Kent Connects Competition Kent Connects1 is developing a new approach of working with digital entrepreneurs to develop ideas and

prototypes of ICT solutions to local needs. This will include a competition building up to a developer day event. What are the benefits? This will provide the Kent Connects Partner organisations, including KCC with: o ideas and prototypes that be used as applied research to inform development of projects and services o methods of engagement and access to digital entrepreneurs to explore opportunities for future collaboration and joint development of solutions This reflects the opportunities outlined in the Government ICT Strategy2: o using agile project development in an accelerated way scanning the horizon o through entrepreneurs to identify changes in technology o providing a channel for entrepreneurs to participate in ICT with solutions This would build on the successful and productive relationships built with the local and national digital community through work with Transformed by You and with key partners such as the University of Kent and Kent Business School. What is the rationale? With the financial constraints we face, local councils need to explore more agile and efficient ways of making use of ICT. At the same time, there is a massive opportunity to open up the development of ideas and solutions to entrepreneurs, universities and colleges who have the specialist expertise on whats technically feasible. We also know public services need to adapt to the changing trends in how people use technology and what tools they use. Many technologies that were only recently being used by a few are now increasingly being adopted by the mainstream. How are we making sure the benefits will be realised? To ensure that the digital entrepreneurs produce ideas and prototypes that be used as applied research to inform development of your projects and services, we have designed an approach that will o put forward challenges that are relevant to the public (see Challenges section) and where we can provide ICT assets to developers to use o engage the public to suggest and rate ideas on how ICT could be used to tackle those challenges in advance of the event o select the most highly rated ideas to be developed into prototypes o define the specification to provide to developers so that they can develop prototypes that could work with partners internal systems
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Kent Connects is the lead technology partnership for Kent and Medway. It has invested in a single, county wide infrastructure to enable its partners to join up and share their services delivery mechanisms in a secure, robust and cost effective environment. The partnership also facilitates partner projects by providing advice and sharing best practice and resources. 2 http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/content/government-ict-strategy

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enable representatives of the Kent Connects Strategic Board to judge the prototypes that best tackle the challenges feed in the ideas and prototypes into R&D for Kent Connects

To ensure we test out effective methods of engagement and access to digital entrepreneurs to explore opportunities for future collaboration & joint development of solutions, we have o worked with existing local3 and national4 networks to identify and invite entrepreneurs to take part o provide a competitive element by giving awards to the best ideas and prototypes developed (sponsored o partnered with Cabinet Office to launch the first ever local government challenge on the new competition platform http://dotgovlabs.direct.gov.uk o used the competition as a platform to understand how to involve them in the development of ideas & solutions through Kent Connects5 in the future What are we asking people to do? Do you have an idea on how to make your local area a better place to live using ICT? Do you want to win the chance for your idea to be turned into reality? Were organising a competition to stimulate collaboration between public services, entrepreneurs and communities to develop innovative ways of using technology to improve their neighbourhoodsand we need your ideas! To submit your idea For more information https://dotgovlabs.direct.gov.uk/Page/Challenges and select the Transformed by You Challenge www.openkent.org.uk/competition

How will the competition work? Activities Dates

People will be able to submit and rate 16 September-16 October ideas online on how technology could help improve their neighbourhoods Delegates will be able to enter ideas on a 16 September paper form at the Kent Connects Conference to be added online People invited by Turner Contemporary 27 September and TBC and Tomorrows People will be able to develop their ideas at workshops hosted by those organisations to be added online Students will be able to develop their 28 September and 11 October ideas at workshops hosted by Mid Kent College and Thanet College to be added
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Community Action Network, Kent Association for Young Entrepreneurs, Kent Literacy & Reading Forum and Voluntary Action Maidstone as well as 80 university/college lecturers and 60 local digital businesses 4 Innovation Leadership Forum, Social Enterprise London, Total Place/Community Budgets Network, Transition Institute, Urban Forum, Womens Entrepreneurs Network as well as 60 digital groups 5 Building on the objectives of the Kent Connects Governance Model 2011 that Suppliers will provide services, research and innovate to deliver continuous improvement and new opportunities to the partnership and engaging with service development units amongst the partner organisations

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Winners of the best idea of each of the two challenges will be announced

