Innovation

Mayor of London to harness the power of innovators and start-ups

Written by Tim Coulthard | Mar 18, 2021 4:00:00 PM

The Mayor of London’s latest open innovation challenge programme aims to harness the power of innovators and start-ups to power the city’s post-Covid recovery.

The Designing London’s Recovery project sees the GLA partnering with the Design Council and the London Office for Technology and Innovation (LOTI) to attract and support design-led approaches to the city’s recovery.

It aims to support London’s recovery by addressing a range of social, economic and environmental improvements such as reducing unemployment, tackling health inequality,  accelerating a greener, cleaner city and creating new opportunities for young people.

Three different briefs have been launched, inviting submissions from collaborative teams, start-ups and agencies:

  1. Helping Londoners to do good work

  2. Building strong communities

  3. A green new deal and high streets for all

With a focus on user-centric solutions, the programme has already run a series of co-design workshops with communities, local authorities and businesses to identify the priorities and guidelines for the projects, which include:

  • Putting Londoners at the centre: The lived experience, aspirations and skills of Londoners will drive ideas.

  • Building on what works: Collaborating with, rather than duplicating, existing programmes and initiatives.

  • Creating connections: Building new relationships across and beyond the city.

  • Being radical and sustainable: Prepared to take risks and deploy prototypes to create radical solutions.

  • Systems thinking: Taking a holistic, collaborative view of solutions.

  • Shifting power: Putting control in the hands of users and organisations closest to the issue.

The closing date for initial expressions of interest is midday on 15 June 2021.