The business is community gardening and ecotherapy/social and therapeutic horticulture (STH) service for marginal or disadvantaged groups, e.g. people with mental health support needs or learning disabilities, where they can work and learn with the local community to develop and conserve green space. Payment will be derived from local authorities and additional services sold to private individuals, e.g. horticultural training courses, and products grown in and made from materials from the garden. The primary driver is to make the business successful for environmental reasons but it also aims to contribute to the debate in order to improve acceptance and understanding of this type of mental and physical health intervention, whilst running a profit-making, socially responsible enterprise. We welcome collaborators who can help to further develop the idea of 'ecotherapy' as an intervention in mental health care, expose links and improve engagement with health services and clinical groups to access/track knowledge and data. We also aim to develop a communication tool to position, promote, target and build the overall offer.

Contribute

www.borroclub.co.uk is an online sharing platform enabling local communities to share items that they have in their house and wish to keep but do not use that often.

We deliver benefits to the community in 4 areas:

1. Connect the community
2. Environmental benefits
3. Earnings potential for the owner
4. Savings potential for the borrower

Our hope is that people can visit our site find an item they need that is a short walk from where they live so they can avoid driving to purchase an item from a store.

Whilst I have received positive feedback from people actually getting them to post their items onto the site is still a challenge.

I would therefore like to have open feedback on the following topics:

• Is the idea valid/appealing?
• What would stop you using the service time/trust or something else?

Contribute

www.truckulus.com is an online haulage telematics (gps tracking) application and return loads brokerage marketplace.

Truckulus delivers economic benefits for the hauliers by giving them insights into their own fleet which they can share with clients and by making additional haulage opportunities available to them and by reducing the effort required to find this additional work. Truckulus delivers environmental benefits because trucks which otherwise would be empty but moving from place to place are being used to move goods.

Our intent is to market the telematics platform at compelling pricepoint (£5pcm per seat). Once we have enough hauliers on board we'll use the gps data generated and feed it into the brokerage platform so that hauliers are matched with the jobs of potential clients only if they already have or plan to have trucks in the right place at the right time (we'll take a cut of ~5%).

In this way for hauliers we will take the pain and effort out of finding return loads and for clients we will shorten the search for hauliers who are already capable of fulfilling their jobs.

Our current challenges are market/financial:

• How do we bring this to market cost effectively (£5 per click, 3% conversion, leading to £166 COA).
• How can we manage/use the challenges associated with creating a geographically focussed market place. For market to operate hauliers and clients must want to go/be in the same places.
• How can we generate money before/during growth? What other income streams are possible?
• etc

Contribute

The vision of iZdesign is to innovate for a zero waste world. Where people and companies recognise, all residue and waste & Industrial by-products are high value resource that can be as feedstock for other products, which recovers value and lowers the cost of production, reduces the consumption of natural raw materials and minimises waste streams to landfill.

The overall purpose of the project is to provide an 'Online Waste Exchange Network' (OWEN) for Industrial Symbiosis that has national and international scale; offering a streamline process and infrastructure for recovering materials and value from waste; supporting SMEs into the Industrial Symbiosis market, strengthening regional and national 'Smart City' priorities and the implementation of environmental policy and economical consequences.

The are that we would like to explore through the Innovation Lab opportunity is to develop a standard data scrap method/application for dynamically accessing commercial waste arising for the City of Birmingham

Contribute

We have developed a hybrid solution for treating highly toxic wastewater that is produced in landfill. Typically this wastewater is very expensive to treat but our solution can reduce the costs but up to 40%.

We are at a point where we are proving the technology. What we would like to do in this sub process is to create a communications piece to allow our potential stakeholders and clients understand the process from a high level.

We would like to develop a web platform to educate and produce a promo video (see below), communicating both the processes but also the vision of the company.

We would like to collaborate with PR, Marketing professionals, storytellers and writers to capture and help create a powerful message (we can provide the technical side but the communications pieces is difficult for us). We would also like to collaborate with Animators for the video production.

Contribute

Current solar thermal systems are only achieving 60% of HOT WATER and do not contribute to home heating at all. The Terawatt Solar Thermal Tracker delivers 85% hot water & 60% of home heating needs and 100% domestic air-conditioning needs.

