Engine Shed Enables Collaboration with Four Partners to Form ‘Super Project’

  • Engine Shed’s ‘Call for Ideas’ project drew to a close on Tuesday evening with a pitching event
  • The pitching event saw eight shortlisted applicants pitch their ideas to a full-house
  • Four ‘winning’ applicants have been chosen to form a ‘super project’

On Tuesday 10th October, the eight shortlisted projects were presented to a full house at Engine Shed’s ‘Ideas to Pitch’ event. The team are now pleased to announce that four of those eight have been invited to work together on a ‘super project’.

The Engine Shed team and judging panel took feedback and questions from the ‘Ideas to Pitch’ audience, and combined with the detailed applications from the eight shortlisted projects, decided that the four-way ‘super project’ would be the ultimate way to deliver its mission of stimulating long-term, sustainable, and inclusive economic growth across the West of England.

The selected partners are:

  • Boomsatsuma’s “Engine Shed on Tour”, a bus fitted with computer and film making equipment with a focus around building awareness of careers in the creative, digital and high-tech sectors
  • DigiLocal, who will work with industry specialists to develop high quality project resources to excite young people about tech
  • Eidos and Babbasa’s “Maths Hackers”, whose workshops make maths exciting, and build on other 21st Century skills like collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity, and resilience
  • Cognitive Paths’ “Young Genius” which will “bring high-tech to the street corners” by increasing awareness of opportunities and skills by delivering exciting product development workshops in community settings.

Between them, the winners will receive up to £18,000 cash and in-kind support from Engine Shed’s Enterprise Fund, and the elements of the original applications will be taken on to form the ‘super project’.

On the night, Young Genius won the “People’s Choice” award of £500 to further their research into the opportunity, winning 26% of the audience’s votes.

Digilocal’s John Bradford said:

“It’s an exciting development for DigiLocal to be working with new partners in supporting our community based tech clubs for kids. The trust that Engine Shed has developed as a hub for innovation will provide a great model in building this new phase for DigiLocal.”

The detail and working arrangements of the new partnership will be finalised over the next month, with a view to starting in January 2018.

Are you passionate about inclusive economic growth? Want to be involved in the Engine Shed ‘super project’? We’d love to hear from potential sponsors who can help us build on this partnership, and create the scale it needs to become as impactful as possible.