The CivTech 7 Challenges

Challenge Sponsor: NatureScot

Beavers are a protected species. However their burrowing sometimes causes us problems. Burrows have been associated with breaching of flood banking and water impoundments, undermining of infrastructure and collapse of sections of riverbank, impacting on businesses and livelihoods. Entrances to beaver burrows are usually dug below water, which can make detection difficult. A non-invasive method needs to be developed in order to both reliably detect potentially problematic burrows and assess the risk the burrow presents to infrastructure and people . A successful method will help anticipate the risk of problems arising from burrows, allowing targeted mitigation to help us live alongside beavers.

So, how can technology help us detect beaver burrows in the wild and assess their associated risks to public and private interests? 

Challenge Sponsor: Scottish Government: Directorate for COVID Business Resilience and Support

The recent experience of providing support to businesses during the pandemic has reinforced the importance of data quality and data linkage to the effective delivery of public services for business.    

Data about individual businesses is held for a wide range of purposes across different organisations in the Scottish public sector. This data is often partial and fragmented and presents constraints to designing and delivering services to support businesses.   

Solving this data challenge will enable better targeting and management of public sector support, aligning the services provided by various parts of the public sector from the perspective of the recipients. 

So, how can we use data about businesses to transform the design, delivery and evaluation of business support services across Scotland’s public sector?

Challenge Sponsors: Entrepreneurial Scotland Foundation; Scottish Government: Directorate for Economic Development, Digital Directorate

Instead of preparing people for a specific change, what if we created leaders who don’t just adapt to change but lead it. Today’s world moves so fast traditional education can’t keep pace and if we want Scotland in the vanguard we have to connect our leaders, in all sectors, to those at the forefront of change. Using technology, we can recycle the human capital and knowledge that exists in and out of Scotland to mentor, advise and support the best of Scotland’s leadership community, equipping them with the skills, attributes and burning passion to deliver for their organisation and for Scotland.

So, how can technology help people self-organise and build meaningful connections as the beating heart of Scotland’s global business community?

Challenge Sponsors: South of Scotland Enterprise & Censis Technology Solutions Ltd

Our challenge responds to Scotland's ambition to become a nation of active travel adopters.

Our South of Scotland Cycle Partnership Strategy outlines our ambition for cycling to be the most popular choice for shorter everyday journeys and embedded into the daily fabric of the lives of our citizens and visitors.  However, we cannot make good on this ambition if we don’t have a safe and connected network of cycle paths that connect our villages and hamlets to our feeder schools, places of work and onward travel hubs. By prioritising infrastructure investment in cycle paths we will see behavioural change to replace 10 minute car journeys and ‘final mile’ errands.

Compared to many European neighbours, the cycling infrastructure in Scotland is significantly underdeveloped; and starting from such a position it is hard to explain the transformation that traffic free cycle paths can deliver.  This makes getting stakeholder buy-in for the creation of this much needed infrastructure challenging; if you can't understand and visualise them.  New solutions could help enable ‘modal shift’ in rural areas, with associated environmental and health benefits.

So, how can technology unlock the power of the bike, stimulating demand for cycling infrastructure and support South of Scotland communities?

Challenge Sponsor: Scottish Government: Directorate For Equality, Inclusion & Human Rights

Booking British Sign Language interpreters is of vital importance for BSL users, enabling them to be included and effectively participate in the workplace, social events and more. However, BSL users commonly cite an issue around low availability of interpreters. A review commissioned by the Scottish Government in 2019 uncovered evidence that this is often not based on interpreters being unavailable, but instead that current booking systems do not facilitate efficient or effective use of interpreter time. There is currently a fragmented community of BSL users, freelance interpreters and agencies with no market solution in place to support collaboration to address the issues faced by BSL users.

So, how might technology help match British Sign Language (BSL) users and their required interpreters more easily and equitably? 

Challenge Sponsors: Scottish Government: Directorate For Digital, Directorate for Digital Health & Care, Directorate For Social Care And National Care Service Development; and NHS 24

The Scottish Government is focused on tackling inequalities including embedding inclusive communication within Government and across the public sector. This Challenge will work with public bodies and people with lived experience of barriers to accessing public services, such telephone based-services. For instance, people who have lost their voice, have difficulty speaking, are deaf but do not use British Sign Language, have a learning disability, lack dexterity to select number buttons, or live with lifelong or acquired conditions, such as cerebral palsy or motor neurone disease. Inclusive communication will increase the proportion of people in Scotland reporting that their communications needs are being met when accessing public services.

