Geovation Conference to focus on ‘Greener, Smarter Communities’

‘Building Greener, Smarter Communities’ will be the focus of the first-ever Geovation Conference on Friday 16 February

Designer Wayne Hemingway is the keynote speaker at the event, which takes place at the Royal Geographical Society in London and involves leaders, pioneers, start-ups, investors, sponsors, exhibitors, designers and location data experts across public, private, third sector and academia.

Wayne said: “I am eager to be part of this conversation influencing the building of smarter, greener cities and communities.

“Problems around health and wellbeing, sustainable living, local economies and our natural environments can be tackled positively by challenging the way things are done.

“Design is about improving the things that matter in life and if we can think globally, act locally and scale sustainably, using the power of geographical data, significant steps can be taken quickly.”

Ten winning start-up teams will spend both days prior to the conference working with experts in different fields to refine and sharpen their start-up ideas as they pitch for a share of a £185,000 venture capital fund.

Geovation co-creator Chris Parker said: “Building sustainable and resilient communities requires tackling old problems in new ways.

“To be successful, new solutions have to work across silos and across sectors and be done openly in a collaborative manner.

“Start-ups need to make use of rapidly developing technology and design-thinking, and since everything happens somewhere, geo-spatial data is an important part of that.

“Each year we try and improve on the challenge based on feedback from the year before, and this time we have added a major conference at the end of the event.

“By packing a room full of people who already pioneer or fund innovative green initiatives, it gives our start-ups the chance to test the viability of their ideas, make contacts and understand what it takes to launch or scale their ideas.

Ten Winning Start-Ups:

• Be Plastic Clever
• Community Friends Walks (Norfolk)
• OASIS – Flowers for Life (Nottinghamshire)
• FoodSpot
• Geo-locating Plastic Pollution (Croydon)
• Portable Ecosystems
• Neighbourhood + Eating = Neat
• OFFiGO (Blackpool)
• The Happy Crocodile
• WareHAUS