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Blog posted by: Nick Tait, 17 May 2018 – Categories: GovTech.

The first GovTech Fund competition is open for applications

At Sprint 18 last week, Oliver Dowden MP CBE, Minister for Implementation, launched the first competition of the £20 million GovTech Fund.

The competition, which will aim to address the Home Office’s ‘Daesh’ challenge, is now open for applications. You will find details of how to apply below.

What is the GovTech Fund?

The fund, which was launched in November 2017, helps private sector innovators tackle public sector problems.

In the first call for challenges, the GovTech Catalyst team received 51 submissions from across government departments and local authorities. You can read the full list here.

The winning companies will be awarded up to £50,000 to develop their ideas, with a further £500,000 available to continue development and test solutions. The money for 15 challenges will be available over 3 years.

The first competition: the Home Office’s ‘Daesh’ challenge

Terrorist group Daesh uses both video and still imagery to recruit and radicalise people online. So far, the Home Office has been very good at identifying the video with up to 99.995% accuracy, but hasn’t been able to achieve that with still images.

And with 80% of Daesh propaganda being still media, it’s imperative to solve this issue.

We know we need help from the outside –  from private, innovative tech companies who are able to offer new technological solutions to public sector issues – to solve this and similar challenges.  

That is why the GovTech Fund was set up.

Speaking at Sprint 18, GDS’s flagship event, Oliver Dowden said:

Now that the GovTech Fund, the first of its kind, is active, I am excited to see the difference it is going to make in stimulating this emerging market: helping both the public sector – by solving problems across organisations – and the private sector – by helping innovative companies develop their offers.

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