WIREDGOV

Budding developers, entrepreneurs and community groups now have less than a month to enter their ideas into the GeoVation Awards Programme for the chance to win part of a £21,000 development fund.

GeoVation, the Ordnance Survey supported community aiming to promote innovative uses of geography, launched its competition in October by asking people to think of how mapping could help address some of the world’s big challenges. Since then over 300 people have joined, more than 100 individual ideas have been posted and 33 ventures launched.

John Abbott, GeoVation Champion, comments: “GeoVation is about releasing people’s untapped creativity, and we’ve been very impressed with the quality and diversity of the contributions so far. We are looking forward to even more great ventures before the closing date on 4 January.”

The competition is seeking ideas that benefit society, the economy or the environment; although it is open to good entries on any subject. Among those already submitted are an interactive map of how Britain could look in 2050 based on current climate change models, an application that would help wheelchair users plot safe routes and a map of regional dialects. Abbott adds: “The range of the ideas submitted is huge and goes to illustrate how powerful and useful geography can be.”

The best entries submitted by the closing date will be selected to pitch their ideas at a showcase event hosted at the Royal Geographical Society in London on 26 January. The judges on the day will be Steve Coast, the founder of crowd-source mapping project OpenStreetMap; James Alexander, CEO of Green Thing, the online service that encourages people to lead greener lives; James Cutler, CEO of eMapSite; and Gary Gale, Director of Geo-Engineering at Yahoo!.

On his position as one of the GeoVation judges, Gary Gale comments: “This is a welcome and significant attempt to bridge the gap between the technology community, who know location so well, and the innovator community, who can benefit so much from using location technology but just don't know it yet."

The cash will be awarded to four winning entries, with £10,000 to the outright winner and two prizes of £5,000 for the runners-up. A community award, as voted by the audience, will receive £1,000. All the money will go towards developing the ideas.

Visit https://challenge.geovation.org.uk/ for more information and to enter the Awards Programme.

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