Currently solar thermal manufacturers are restricted to installing a certain size of systems due to high sun rays in summer months hitting the tubes and causing high temperatures and over heating the system. Our system is stand alone that can track the sun which creates 46% more energy than fixed systems and our patent pending sensor prevents overheating by moving the array away from the sun at high temperatures.

The average household oil bill is £1050 per year and with grants available and savings accounted for customers can earn £13615 over 7 years. With solar thermal not recognised we need to educate customers on the savings, the product and also look at options of product development in particular the aesthetics of the system.

Contribute

Schwungrad Energie — How it works!

Reducing our carbon emissions and dependence on fossil fuels drives us to use more renewable energy, especially for electricity.

This drive is constrained by technical problems with the stability of wind generation.

Be part of the solution by collaborating with us, we will do the Engineering, you make the animation that will inform our customers and investors.

Our thoughts so far:

• Graphics part developed already (examples attached)
• Interaction with brand management for global brands (partner companies)
• Energy Industry Exposure (conferences, live website, youtube)
• Animation will be exposed to industry decision makers, competitors,
• Story board draft developed, open to further suggestions
• Short animation, “how does it work” estimated 2 minutes max.
• Voice over not expected.

Contribute

Manufacturing SMEs are deemed more waste/energy/emission/labour intensive companies but for a host of reasons are less capable in managing them. SustEnable Consulting Ltd aims to help increase their engagement in sustainability practices by helping them overcome barriers such as price, expertise or even just to supplement staff through a simplified but holistic and systems-based approach. By practicing sustainability initiatives (e.g. carbon, energy, resource, waste, water management, environmental impacts assessment and control, etc.) in the right approach and leveraging on SME’s unique attributes in comparison to their larger counterparts, manufacturing SMEs can expect improved sustainability performance. A preliminary sustainability framework has been developed (through MSc dissertation) in the form of a checklist. Collaborators are needed to help develop it further potentially as a benchmarking tool, to create an interactive interface and to test using the Climate-KIC network. Collaborators could also help with web page and marketing strategies.

Contribute

SPICA Technologies is an Internet-of-Things startup, focused on helping businesses maximise the connected devices opportunity. We are building a solution that attaches devices to hot and cold pipes to measure temperature, the performance of the water system and specifically looking at minimising the risks associated with Legionella.

The device uses an IoT WAN technology, SIGFOX, to support connectivity into our devicepoint™ platform. Power is a primary consideration when implementing new IoT devices and this is especially true in the case of SIGFOX. We want to explore other technical options within this project, especially the use of energy harvesting as an alternative power source for our devices. The project will explore:

• Feasibility of energy harvesting from hot water pipes based on existing hardware (TE-Power Node or alternative, see below)
• Impact of energy harvesting on design and implementation of IoT devices
• How we build a capability/discipline to add energy harvesting into our products
• Design thinking for new energy harvesting techniques

Contribute

SmartCharge are in the process of developing a solar harvesting electric vehicle (EV) charger. The concept is to combine several existing technologies (EV Charging, power inverters, energy harvesting and battery management) to improve charging in relation to efficiency and the environment. SmartCharge have existing knowledge of EV charging, low power harvesting and battery management. The gaps in SmartCharge's knowledge is photovoltaic (PV) technology and how PV can be harvested. The sub-project will need to prove that sufficient energy can be extracted from a low density PV situation to power the EV charging protocol. Another element of the sub-project is to understand how to scale this technology. Once the sub-project has proven this, SmartCharge can begin to develop a working prototype.

Contribute

Orbas is all about data driven sustainability. We want to transform how environmental and social data is collected, managed and visualised so that we can generate real time sustainability reporting.

We are looking to work with hardware and software specialist to better understand how we can use environmental data generating sensors to gather and integrate data with cloud management software and visualisation tools. Our primary goal is to further understand the system architecture estimating the viability and costs surrounding its implementation.

The areas that we would like to explore during the open innovation lab:

• Understanding the types of sensors, their size and cost
• State of art hologram technology
• Map out the system architecture for real time sustainability
• Build a basic demo (using Arduino) to demonstrate feasibility and applications

Contribute

The vision of iZdesign is to innovate for a zero waste world. Where people and companies recognise, all residue and waste & Industrial by-products are high value resource that can be as feedstock for other products, which recovers value and lowers the cost of production, reduces the consumption of natural raw materials and minimises waste streams to landfill.

