London CDO announces open call to innovators across London to support recovery
Following on from the re-election of Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London, London’s Chief Digital Officer Theo Blackwell in his blog, Monday 10 May 2021, is inviting tech companies and innovators to get involved in the Designing London’s Recovery, an open innovation challenge programme that puts design-led innovation at the heart of London’s recovery from COVID-19.
It will support the city’s big missions on Helping Londoners into Good Work (jobs & skills), Building Strong Communities (social & inclusion projects), a Green New Deal (green transition), and High Streets for All (local economy).
How will it work?
20 finalists, who must be London-based, will form multi-disciplinary Innovation Teams that will work closely with City Hall boroughs and London’s communities to co-design and test solutions with expert coaching, mentoring and support. From these finalists, 6–8 teams will be selected to receive funding to design, test and scale up solutions with continued support from Design Council through 2022.
If you have an idea in response to one of the challenge outlines, you can submit your Expression of Interest on the Challenge page.
The Call is open from 16 March 2021 and closes at Midday on 30 June 2021.
Further information about the Challenge and upcoming roundtables can be found here.
techUK’s Head of Local Public Services, Georgina Maratheftis comments:
“Firstly congratulations to Sadiq Khan on his successful re-election as Mayor of London. It is encouraging to see City Hall reaffirm its commitment to innovators and tech as a means to supporting London’s recovery. The Challenge is a great example of co-designing solutions and bringing together the local govtech ecosystem to interrogate challenges and build solutions together. To deliver meaningful solutions and meet needs of both citizens and places, early market engagement is crucial.”
Georgina Maratheftis
Georgina is techUK’s Associate Director for Local Public Services
