If you’re an ambitious and innovative individual, team or company, CivTech is an outstanding opportunity
The CivTech process
Across Scotland public and third sector organisations have problems they would like solved. With budgets under pressure and rising demand straining services, the need for smart and efficient solutions is ever greater and the public sector is increasingly aware that innovation is a good way to create them.
The Scottish Government is also committed to ensuring that a large part of its tech spend goes to small, innovative businesses.
This is where CivTech comes in.
The CivTech Innovation Flow is designed to create digital solutions to public sector problems as quickly and effectively as possible. For you – whether you’re an individual, team or company – it’s an opportunity to tackle a Challenge, solve it, and win contracts with a blue-chip public sector organisation. You’ll build a product and a business to take it as far as possible because here’s the kicker: the Challenges we issue aren’t ‘single organisation’ problems – most exist worldwide.
There’s a longer explanation of the Innovation Flow below, but in short…
Open Challenges are set. Any organisation, team or individual can respond to them. Applications are assessed, and shortlisted proposals go into an Exploration Stage where they are developed further. The best go through to the Accelerator – four months of intensive work to create the solution. And through CivTech’s unique business workshop system, a business capable of taking the emerging product to the world is created.
If you have any questions please contact us.
The six stages of our Innovation Flow
1. Challenge Definition
CivTech works with organisations across Scotland to turn problems into Challenges: defining the problem (but not the solution!), helping the organisations become comfortable with the procurement models we use, and how the Innovation Flow works.
A Challenge is simply a problem which a public sector organisation would like solved. The Challenge Sponsor — the organisation setting the problem — will pose the Challenge as an open question (can you find a solution to this problem?) rather than target a pre-determined solution (we have this problem and we want you to build this answer!). This way a Challenge can stimulate the innovative power of the nation, finding potential solutions to seemingly impossible problems.
Challenges will be specific. We’re not talking about huge infrastructure projects that require vast teams and millions of pounds to address. Instead, we’re talking about things that, with ingenuity and innovation, can make a real and positive improvements to the delivery of a public service, and so to people’s lives. And it’ll be specific to one part of the public sector, and more than likely one public sector organisation. So the challenge will be focused, a clear goal, and there’ll be expert input readily available. But we’ve also worked hard to ensure that while the Challenge Sponsor might be one organisation, the problem is a general one. So a successful solution will have a much wider potential market which, given the insight and learning you’ll gain on the programme, you’ll be ready to take on.
2. Challenge Launch and Selection
Challenges are released and proposals invited. It’s an open process with as few limitations as possible. And it’s universal, in the sense that anyone can apply.
Together, the CivTech team and Challenge Sponsors assess every application. We’ll select up to six written applications per Challenge to go through to interview for one of three places on the Exploration Stage.
With the Challenges published with full background documentation, submissions will be possible during the Application Window.
Anyone can apply, from anywhere. You could be an existing company with a team and a product that is ready to be repurposed to answer the challenge. Or a group of graduates with a great demo. Or a digital team that’s looking for a great idea to get involved with. Or even the reverse — an individual with no digital background but with real insight into the challenge and a cracking idea but can put together a great support team.
3. Exploration Stage
Three intensive weeks for the selected teams to further develop their proposal hand-in-hand with their Challenge Sponsor, and for everyone to learn more about each other. Teams get paid for this stage and it ends with final pitches. Winning teams are invited onto the Accelerator Stage.
We will also be running a number of workshops which you will be expected to attend. At the end of the Exploration Stage, teams will make a formal pitch. See below for the key principles, though to participate you must sign the full terms and conditions of the Exploration stage.
Exploration stage key principles:
Duration: 3 weeks (2 weeks if you’re participating in a Sprint Challenge)
Location: All core Exploration Stage activities will take place online. For some Challenges it may be appropriate or necessary for teams to visit Challenge Sponsors’ facilities or other locations relevant to the Challenge
Payment: £5000 (plus VAT if applicable) per team
Teams do not have to be formal companies — Challenge Sponsors will pay a nominated person
Intellectual Property must be assigned to an entity of Participants' choosing in order reduce scope for disputes later
4. Accelerator Stage
The Accelerator Stage (or Development Stage if you’re participating in a Sprint Challenge) is an intense period of fast-track product development that sits at the heart of the CivTech Innovation Flow. Teams and Challenge Sponsors come together to produce an MVP: a Minimum Viable Product that both works and is capable of further development.
There’s a focus on collaborative working, and sharing knowledge and experience to stimulate innovation and maximise cross-pollination of ideas. We’re big on business development and our comprehensive workshop system means that all teams — whatever stage they’re at — have the best possible grounding with which to take their products forward.