The overall purpose of the project is to provide an 'Online Waste Exchange Network' (OWEN) for Industrial Symbiosis that has national and international scale; offering a streamline process and infrastructure for recovering materials and value from waste; supporting SMEs into the Industrial Symbiosis market, strengthening regional and national 'Smart City' priorities and the implementation of environmental policy and economical consequences.

The are that we would like to explore through the Innovation Lab opportunity is to develop a standard data scrap method/application for dynamically accessing commercial waste arising for the City of Birmingham

Contribute

Current solar thermal systems are only achieving 60% of HOT WATER and do not contribute to home heating at all. The Terawatt Solar Thermal Tracker delivers 85% hot water & 60% of home heating needs and 100% domestic air-conditioning needs.

Currently solar thermal manufacturers are restricted to installing a certain size of systems due to high sun rays in summer months hitting the tubes and causing high temperatures and over heating the system. Our system is stand alone that can track the sun which creates 46% more energy than fixed systems and our patent pending sensor prevents overheating by moving the array away from the sun at high temperatures.

The average household oil bill is £1050 per year and with grants available and savings accounted for customers can earn £13615 over 7 years. With solar thermal not recognised we need to educate customers on the savings, the product and also look at options of product development in particular the aesthetics of the system.

Contribute

i-Magine predictive heating controller from InteSys Ltd creates a building energy model on a microchip through machine learning, using readings from its sensors. After an initial learning stage, the model enables the controller to do a short-­term prediction of temperatures in a building and consequently it delivers the right amount of heat at all times. This achieves energy saving of at least 20%. A number of competitive technologies, most notably Nest Thermostat, also claim learning capabilities, however these are limited to user set temperatures and times, and therefore merely replicating functionality of conventional devices. How should this controller be positioned on the market in order to be more desirable than the competition? Does it matter what it looks like, considering that it is currently in a kind of 'boiler suit' in comparison with 'smart casual' competition, such as Nest thermostat (see Figure)? Is predictive function enough to make it more competitive? What other functions would make it more desirable than the completion? What other things can prediction do for us in other fields?

Contribute

We collect vehicle engine data and GPS to monitor how well a vehicle has been driven, maintained and repaired. Our initial customer is a fleet manager who is responsible for all of the company’s vehicles. He will need to be able to seamlessly visualize the location of all the vehicles, as well as obtain an overview of the fleet performance using certain metrics, for example average speed, fuel efficiency, engine health, etc. We have already built a prototype and an off-the-shelf front-end theme. We would like to collaborate to explore the user experience and user interface further. Please see below for screen shot of the live system as it is now.

Contribute

Commutable are developing a new software model for public transport on buses, which will enable a bus fleet to be run using both dynamic scheduling and dynamic routing. The goal of this project is to improve efficiency and utilisation of a municipal bus operator’s existing fleet by removing the restrictions of fixed routes and schedules, and running the service based on continually-recalculated predicted demand.

We are seeking collaborators to help develop a mathematical simulation of a real-world bus service, to allow us to test the impact of changes to the bus’ routes or timetables. Skills in programming, modelling, algorithms, artificial intelligence and statistics are particularly relevant. Information about each day’s performance is fed back into the system to allow it to improve over time. The simulation will allow us to test various optimisations, and identify knock-on effects and inefficiencies that may result from these changes.

Contribute

SPICA Technologies is an Internet-of-Things startup, focused on helping businesses maximise the connected devices opportunity. We are building a solution that attaches devices to hot and cold pipes to measure temperature, the performance of the water system and specifically looking at minimising the risks associated with Legionella.

The device uses an IoT WAN technology, SIGFOX, to support connectivity into our devicepoint™ platform. Power is a primary consideration when implementing new IoT devices and this is especially true in the case of SIGFOX. We want to explore other technical options within this project, especially the use of energy harvesting as an alternative power source for our devices. The project will explore:

• Feasibility of energy harvesting from hot water pipes based on existing hardware (TE-Power Node or alternative, see below)
• Impact of energy harvesting on design and implementation of IoT devices
• How we build a capability/discipline to add energy harvesting into our products
• Design thinking for new energy harvesting techniques

Contribute

SmartCharge are in the process of developing a solar harvesting electric vehicle (EV) charger. The concept is to combine several existing technologies (EV Charging, power inverters, energy harvesting and battery management) to improve charging in relation to efficiency and the environment. SmartCharge have existing knowledge of EV charging, low power harvesting and battery management. The gaps in SmartCharge's knowledge is photovoltaic (PV) technology and how PV can be harvested. The sub-project will need to prove that sufficient energy can be extracted from a low density PV situation to power the EV charging protocol. Another element of the sub-project is to understand how to scale this technology. Once the sub-project has proven this, SmartCharge can begin to develop a working prototype.