25 October

Digital entrepreneurs will be able to submit 25 October-24 November and rate prototypes they want to develop that build on the top ideas on the Challenges Digital entrepreneurs will develop their 25 November prototypes at an event hosted at Gravesend with others to try and win the competition Winners will be able to develop their W/C 6 February prototypes into business propositions at a workshop hosted by Kent Business School What are the challenges? There are two challenges people can submit their idea to on how the use of digital technology can 1. Help people help each other in your neighbourhood There are many opportunities for how the use of technology could improve peoples neighbourhood, whether it's to help people find a voice, share skills for a good cause, or even organise community cleanups. 2. Make it easier for you to report issues to your council There are many ways that technology is being used for people to report issues, whether it's reporting a pothole that needs fixing, texting in a photo of waste on the street or sharing your experience with frontline staff. And that information can be used in really creative ways. But there are issues which people cant report easily. How do people come up with an idea? People might have seen something that uses technology in a really creative way. Well be encouraging them through the online platform to think about how these new ways of using ICT could help improve their neighbourhood or public services. What we're looking for is how the idea would meet either of the two Challenges and how it would use ICT. It can be any kind of technology that can be used on the web, a personal computer, a mobile handheld device, console, SMS, or any software platform broadly available to the public. People dont need to be experts in technology to put forward ideas. We are organising workshops with Mid Kent College, Thanet College, Tomorrows People and Turner Contemporary to stimulate ideas by their users on the Challenges.

How do people come up with prototypes? Local public services also have ICT assets that could be re-used by entrepreneurs. There are amazing opportunities for open data to be used. You can see what people have already created using the data from Open Kent here. Competitions organised across the world have shown how effective they are at illustrating the opportunities it can offer to the public. You can see a selection of them here. We know that open data is a very new area for the public. Most people will never have heard of open data, let alone used it to create visualisations. Others however may have used tools to turn data into new web applications. They are also using APIs from customer relationship management systems in a similar way. Thats why we want to stimulate use of open data by encouraging technology innovators to use datasets to turn the publics ideas into new ways of using technology. Thats why after the competition for submitting ideas has closed, people with skills in developing and designing ICT applications will be invited to put forward prototypes to the top ideas from the either of the two Challenges. The technical criteria they will have if they choose o o Challenge 1: Help people help each other in your neighbourhood, they will be asked to use OS Open Data. Challenge 2: Make it easier for you to report issues to your council, they will be asked to use the Lagan Open 311 Integration Toolkit

They will have a month to come up with what the prototypes would look like and how they would work. They would then be invited to an event hosted at Gravesham Council where they can develop the prototypes with others on the 25th November. What are the prizes for the competition? Kent Connects will be offering 500 to the winners of the best idea and 1000 for the winners of the best prototype of each of the Challenges. These prizes are jointly sponsored by Kent Connects and Ordnance Survey. The winners of the best idea & prototype for both challenges will also be invited to test their idea and develop a business proposition at two special workshops. The User Testing Workshop will be hosted by Tunbridge Wells Council bringing together a selection of users of their services to test out the winning prototypes. The winners will also be invited to gain vital feedback on how to improve usability. The Prototype to Proposition Workshop will be hosted by Kent Business School where a cohort of its MBA students will work with entrepreneurs on developing a business proposition that will help them take their prototypes to market. How will the prototypes be judged? Submission questions Whats the name of your prototype? Judging Criteria Evidence of creativity

What idea/s are you developing your prototype on How are you going to develop it?

Evidence of prototype building on one or more of the ideas put forward in the Developer Day Ideas Competition Evidence that the prototype can be used by a member of the public Evidence of use of OS Open Data

For Challenge 1: How are you using the open data? For Challenge 2: How are you making service requests to the CRM?

Evidence of use of Lagan Open 311 Integration Toolkit

What tools and techniques are you going Evidence of ability to use tools and to use to develop it? techniques in an innovative way and that are accessible to all How would you take your idea forward? Evidence of ability to engage people to use the prototype and sponsors to fund its development

These will be judged by a representative from Kent Connects and Ordnance Survey. Other judges will be selected from Kent Connects Partners in due course. What if peoples ideas/prototypes are not selected? People who submit ideas that are not selected to go forward to the next stage of the competition can continue to work on them in the Dot Gov Labs space. This applies to prototypes that have been put forward too. What is Dot Gov Labs? Dot Gov Labs is an online innovation competition platform which has over 1700 entrepreneurs, developers and users of public services. Public service agencies (so far including DWP, NHS and Cabinet Office) put forward challenges they require ICT solutions to and people are invited to submit ideas to these. Each challenge will have different criteria and prizes, but runs through the same process. Dot Gov Labs is a HM Skunkworks programme run by the new Government Digital Service. The GDS is responsible for ensuring that there are appropriate forms of support for people who cant access or use digital services, improving the way citizens can interact with government online, freeing up information and facilitating the use of new tools, as well as accrediting third party identity to facilitate digital transactions. These include projects such as DirectGov and the ePetitions website. The Kent Connects Competition will be the first time a local public service has launched a challenge. Who are the sponsors? As well as Kent Connects, Kent Business School and Ordnance Survey sponsoring as mentioned above, Lagan will also be sponsoring by providing use of their Open 311 Integration Toolkit to developers until 25 November).

Whos eligible to participate? This competition is open to any UK resident. To facilitate the free exchange of ideas, all visualizations and other contributions you make to this challenge will be covered under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.