South London Partnership and Kingston University partner to bring innovation to public services

South London Partnership-endorsed student competition calls for ‘Internet of Things’ solutions that will improve the lives of people in south west London.

13th January 2020

The InnOvaTe Project, delivered in partnership with five South London boroughs, is sponsoring an ‘Internet of Things’ category in Kingston University’s annual Bright Ideas competition. The competition will ask students to develop an idea which will improve transport, health or environmental sustainability. A prize of £1,000 will be awarded to the winning idea.

The InnOvaTe project is already working with businesses, partners and council service leads across South London to identify solutions which use IoT to support sustainable economic growth.

The project is funded from the Strategic Investment Pot (SIP) as part of the London Councils Business Rates Retention scheme administered by the City of London Corporation.

Amanda Baker, Programme Manager at Kingston University said: 

“It is excellent news that the students of Kingston will be participating in the InnOvaTe South London project.”

“Collaborative working between universities and local government provides students with the opportunity to showcase their digital expertise by solving real-world initiatives through practice-based teaching.”

Cllr Ruth Dombey, Leader of Sutton Council, said:

“We’re delighted to be leading the InnOvaTe project on behalf of our neighbouring boroughs in the South London Partnership. This funding enables us to explore ways in which we can harness technology to improve our boroughs for the people, organisations and businesses who live and work in them.

“We have developed a great relationship with Kingston University and this initiative is a fantastic opportunity to put students’ creativity and entrepreneurial acumen to the test to come up with innovative IoT solutions to deliver economic growth and improve public services.

“We’re really excited to see what bright ideas students have to showcase”.

Notes to editors

For more information, email pressoffice@sutton.gov.uk

The InnovaTe Project:

South London Partnership is working with London Councils to deliver an exciting and innovative “Internet of Things” (IoT) project across the five south London Councils of Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Richmond upon Thames and Sutton.

This initiative is funded by the Strategic Investment Pot (SIP) as part of the London Councils Business Rates Retention scheme which is administered by the City of London Corporation, and hopes to improve people’s lives through the delivery of a multi-purpose Internet of Things (IoT) platform, which will connect various sensors across borough boundaries.

Partnering with Digital Catapult and Kingston University, we will be conducting a number of pilots over the next 3 years to inform possible future adoption of this new technology at a much larger scale.

About Kingston University’s Bright Ideas Competition:

Bright Ideas is Kingston University’s annual ideas competition open to Kingston University students as well as recent graduates and is run by the Enterprise Education team. It gives students the opportunity to develop an idea, have it evaluated, win a prize, and join the incubation system. The competition also gives students an opportunity to develop their CV and their employability skills.

Students don’t need any prior business experience to enter Bright Ideas, it’s open to all Kingston University students from any course and level, and graduates from the previous academic year. The only requirements are open mindedness, creativity and enthusiasm!

To find out more about the competition visit: kingston.ac.uk/enterprise-education/