Each team completing the Accelerator will receive £30,000 (exc. VAT), with no hidden charges, and no equity or IP stakes being taken.
Designed by people with extensive experience of start-ups, incubation, growth and accelerators, it’ll have everything you need to succeed. Our workshop programme will cover everything you need to know about starting up and growing a tech business as fast and as successfully as possible. The programme is highly flexible too — so whether you’re a compete beginner in terms of business, or an established SME with a new product idea or a product that can be re-engineered, you’ll find a fit with everything going on.
The CivTech Accelerator will also prepare you for working with and winning business from the public sector. With wide ranging experience of both the public and private sectors on hand, and deep understanding of how best to work at their intersection, the CivTech Accelerator represents perhaps the most powerful route into a huge, previously hard to enter sector.
Accelerator stage key principles:
Duration: 15 weeks (15 week scheduled programme plus two week Christmas / New Year break) or 12 weeks if you’re participating in a Sprint Challenge
Location: It is expected that all core CivTech Accelerator activities will take place online and workshops will be delivered remotely, although some activities may take place in-person (e.g. Accelerator Launch, Networking sessions). For some Challenges it will be appropriate or necessary for teams to visit Challenge Sponsors’ facilities or other locations relevant to the Challenge
Workshops: Compulsory (unless otherwise agreed)
Payment: £30,000 (plus VAT if applicable) per team
Teams must be formal companies — we strongly recommend seeking legal advice and being prepared for this stage so that payment can be made promptly to a business bank account if participants have formed/are planning to form a new company
Intellectual Property: this will reside with the participant company
Equity: neither CivTech nor the Challenge Sponsors will take any equity in your company
5. Demo Day
The CivTech Accelerator culminates in a Demo Day — but it’s one with a difference.
Whereas most tech accelerator demo days are about teams demonstrating their products (often without market validation) and seeking investment, the CivTech Demo Day is about demonstrating solutions to an audience of genuinely interested people. Remember, each and every product presented is an answer to a problem the public sector has, and we’ve found that if one organisation has this kind of issue, it’s almost certain to be shared by many more… who are more than likely to be in the audience, from public sector organisations, the third sector, and the private sector — including early stage investors.
Not only that, but CivTech teams with successful MVPs will already be on their way to a further, larger contract with their Challenge Sponsor, as this is an integrated part of the Innovation Flow. This means that the investors in the room will be looking at MVPs with teams capable of driving them forward as businesses, and a major, blue-chip client already secured. All of which makes an attractive proposition!
6. Pre-Commercialisation stage
In the post Post-Accelerator Stage you’ll have the opportunity to extend your relationship with your Challenge Sponsors, to further develop the solution and roll it out. Once the product is commercially viable, the Challenge Sponsor will receive an in-perpetuity royalty free licence. Essentially, they will have given companies the best leg-up possible so further funding for post-commercial development will come from other clients. Experience has taught us that this is just the start — many of the teams that have gone through the Innovation Flow are winning contracts from both the wider public sector, and the private sector, based on the work they do with us.
In the private sector environment, it’s pretty normal for companies emerging from an accelerator to look to grow and build from their initial customer base as fast and effectively as possible. If the business is genuinely capable of scaling, a number of things will happen relatively fast: turnover will grow, staff numbers will increase, expertise in terms of mentors and advisors will be brought in to further fuel that growth, and investment will be raised. New versions of the product will be developed and sold. New services and products will also be developed and taken to market. It may form alliances with major corporations and other organisations. And its reach will spread nationally, across Europe, and into international markets.
With a great product, and that vital first customer, we firmly believe businesses coming out of the CivTech Innovation Flow have the potential to follow the same trajectory. And this is where Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Investment Bank and other support channels will get involved, to help to drive the businesses forward – to their benefit, the citizens’, and the nation's.
The purpose of the Pre-Commercial Agreement is to enable you to further develop your product following the Accelerator / Development Stage, to take it from MVP to a commercially viable product. If all parties agree to enter into a pre-commercial agreement, you will be expected to submit a project plan and proposal for Pre-Commercial Stage work (including costs, duration and deliverables) that will then be discussed and negotiated between yourself, the Challenge Sponsor(s) and CivTech.
Pre-Commercial stage key principles:
Payment: further contracts can be negotiated up to a total value of £210,000 or £610,000 (plus VAT if applicable) per team (depending on whether your Challenge was advertised on Public Contracts Scotland with a value of up to £250,000 or up to £650,000.)
Intellectual Property: will reside with the participating company
Equity: Challenge Sponsors will take no equity
Licensing: post-commercial deployment the Challenge Sponsor is entitled to a royalty-free licence
Duration: negotiated with Challenge Sponsor
Location: your choice