Contribute

Orbas is all about data driven sustainability. We want to transform how environmental and social data is collected, managed and visualised so that we can generate real time sustainability reporting.

We are looking to work with hardware and software specialist to better understand how we can use environmental data generating sensors to gather and integrate data with cloud management software and visualisation tools. Our primary goal is to further understand the system architecture estimating the viability and costs surrounding its implementation.

The areas that we would like to explore during the open innovation lab:

• Understanding the types of sensors, their size and cost
• State of art hologram technology
• Map out the system architecture for real time sustainability
• Build a basic demo (using Arduino) to demonstrate feasibility and applications

Contribute

Schwungrad Energie — How it works!

Reducing our carbon emissions and dependence on fossil fuels drives us to use more renewable energy, especially for electricity.

This drive is constrained by technical problems with the stability of wind generation.

Be part of the solution by collaborating with us, we will do the Engineering, you make the animation that will inform our customers and investors.

Our thoughts so far:

• Graphics part developed already (examples attached)
• Interaction with brand management for global brands (partner companies)
• Energy Industry Exposure (conferences, live website, youtube)
• Animation will be exposed to industry decision makers, competitors,
• Story board draft developed, open to further suggestions
• Short animation, “how does it work” estimated 2 minutes max.
• Voice over not expected.

Contribute

We have developed a hybrid solution for treating highly toxic wastewater that is produced in landfill. Typically this wastewater is very expensive to treat but our solution can reduce the costs but up to 40%.

We are at a point where we are proving the technology. What we would like to do in this sub process is to create a communications piece to allow our potential stakeholders and clients understand the process from a high level.

We would like to develop a web platform to educate and produce a promo video (see below), communicating both the processes but also the vision of the company.

We would like to collaborate with PR, Marketing professionals, storytellers and writers to capture and help create a powerful message (we can provide the technical side but the communications pieces is difficult for us). We would also like to collaborate with Animators for the video production.

Contribute

The business is community gardening and ecotherapy/social and therapeutic horticulture (STH) service for marginal or disadvantaged groups, e.g. people with mental health support needs or learning disabilities, where they can work and learn with the local community to develop and conserve green space. Payment will be derived from local authorities and additional services sold to private individuals, e.g. horticultural training courses, and products grown in and made from materials from the garden. The primary driver is to make the business successful for environmental reasons but it also aims to contribute to the debate in order to improve acceptance and understanding of this type of mental and physical health intervention, whilst running a profit-making, socially responsible enterprise. We welcome collaborators who can help to further develop the idea of 'ecotherapy' as an intervention in mental health care, expose links and improve engagement with health services and clinical groups to access/track knowledge and data. We also aim to develop a communication tool to position, promote, target and build the overall offer.

Contribute

www.borroclub.co.uk is an online sharing platform enabling local communities to share items that they have in their house and wish to keep but do not use that often.

We deliver benefits to the community in 4 areas:

1. Connect the community
2. Environmental benefits
3. Earnings potential for the owner
4. Savings potential for the borrower

Our hope is that people can visit our site find an item they need that is a short walk from where they live so they can avoid driving to purchase an item from a store.

Whilst I have received positive feedback from people actually getting them to post their items onto the site is still a challenge.

I would therefore like to have open feedback on the following topics:

• Is the idea valid/appealing?
• What would stop you using the service time/trust or something else?

Contribute

In the UK, the United States and many other jurisdictions worldwide, legal cases still rely almost exclusively on paper. The result is a paper war which the legal profession is losing.

TrialView™ is a web based platform which enables lawyers and Judges to use their own devices (laptops or tablets) to simultaneously present and follow the documents being discussed at court.

TrialView is looking for collaborators to help improve the web experience, to develop a marketing strategy to penetrate the top law firms and to find a way of ensuring our customers can access our platform from any courtroom in the world.

Help us transform litigation.

Contribute

www.truckulus.com is an online haulage telematics (gps tracking) application and return loads brokerage marketplace.

