Brainwave

THE CHALLENGE

Peter­bor­ough, like many cit­ies, is full of entre­pren­eur­i­al, tal­en­ted people and busi­nesses, burst­ing with great ideas. We felt that by encour­aging dif­fer­ent approaches from people not gen­er­ally exposed to some of these chal­lenges, dif­fer­ent ways of think­ing could be cap­tured.

But how do you reach a wide and diverse audi­ence, across dif­fer­ent sec­tors, age groups and geo­graph­ic­al gound­ar­ies?

THE SOLUTION

Brain­wave Innov­a­tions was a free, open, online plat­form where entre­pren­eurs, res­id­ents and com­munit­ies could share, develop and dis­cuss ideas that help to tackle city and busi­ness chal­lenges. Chal­lenges could be pos­ted and solu­tions sug­ges­ted.

THE RESULTS

Peter­bor­ough Reuse is an excel­lent example of the value of the portal and con­nect­ing chal­lenges with good ideas. Two city entre­pren­eurs, Pav Patel and Gary Graves, spot­ted a chal­lenge by loc­al cof­fee man­u­fac­turer Mas­teroast who was look­ing for another use for its empty cof­fee sacks, rather than send­ing them to land­fill. Peter­bor­ough Reuse now take the cof­fee sacks and repur­pose them into shop­ping and beach bags. To date, six­ty loc­al women have been trained and are employed on a part-time basis to pro­duce the bags.