Member Article

Shaping London’s future: Mayor’s Resilience Fund Winners Announced

The Mayor of London, in partnership with Nesta Challenges, has announced the winners of the Mayor’s Resilience Fund, a £1 million innovation programme set up to support London’s businesses and community groups to emerge stronger from COVID-19 and to ensure the capital is prepared for future disruptive challenges.

The winners were declared at the Mayor’s Resilience Fund Awards Ceremony, which convened major London city leaders, representatives from each of the start-ups, as well as a range of experts, including Nicola Mathers, Chief Executive of Future of London, and Rikesh Shah, Head of Commercial Innovation at Transport for London, who shared their views about London’s prospects and opportunities.

The Mayor of London identified the ten challenges by working closely with local authorities, public agencies, social enterprises, and community groups across the capital (collectively identified as Resilience Partners). These problems were then put to the city’s greatest innovators, who were challenged to use new technologies and creative ways to solve them.

One such challenge was The Activating High Streets Challenge, jointly presented by Ealing Council, the Ealing High Streets Taskforce, and West London Business, seeking solutions that use data to activate vacant properties on high streets and support London’s recovery from COVID-19.

The London Town Centre Health Check in 2017 revealed high vacancy rates in some of Ealing’s Town Centres, long-term trends which will likely be exacerbated by current economic conditions. With over 3,000 creative enterprises in the Ealing borough, there is an opportunity to support these enterprises whilst reactivating vacant units to facilitate the recovery of our high streets.

The winning solution, Sqwyre by Whythawk, is a commercial location database supporting research into business properties and contributing to reducing vacancy rates.

This solution will present opportunities to act strategically to secure better results for occupiers, landlords, high streets and neighbourhoods.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Julia Tsavellas .