after being accepted into a prestigious Europe-wide programme. Martina Zupan, who studied product design at the University before setting up her own business aimed at reducing plastic pollution, was delighted to discover her start-up made it on to the Climate-KIC Accelerator scheme. Continue reading Full speed ahead for Martina’s low-carbon dream!
Scotland’s brightest start-ups and entrepreneurs have just five days left to enter a new £100,000 fund, designed to support the development of technology that will help people to thrive in older age. Entries for the first ever Centrica Active Ageing Challenge close on 5 February, so local start-ups should submit their big ideas NOW! Continue reading Last chance to enter Active Ageing Challenge
Among the delegates at last night’s Inverleith Community Conference was a group of Edinburgh University students – yes, those enthusiastic young guys in the bright red tops!
The students are working with Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership on a project to look at more innovative ways to encourage walking and cycling – and they want to hear from you! Let them explain:
Edinburgh Living Lab is a new partnership involving the City of Edinburgh Council and students and staff from the University of Edinburgh.
The goal of the Living Lab is to encourage innovation in the development of services, processes and products in the city. What makes the Living Lab different is not so much it’s aims as it’s methods.
Developing new solutions should always involve users from the start, and as far as possible should take place in real world contexts: on the street, in parks, cafes, community centres, homes and offices rather than in contrived laboratory settings.
As well as designing in collaboration with users there is an emphasis on rapidly implementing project ideas, testing and measuring their effectiveness, refining them or throwing them away as required.
We are currently involbed in a ten week pilot project with Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership, where teams of Masters students from the University’s Design Informatics degree are experimenting with novel ideas for increasing the uptake of active travel in Inverleith. Data plays a central role in their projects: some of this will be existing data sets such as those produced by the Council, but some will be freshly collected during the course of the projects, using surveys, observation and digital techniques.
Edinburgh Living Lab is currently at an experimental stage and we welcome contributions from participants at the conference and of course from the residents of Inverleith.
Interested? To find out more visit www.edinburghlivinglab.org/
BRAINS ON BIKES
Do you want to help improve cycling in Inverleith? Want to take part in a short study where you will get to wear Google Glass and a high tech EEH headset?
Intrigued? Contact Kim Taylor on 0754 161 0222 or email kimritaylor@gmail.com for more information!
To sign up for the study go to: http://goo.gl/forms/9vXJCxE4y2
City’s innovators tackle the Edinburgh Apps challenge
A running app for tourists and a tool to organise sporting activities in the city were amongst the winners in a competition to find innovative solutions to improve life in Edinburgh.
The inventions were awarded at the Edinburgh Apps event, which this year focused on health, culture and sport themes.
Run by the City of Edinburgh Council, the annual ‘civic challenge’ encourages participants to develop digital services like mobile apps, websites or product concepts to enhance life in the city for residents and visitors. It is one of the first events of its kind to take place in the UK, allowing entrants to work with Council and partner data to create new ideas.
Last Sunday, developers, designers and start-up companies gathered to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges, which consisted of David Williams, Joint Commissioning Officer for Health and Social Care at the Council, Colin McMillian, Club Development Officer in the Council’s Culture and Sport department, Claudette Jones, Chief Information Officer in the Council’s ICT department, and Pippa Gardner, Managing Consultant of Urban Tide.
Other winning entries on the day were SpeechCity, a smartphone app providing a conversational tour guide, and ACE, which supports people recovering from addiction to stay sober.
The City of Edinburgh Council is calling on designers, developers and start-up companies to sign up to the challenge.
There are only a couple of days left until the next stage of the 2014 EdinburghApps contest, being held at the Capital’s Informatics Forum this weekend (4 and 5 October).
If you are interested in taking part in this event, visit the EdinburghApps website and register on the event page or email edinburghapps@edinburgh.gov.uk.
The open data contest, which aims to find innovative solutions to help improve the lives of people in Edinburgh, will see participants pitch ideas about digital services like mobile apps, websites and product concepts which have the potential to enhance health, sport and cultural life in the capital.
The weekend will feature a master class on how to pitch ideas to judges, followed by a two day long ‘hack’ where participants will have the chance to work on their ideas, hear more about open data and take part in a ‘flash hack’ to build the city’s first dashboard.
Participants focusing on health will be asked to come up with ideas to either help people who have been supported by Council services to stay safe or to make it easier for individuals with deteriorating conditions like MS and dementia to access advice and information.
Those interested in culture and sport have been challenged with encouraging people to take up physical activity. Competitors can also use data to improve visitor experiences in the city’s museums and galleries, or to promote the capital’s attractions and history.
The Council’s Digital Champion, Councillor Frank Ross, said: “I am delighted to be involved in such an innovative event which really channels people’s creativity in using technology and data to make a difference to the lives of people in Edinburgh. The challenges this year are so diverse and I look forward to seeing the new and original ideas and concepts participants produce.”
