The second in our innovator briefing series will present the Made Smarter Technology Accelerator and our Industry Challenge Owners from seven leading UK industrial companies and manufacturers: Babcock International Group, BAE Systems, GAF, Northumbrian Water Group (NWG), O’Neills Irish International Sports Company Limited, Safran Landing Systems and Sainsbury’s.

Each challenge owner has set unique challenges for startups to develop technology prototypes, this webinar will offer interested startups the opportunity to discover more about each Challenge Owner and the opportunities to work together on the programme.

Made Smarter Technology Accelerator has been designed for industry and provides you with a direct opportunity to join the UK’s largest industry-focused acceleration programme - together we will help to drive innovation and digitalisation of the manufacturing sector whilst gaining a competitive edge.

The programme will welcome up to 20 innovative startups onto the programme, providing the funding and a platform to develop prototypes that will pivot some of the UK’s most relevant manufacturing and industrial challenges.

Why attend

This challenge-focused briefing will provide the opportunity to understand more about how the programme is challenge-led and its relevance and potential impact for industry. We will hear from the Industry Challenge Owners; BAE Systems, Babcock International Group and Sainsbury’s, as they present their manufacturing business and discover the unique challenges they have set for the programme.

Our group of Industry Challenge Owners have worked to define and scope challenges that our cohort of startups will address through technology prototype development. Applications to the programme must be relevant to one of 14 challenges, this webinar will give potential applicants the chance to delve into each challenge further and to decide on the most relevant challenge that aligns to their technology solution and application into manufacturing settings.

It will enable attendees to:

• Discover how the programme is challenge-led and its importance for industry
• Learn how advanced digital technologies can be applied to industrial settings and the benefits this provides
• Meet and hear from the Industry Challenge Owners
• Understand each challenge area in more detail directly from challenge owners.

Digital Catapult is pleased to announce the seven Industry Challenge owners and their 14 challenges:

• Babcock International Group: Warrior base overhaul and Digital shipbuilding
• BAE Systems: Scalable artificial intelligence for visual inspection and Dynamic workflow management
• GAF: Asphalt material characterisation and Machine vision systems for product conformance and machine condition
• Northumbrian Water: Sewer blockages smart Porcupine and Water network monitoring and real time analysis
• O’Neills Irish International Sports Company Limited: Product customisation – intelligent verification and Automation of production
• Safran Landing Systems: Adaptive scheduling and performance monitoring and Implementation of SPC on all test rigs in the assembly shop
• Sainsbury's: Microbial control in ready to eat foods and Increasing shelf life and sell through of products while reducing waste

Who should attend

The programme has been designed for advanced digital technology startups and scaleups working with manufacturing companies, or interested in working with the manufacturing sector.

Technologies relevant to this open call are:

• Future networks and advanced digital infrastructure (4G and 5G and the internet of things including; low powered wide area networks, NB-IoT, LIFI etc. including sensors, edge devices, wearables etc.)
• Immersive technologies – Extended reality (virtual, augmented, mixed reality and haptics)
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning (natural language processing, machine vision, deep learning)
• Distributed ledger technologies (Blockchain etc.)

This webinar is part two in a two series of innovator briefing sessions. Attendees should ensure they have read more about the programme on our website here and/or attended our innovator general briefing webinar on Tuesday 12 January 2021 .