North of Tyne accelerator launches with 50 businesses selected to tackle regional issues

Businesses demonstrating impactful ideas to address some of the most pressing problems identified in the region’s economy and communities have been granted funding to bring their solutions to market.

Challenge North Tyne, an £800,000 open innovation project funded by North of Tyne Combined Authority, has announced the 50 businesses selected from over 100 applications to receive £5,000 of initial grant funding, alongside a programme of accelerator support, to develop ideas and collaborate across the cohort.

Jamie Driscoll, elected Metro Mayor for the North of Tyne, said: “We’ve got two big issues here: decarbonising housing and helping people to continue living a full life as they get older. So we’ve made money available to help local businesses with good ideas on how to tackle these challenges. And, from what I’ve seen, they are rising to meet them, head on.”

The programme is delivered in partnership by the North East LEP and Innovation SuperNetwork. Working with ‘challenge supporters’ from across industry, local government and academia, Challenge North Tyne will see solutions developed that will help to ‘deliver energy efficient, low carbon homes’ and ‘support older people at home, work and play.’

The programme will facilitate collaboration between small to medium-sized businesses and larger organisations who are experts in each sector to allow for rapid development and testing of the proposed solutions.

Initial grant funding will be delivered alongside an accelerator programme, spanning across the next six months, which will bring together specialist support from the Innovation SuperNetwork through expertly crafted workshops and one-to-one sessions to give the successful businesses the toolkit they need to quickly turn their idea into real life scalable solutions.

Sarah Cox, innovation challenge programme director at Innovation SuperNetwork, said this about the programme “Challenge North Tyne provides opportunities for organisations and communities to work together in developing and testing needed solutions to some tough problems that we really need to address.”

Working on the ‘Decarbonisation of Homes’ Challenge, Fuzzy Logic is one of the businesses who has been successful in securing the initial round of grant funding. Harvey Trent, director of Fuzzy Logic Studio, said: “As we seek to decarbonise homes in the North East and beyond, there is a pressing need to ensure we have a skilled workforce to meet demand.

“Our focus at Fuzzy Logic Studio is to develop immersive learning tools that bridge the emerging skills gaps. A key part of our project will involve testing our concept with end-users to ensure it has the greatest impact possible.”

Successful in the ‘Supporting Older People at Home, Work and Play’ Challenge, Anthony Blackburn, Founder of Golf in Society, said: “Being a social entrepreneur who focuses on purpose over profit, it can be really challenging to find sustainable ways to deliver services that you know can change lives.

Colin Bell, business, innovation and sector growth director at North East LEP, said: “The businesses selected for the programme are more than up to the challenge of developing new products and services which could help tackle the major issues that the challenge presented.”

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily

• Add me on LinkedIn and Twitter to keep up to date
• And follow Bdaily on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
• Submit press releases to editor@bdaily.co.uk for consideration.

Looking to promote your product/service to SME businesses in your region? Find out how Bdaily can help →