Peterborough Innovation Week success

Peter­bor­ough DNA ran its first Innov­a­tion Week from Sat­urday 8^th–Sat­urday 15^th Novem­ber with a num­ber of events for loc­al people, schools and busi­nesses to get involved in to encour­age cre­at­ive think­ing and to help get good ideas off the ground.

Children’s Uni­ver­sity

The week kicked off with the Children’s Uni­ver­sity on Sat­urday 8^th Novem­ber, where 50 chil­dren from across the city learned how to become Envir­on­ment Super Her­oes and encour­age sus­tain­ab­il­ity with­in the city.

Break­through Think­ing Work­shop

Wed­nes­day 12^th Novem­ber saw the final install­ment of the Break­through Think­ing work­shops, facil­it­ated by Dr. Dav­id Hall, founder of Peter­bor­ough Ideas Centre. Thirty busi­nesses, com­munit­ies, schools, pub­lic sec­tor rep­res­ent­at­ives and not-for-profit organ­isa­tions came togeth­er to think dif­fer­ently about loc­al chal­lenges. The work­shops were held as part of DNA’s Brain­wave Innov­a­tions pro­ject, which matches innov­at­ive solu­tions to city chal­lenges. If you have an innov­at­ive busi­ness idea to improve the city, find out about Brainwave’s fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies at Brain­wave Innov­a­tions.

Smart Sup­per

On Thursday 13^th Novem­ber, an audi­ence of over 50 loc­al busi­nesses and city lead­ers heard from six teams of stu­dents from loc­al schools as they pitched their busi­ness ideas on how to encour­age sus­tain­able travel with­in Peter­bor­ough. The win­ning team, Green Days, received £250 to help launch their con­cept. Jes­sica Dix­on-Walker, a mem­ber of Green Days from Hamp­ton Col­lege said: “Our idea is an iPhone app called Sus­tain A Step, which lets people earn points for trav­el­ling in sus­tain­able ways such as walk­ing and cyc­ling. When someone earns enough points they can exchange them for retail vouch­ers. We really enjoyed the Smart Sup­per event and we can’t wait to start design­ing our new app”. Uni­ver­sity Centre Peter­bor­ough (UCP) will now be work­ing along­side the stu­dents to bring their busi­ness idea to life. Oth­er ideas put for­ward includ­ing a ‘walk­ing bus’ and a sus­tain­able bike rack. Travelchoice in Peter­bor­ough were so impressed by the stu­dents they donated £100 to every team to help launch their busi­ness con­cept.

Open City Hack­a­thon

Innov­a­tion Week con­cluded with Peterborough’s first 24-hour hack­a­thon which star­ted on Fri­day 14^th Novem­ber, where developers, design­ers, pho­to­graph­ers and user exper­i­ence pro­fes­sion­als col­lab­or­ated to cre­ate con­tent for the inter­act­ive screen that will be installed on Long Cause­way in the City Centre next year. The event was run in part­ner­ship with BGL Group’s com­parethemar­ket and Peter­bor­ough DNA’s Open City pro­ject. Mem­bers of the pub­lic were wel­comed into the cathedral’s Beck­et Chapel, and a num­ber of city lead­ers such as Cllr Mar­co Cer­este, Cllr Chris Harper and Cllr Nigel North popped in to see the team in action.

DNA Pro­gram­me Dir­ect­or and Act­ing Chief Exec­ut­ive of Oppor­tun­ity Peter­bor­ough, Steve Bow­yer said, “Peter­bor­ough DNA is all about shap­ing a smarter, more sus­tain­able city, and cam­paigns like Innov­a­tion Week prove that many of the answers lie with our loc­al com­munit­ies and busi­nesses. We’d like to say a big thank you to every­one who got involved with Innov­a­tion Week and helped sup­port the events. We look for­ward to more pro­jects like this that har­ness loc­al people’s cre­ativ­ity and help make Peter­bor­ough a bet­ter place for every­one to live and work.”