The entries will be judged at a competition final on 26 October, with the winners being offered business support and the opportunity to work with the Council on developing their concepts further.
This is the second year the Council has run EdinburghApps. Previous winners include AIRTS, who are developing an app that helps the Joint Equipment Store operate more efficiently, and a Waste app helping the public to locate their nearest recycling bank. Thanks to the competition these apps are now due for release by the Council in October.
The event is sponsored by Jadu, MacRoberts, IBM, FreeAgent, Marketing Edinburgh, Transport for Edinburgh and CSI.
The Science Festival may be over, but the search for the innovators of tomorrow has only just begun …
Edinburgh International Science Festival celebrated 25 years of introducing audiences of all ages to innovative and entertaining science this Easter and marked the occasion with a diverse programme of over 200 events. Over 90,000 visitors enjoyed a family programme packed with sensational science together with world-renowned scientists looking forward to the next quarter century and exploring the future of our lives, our cities, our food, our play, our medicine, our challenges and our world.
With the Festival over for this year, the Science Festival continues to look to the future and has now announced Fuselab – an exciting new project looking for the young innovators of tomorrow.
Supported by the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund, Fuselab is an immersive ‘out of this world’ experience which will take place at Edinburgh’s Summerhall in July 2013. The Science Festival is seeking 80 innovative and creative minds aged between 16 and 20 to plan the future in a hypothetical, as yet uninhabited, world. Fuselab pioneers will be challenged to develop innovative approaches to a sustainable way of life, free from the constraints of the systems and structures currently utilised on here on Earth. In the process, they will learn how to challenge their thinking through workshops, skills sessions, talks and games; collaborating to design, prototype and test ideas.
Applications for Fuselab are now open, and 16 – 20 year old innovators are invited to apply through http://www.sciencefestival.co.uk/whats-on/fuselab before Wednesday 8 May 2013.
Amanda Tyndall, Deputy Director of the Edinburgh International Science Festival, said “We need to equip young people with the skills, networks and confidence not only to survive but to thrive in a rapidly changing world. In helping our Pioneers see how innovation can help build a better future, and to understand the role that they personally might play, Fuselab will do just that – helping unleash the potential of the next generation. “
Scottish Government Minister, Humza Yousaf, said “For a quarter of a century, the Edinburgh International Science Festival has informed, engaged and challenged the minds of visitors from Scotland and around the world, building on our strengths as a creative and innovative nation, from the enlightenment to the Higgs boson. This year’s excellent programme of events was no exception.
“It makes strong economic sense to support the Science Festival’s growth and to ensure that Scotland’s own emerging creative talent is placed at its centre. That is why I am proud to announce £110,000 to support young people to develop their skills and expertise here in Scotland through the Fuselab project. This takes the total Scottish Government Expo Funding awarded to the Science Festival to £562,000 since the Expo Fund began in 2008/09.”
Fuselab participants can draw upon the content of some of the sessions at the 2013 Science Festival for inspiration, which included Professor Dickson Despommier speaking on the future of vertical farming, Bas Lansdorp who invited his audience to apply to be the first new colonists on Mars in 2023, and Professor Mark Post who reported on the progress of his research to use stem cells to grow meat in the laboratory. Three previous winners of the prestigious Edinburgh Medal, Chris Rapley, Colin Blakemore and Jocelyn Bell Burnell looked into the future and explored their dangerous ideas and the future of astronomy while the 25th Edinburgh Medal was awarded jointly, for the first time in its history, to Professor Peter Higgs and CERN.
Dr Simon Gage, Director of the Edinburgh International Science Festival, said “The 25th Science Festival has been packed with world renowned speakers, innovative and exciting science and some ‘out of this world’ ideas. While we may not have found all the answers to the challenges we will face in the next 25 years, we have certainly had great fun exploring our future and some of the solutions that are being proposed, from eating insects and laboratory grown meat, to colonising Mars and personalising our medicine.”
The 25th Edinburgh International Science Festival finished with Scotland’s first Mini Maker Faire held at Summerhall where over 50 makers, enthusiasts, geeks, tinkerers, engineers and artists from across the Scottish maker community and beyond showed off their work to a fascinated audience of over 3,000 people. From cutting edge technologies to time honoured crafts, this family-friendly showcase was the perfect opportunity to converge and celebrate ingenuity, invention and resourcefulness.
The Fuselab programme is a fully immersive four day experience with a maximum of 40 participants per session from the UK and beyond. Fuselab 1 runs from 1 – 5 July, while Fuselab 2 runs from 5 – 9 July and applications for both sessions are open from today, Monday 8 April to May 8. Fuselab is completely free of charge with meals and accommodation provided. To apply visit: http://www.sciencefestival.co.uk/whats-on/fuselab
The 2014 Edinburgh International Science Festival will run from Saturday 5 to Sunday 20 April. Full details of the programme will be announced in February 2014 and details can be found at www.sciencefestival.co.uk.