So, how do we use Artificial Intelligence, data and digital technologies to enable more inclusive access to public services, starting with disabled people?

Challenge Sponsors: South of Scotland Enterprise & Censis Technology Solutions Ltd

Decarbonising energy is critical to reducing carbon emissions in the South of Scotland as homes and workplaces account for around a fifth of total greenhouse gas emissions. Energy bills are rising fast and are set to rise further — collective, co-ordinated and sustained effort is needed to address these challenges. 

South of Scotland Enterprise wants to take action to improve information flow between individuals, communities and businesses and stimulate the supply chain.  Key to this will be providing a technology solution which allows communities to understand their energy demands and options for energy efficiency / decarbonisation while supporting community collective purchase.

So, how can technology help communities and households understand their energy needs and work with local suppliers towards sustainable energy solutions?

Challenge Sponsor: West Lothian Council

All 3 and 4 year olds, and some 2 year olds, have a statutory entitlement to early learning and childcare (nursery education). There are council run nurseries and partner providers. Within each setting we offer different options for patterns of attendance, and the entitlement can be split between providers. The challenge is to find a solution to manage the application process. We need to allocate places fairly in line with our placing guidelines and parents / carers need to be kept informed about the progress of their application. We need the solution to be straightforward for staff and parents / carers to use.

So, how can technology aid parents through the admissions process for an ever-changing statutory entitlement to early learning and childcare?

Challenge Sponsors: White Ribbon Scotland; Scottish Government (Directorate for Justice); Citizens Advice Scotland

The scale of violence against women in Scotland is huge with over 64,000 incidents of domestic abuse and over 2,200 rapes reported annually; mostly perpetrated by men against women with many more going unreported. 25% of Police Scotland’s time/budget is spent on addressing domestic abuse alone. This Challenge is about using technology to support and aid local community groups and volunteers to grow and sustain projects which engage men as allies to help end violence against women and girls, permitting such community work to be efficiently led, overseen, and supported by the limited staff at White Ribbon Scotland.

So, how can technology enable organisations and volunteers to organise while expanding and evidencing the positive impact of their work across Scotland?

Challenge Sponsors: Victim Support Scotland & Scottish Government

The court / remote site environment currently attended by people affected by crime is not trauma informed. They are told when to attend, where to go and how they will give evidence.  For many people affected by crime attending court and providing evidence can be more traumatic than the crime itself. This trauma can impede their ability to give their best evidence.  The challenge can be met by utilising technology to prepare people who have to go through the court room experience as victims and/or witnesses, and reduce so the impact of giving evidence during a criminal trial.   

So, how can technology reduce the impact of giving evidence in court by helping Victims & Witnesses prepare for the experience? 

Challenge Sponsor: Citizens Advice Scotland

Citizens Advice Scotland is part of the Citizens Advice network – you may be familiar with Citizens Advice Bureaux, an essential service situated in many communities across Scotland.

This Challenge will help CAB advisers offer high quality advice to as many people as possible, by providing a solution that will help them to record case information more easily and allow them to draw upon the experience of other advisers, through the wealth of data held within the network’s case management system. 

Also, by improving personal data capture, CAS will be able to improve its ability to influence and campaign for change.

So, how can technology support Citizens Advice advisers to quickly deliver the best possible outcome for their clients using data & collective expertise?

Challenge Sponsor: Scottish Government: Directorate For Local Government And Housing

In any small construction project there is a requirement to have the work inspected by the local authority building standards team. These inspections help to ensure that the build is compliant with statutory standards and safe. These visits are requested by a notification from the Citizen/Contractor managing the build.

Often these notifications are received too late in the build or not at all, resulting in additional costs, time, stress & the owners being unable to occupy their building legally.

How can we use Tech to solve this, and provide data to support all parties in identifying common points of failure?

Challenge Sponsors: Scottish Borders Council and South of Scotland Enterprise

Even before the pandemic many town centres across Scotland faced significant challenges: increased number of vacant properties, reduced levels of footfall, complaints from citizens and business, and often a feeling of general decline.

Councils already have data relating to town centres from a range of sources including CCTV, images shared by the public directly and on social media, as well as complaints received.  However, there can be issues with the quality and accuracy of this data and it can be difficult to understand the data coming into different teams across the council and who is aware of what. There are also gaps in the data which impact on the decision making of the council when it comes to making decisions on how best to revitalise town centres.

So, how can technology help councils better understand the data they have, fill in the gaps and help inform decisions to drive town centre revitalisation?