Can a £10m fund start an Internet of Things revolution?
-
Loading... - J. Oliveira
- 14 Jul 2020
- 716 Views
- 0 Like
- 0 Comment
A £10m prize for an urban 'internet of things' concept has been launched by the government. The cash prize has been earmarked from the £40m total investment the government promised the fledgling industry earlier this year.
There's a catch, though -- which is this moneyisn't going direct to startups. The competition, brought together by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board), is all about encouraging business to work with local government, to find solutions to everyday city challenges such as traffic and pollution.
According to Techcrunch, the projects must include a local authority, a local enterprise partnership and a few businesses. Different proportions of the £10m prize would go to different types of partners, with small businesses getting the largest help at 70 percent of project costs.
Cementing the emphasis on collaboration with government, Minister of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Ed Vaizey said: "The success of cities will depend on them working in new ways with new partners. This competition will be instrumental in discovering new connections between city services and their users, and identifying many more advantages that the IoT could offer."
The winning concept must not only benefit UK citizens, the city, and the environment, but must also prove economically beneficial for local authorities. The winning project must also be privacy-conscious, and secure, while also working across social care, transport and housing.
It might sound like a big ask, but Innovate UK hopes it could encourage companies to seek out adaptable ideas, for use in domestic environments as well as public ones.
The £10m prize, with all its provisos, sounds a lot less sexy four days after acquisition-hungry Cisco announced it would be investing $1bn in London, and earmarked £150m of VC capital for UK startups working in the internet of things. "We believe the UK is well on its way to becoming one of the top digitised countries in the world, and we're proud to once again activate new programmes and continue our deep commitment to partnering with the UK government," said Cisco chairman and chief executive John Chambers.
Unfortunately, neither investment boost is likely to focus on the British underbelly of the internet of things R&D world. Here are a few our favourites:
BREWBOT
Brewbot does what it says on the robotic tin. It's a beer brewing robot that you can control with your smartphone. Internal sensors control temperatures and timing, with regular updates so the quality doesn't waver wherever you are. The company secured $1.5m in VC seed funding following a successful Kickstarter campaign that saw it secure £114,000, and prove its niche.
ELFBLOCKS
This startup will help anyone make their own connected device in a few steps. ELFblocks, based in Birmingham, is creating simple, modular blocks for creating complex automated, custom devices. The blocks are fitted with sensors (for movement, air quality, sound, temperature, weight and more), and the Bluetooth or Wi-Fi blocks can be used to connect the setup to your phone. There's even a HomeKit block, that will let you trigger different blocks by talking to Siri.
FUNBRUSH
Interactive toothbrushes -- the connected device we've been waiting for. Well, perhaps not quite. But this one is aimed at kids, and ensuring they clean properly. It gamifies brushing to, in its own words, "free parents from forcing children to brush teeth everyday". Instead, it encourages children to stare at their tablet everyday, twice a day. In just a few months this year, Funbrush's valuation jumped from $90,000 to $488,000, after it secured £21,700 in seed money. It's not the only one on the market either -- Playbrush's Kickstarter campaign helped its line of connected toothbrushes move into production this year.
