Do you want to help improve your neighbourhood using technology? Do you want to develop prototypes to help turn people's ideas into reality?

We’re organising a competition sponsored by Kent Connects, Ordnance Survey, Geovation, Lagan and Kent Business School to stimulate collaboration between public services, entrepreneurs and communities to develop innovative ways of using technology to improve your neighbourhoods.

We would like to invite you to a special all day event where you'll compete with others to develop software or visual prototypes to win up to £2000 cash prizes and support to take forward your idea.

1. Sign up to attend the event above
2. Submit your ideas to our competition
3. Tweet about it using the hashtag #transformedbyyou

What type of event is this?

We are bringing people together for a day to develop visual and software prototypes of digital tools that tackle local challenges. If you're curious as to what this means, check out these different events.

How will it work?

In advance of the event, you can submit ideas to our competition and then put forward prototypes that you want to develop on the day. On the day itself, you will be able to choose which prototypes you want to work. If you've put one forward, you're probably going to want to work on that one, but if you haven't put any prototypes forward, you can work with someone on theirs!. The day will be all about developing these prototypes to win the prize of the best prototype for each of the two challenges. 

For more information on what to do before the event, see this post and we'll be blogging more about it here.

See the criteria for each of these challenges and the agenda below

What are we providing?

The venue at Gravesham Council Chambers hosts a main room where you will meet and network and breakout to develop your prototypes. This has a public access wifi internet connection. 

You'll be pleased to hear, we'll provide you with refreshments and lunch, so if you have any special access and dietary requirements, please let us know before 11th November on developing.solutions@gravesham.gov.uk.

You will need to bring a laptop to work on, and please feel free to bring your cameras or camcorders if you want to capture the day!

How can you get to the event?

The venue is located at Gravesham Borough Council Council Chambers at the Civic Centre, Windmill Street, Gravesend DA121AU 01474 564422. See map here. 

If you're coming by car, please see this map and info for where you can park.

If you're coming by train, please see more information about the station, it's a 10 minute walk from our venue, 30 minutes from London on high speed, or 60 minutes on the normal trains.

What's the agenda?

We hope it will be an interesting, exciting and productive day for all of us. The whole event will be interactive and fluid but to help move things along an informal schedule is provided below. 

Who is partnering?

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, such as on open data.

GeoVation is Ordnance Survey’s open innovation network. GeoVation supports challenges that address specific needs within communities, which may be satisfied in part through the use of geography. Which is why we are delighted to sponsor this challenge. We are keen to support ideas and prototypes which make best use of OS OpenData or OS OpenSpace. 

This is another activity in the Kent Connects - Kent Business School relationship portfolio designed in collaboration with KCC colleagues to provide impact using the geographical diversity, relevant public and private sector experience and talent of the Kent MBA students.

Lagan’s Open311 solution is emerging as an interoperable standard for location-based collaborative issue-tracking and is the perfect example of how government can simplify access to citizen services, providing the opportunity for transparency, participation and shared innovation through Open Technology.

Now it's over to you, sign up for the event, and go here to take part in the competition! Any questions, contact us.