Truckulus delivers economic benefits for the hauliers by giving them insights into their own fleet which they can share with clients and by making additional haulage opportunities available to them and by reducing the effort required to find this additional work. Truckulus delivers environmental benefits because trucks which otherwise would be empty but moving from place to place are being used to move goods.

Our intent is to market the telematics platform at compelling pricepoint (£5pcm per seat). Once we have enough hauliers on board we'll use the gps data generated and feed it into the brokerage platform so that hauliers are matched with the jobs of potential clients only if they already have or plan to have trucks in the right place at the right time (we'll take a cut of ~5%).

In this way for hauliers we will take the pain and effort out of finding return loads and for clients we will shorten the search for hauliers who are already capable of fulfilling their jobs.

Our current challenges are market/financial:

• How do we bring this to market cost effectively (£5 per click, 3% conversion, leading to £166 COA).
• How can we manage/use the challenges associated with creating a geographically focussed market place. For market to operate hauliers and clients must want to go/be in the same places.
• How can we generate money before/during growth? What other income streams are possible?
• etc

Contribute

i-Magine predictive heating controller from InteSys Ltd creates a building energy model on a microchip through machine learning, using readings from its sensors. After an initial learning stage, the model enables the controller to do a short-­‐term prediction of temperatures in a building and consequently it delivers the right amount of heat at all times. This achieves energy saving of at least 20%. A number of competitive technologies, most notably Nest Thermostat, also claim learning capabilities, however these are limited to user set temperatures and times, and therefore merely replicating functionality of conventional devices. How should this controller be positioned on the market in order to be more desirable than the competition? Does it matter what it looks like, considering that it is currently in a kind of 'boiler suit' in comparison with 'smart casual' competition, such as Nest thermostat (see Figure)? Is predictive function enough to make it more competitive? What other functions would make it more desirable than the completion? What other things can prediction do for us in other fields?

Contribute

We collect vehicle engine data and GPS to monitor how well a vehicle has been driven, maintained and repaired. Our initial customer is a fleet manager who is responsible for all of the company’s vehicles. He will need to be able to seamlessly visualize the location of all the vehicles, as well as obtain an overview of the fleet performance using certain metrics, for example average speed, fuel efficiency, engine health, etc. We have already built a prototype and an off-the-shelf front-end theme. We would like to collaborate to explore the user experience and user interface further. Please see below for screen shot of the live system as it is now.

Contribute

In the UK, the United States and many other jurisdictions worldwide, legal cases still rely almost exclusively on paper. The result is a paper war which the legal profession is losing.

TrialView™ is a web based platform which enables lawyers and Judges to use their own devices (laptops or tablets) to simultaneously present and follow the documents being discussed at court.

TrialView is looking for collaborators to help improve the web experience, to develop a marketing strategy to penetrate the top law firms and to find a way of ensuring our customers can access our platform from any courtroom in the world.

Help us transform litigation.

Contribute

Commutable are developing a new software model for public transport on buses, which will enable a bus fleet to be run using both dynamic scheduling and dynamic routing. The goal of this project is to improve efficiency and utilisation of a municipal bus operator’s existing fleet by removing the restrictions of fixed routes and schedules, and running the service based on continually-recalculated predicted demand.

We are seeking collaborators to help develop a mathematical simulation of a real-world bus service, to allow us to test the impact of changes to the bus’ routes or timetables. Skills in programming, modelling, algorithms, artificial intelligence and statistics are particularly relevant. Information about each day’s performance is fed back into the system to allow it to improve over time. The simulation will allow us to test various optimisations, and identify knock-on effects and inefficiencies that may result from these changes.

Contribute

Manufacturing SMEs are deemed more waste/energy/emission/labour intensive companies but for a host of reasons are less capable in managing them. SustEnable Consulting Ltd aims to help increase their engagement in sustainability practices by helping them overcome barriers such as price, expertise or even just to supplement staff through a simplified but holistic and systems-based approach. By practicing sustainability initiatives (e.g. carbon, energy, resource, waste, water management, environmental impacts assessment and control, etc.) in the right approach and leveraging on SME’s unique attributes in comparison to their larger counterparts, manufacturing SMEs can expect improved sustainability performance. A preliminary sustainability framework has been developed (through MSc dissertation) in the form of a checklist. Collaborators are needed to help develop it further potentially as a benchmarking tool, to create an interactive interface and to test using the Climate-KIC network. Collaborators could also help with web page and marketing strategies.

Contribute