Brainwave
Matching great ideas to city challengesTHE 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.