A CivTech 7 Exploration Stage update
So the Challenges have been set, the successful teams selected and we are excited now to have reached the third stage of the CivTech Innovation Flow, the Exploration Stage!
This is an opportunity for the selected teams to work hand-in-hand with their Challenge Sponsor, a chance for everyone to find out a little bit more about each other. For the next three weeks, teams have the chance to further develop their proposals and prepare for the final pitch.
We’re running a series of workshops during this time. The teams have already been introduced to Design Sprints, an approach developed by Google to rapidly develop and validate ideas. We were delighted to welcome Korero’s Andy Irvine, former head of UX at FreeAgent, to deliver that workshop.
We’ve also had a session led by Kevin White, Head of Accessibility at the Scottish Government, who ran the teams through the basics of user-led design and accessibility, and an opportunity to meet with companies and Challenge Sponsors who’ve successfully completed the CivTech programme — and pick up some invaluable tips on the best way to tackle the Exploration Stage.
And on Friday, all teams had the opportunity for a 30 minute one-to-one session with Interface, which has connections into all Scotland’s universities, research institutes and colleges and can provide access to their academic expertise, technologies and talent.
This Tuesday, 23rd August, the Scottish Digital Academy will lead a presentation designed to explore the connections between a product idea and the long-term vision, and the following day there will be an opportunity for teams to meet a range of experts from Scottish Enterprise, our finance partners, Azets, and legal firm, MBM Commercial.
Thursday the 25th is a chance for some informal networking at Codebase in Edinburgh and next week, on the 31st, Maryanne Johnston, a leading expert in public speaking coaching, will be giving the hopeful teams some top tips on how to structure their final presentations and get their key messages across.
Friday September 2nd is the final deadline for resubmissions so just under two weeks to go until the teams take part in a final pitch/interview session — both of which will be used to select the one proposed solution per Challenge that will be taken through to the Accelerator Stage.
It is a very exciting (and very busy!) time at CivTech and we wish all the teams who are participating the very best of luck!