Portfolio

Below is a small but representative selection of the companies and products that have emerged from CivTech since our launch in 2016. If you’d like to find out more about any of these — or indeed any that we haven’t featured here — please contact us.

 

Deaf Action and SignPort

In 2022, the Scottish Government’s Directorate For Equality, Inclusion & Human Rights posed the Challenge: How might technology help match British Sign Language (BSL) users and their required interpreters more easily and equitably?

Challenge background

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.

The solution

A mobile app which quickly matches BSL users with the right interpreter, when and where they are required.  With this solution, Deaf Action are looking for more than efficiency. They also want to ensure Deaf BSL users have choice and control at every stage of the process.

The Opportunity

Having developed a core feature set, next steps are to develop additional features which will make the app as attractive as possible to interpreters and deaf BSL users. Deaf Action will also further develop an integrated web version of the app to allow agencies like the NHS to make bookings.

The Team

Deaf Action have partnered with Burrotech to deliver this solution. Deaf Action is a deaf-led charity founded in 1835. Burrotech is a Scottish company specialising in mobile and web app design.

Watch Deaf Action’s Demo Day presentation

Find out more:
sign-port.com

“As a company CivTech feel bespoke to you, even though they are providing the same support to every company responding to the Challenges. I would definitely recommend applying to CivTech.”

Siobhan Sullivan, Head of Development, Deaf Action

DeepMiner

In 2022, the Scottish Government: Directorate for COVID Business Resilience and Support posed the Challenge: How can we use data about businesses to transform the design, delivery and evaluation of business support services across Scotland’s public sector?

Challenge background

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?

The solution

The Data Spine provides a single point of truth for all businesses in Scotland. The solution integrates and structures economic data and knowledge from a variety of sources. This serves as a comprehensive and efficient way for policymakers to access and analyse data, facilitating informed decision-making, anticipating economic shocks, and planning appropriate policy responses.

The Opportunity

Organisations such as Governments, Local Authorities and companies, nationally and internationally hold data across multiple locations and in multiple formats. The ability to view data across multiple data silos and make informed decisions is an outcome that not only reduces cost but creates huge economic and societal value.

The Team

DeepMiner was founded in 2017 as part of CivTech 2.0. We successfully completed our original channel and then continued to build out our solution, Now a team of 5. We pivoted in 2020 to focus on our core technologies and the Data Spine is the result of this pivot and working with CivTech and the Challenge Sponsor. We work extensively with advanced AI and the team are driven to discover new and exciting ways to work with data.

Watch Deep Miner’s Demo Day presentation

Find out more:
deepminer.co.uk

Homelync

In 2018, Stirling Council posed the Challenge: How can technology help us improve services by better understanding investment requirements for our public buildings?

Challenge background

Stirling Council owns and operates a huge range of public facilities and capital assets. The scope and profile of these assets, how they are managed and who they are managed by, made them difficult to track as a single entity and therefore restricted visibility of the total cost to manage and maintain. Some of the newer buildings had BIM [building information management] systems but the vast majority did not, which meant that much of the information was uncoordinated and disjointed in inefficient systems.

The solution

Homelync addressed this challenge and developed an IoT Access Point that includes industry leading security, environmental sensors and cellular connectivity. The data across thousands of properties can then be simplified, prioritised and analysed to provide the landlord with actionable insight, enabling a proactive approach to property management and customer engagement. 

Find out more:
www.aico.co.uk/homelink/

“Sometimes the worst thing you can get from a procurement is exactly what you asked for. The CivTech process is powerful in giving you what you need rather than what you thought you needed at the beginning.”

Elaine Burgess, Director Commercial Operations, Amiqus; previously Head of Transformation, Scottish Government

Digiflec

In 2021, Stirling Council and Forestry and Land Scotland posed the Challenge: How can tech help manage traffic and road infrastructure used by commercial operations in rural and remote communities?

Challenge background

In rural and remote Scotland, commercial operations in primary industries provide many jobs and benefits to local communities, their economies and way of life.

But those rural and remote communities are often served by single track roads, and this can cause problems when the public road infrastructure is overwhelmed by peak or sustained commercial use, or by the flow of seasonal visitors. These can negatively impact not just the residents of those communities, but also visitors, customers, other businesses, and the provision of emergency services. They can also impact detrimentally on the environment. So how can tech help manage traffic and road infrastructure used by commercial operations in rural and remote communities?

The solution

Automated data gathering of road network users and road condition, provides a digital twin of the road infrastructure and real time, traffic management. Collated data is distilled and accessible to network operators, and can also be fed into their existing GIS, pinpointing defects and trends so they can confidently make decisions which maximise resource use.

The Opportunity

There are over 245,000 miles of A, B, C and unclassified roads in Great Britain which could be managed more effectively using DigiFlec’s automated solution. Road networks are one of the largest, most visible assets of public sector organisations and land managers, and DigiFlec could potentially help road network operators keep them running smoothly.

The Team

Steven Gillan, Director, set up DigiFlec in 2020. Currently, a team of three with cohesive values and complementary skills, who are invested in helping to build a strong economy supported by a robust transport infrastructure.

Watch Digiflec’s Demo Day presentation

Find out more:
digiflec.com

PortF

In 2021, Social Investment Scotland and Scottish Government posed the Challenge: How can we use technology to predict and measure the impact of projects and investments?

Challenge background

Across the public, third and private sectors, organisations and programmes need to model the impacts of projects being considered, and once projects are operational to evidence the actual impacts they make. This is required because establishing those impacts, and the resulting value for money, are key requirements for all initiatives, large or small.

Organisations and programmes are often multi-sector and multi-disciplinary, with a rich breadth of primary and secondary outcomes across a wide range of areas including economic, societal, cultural and environmental benefits. This Challenge seeks a robust, streamlined and user friendly way that enables us to predict impact when planning future projects, and then track the developing outputs and outcomes to evidence and demonstrate the full ‘in the round’ impact.

The solution

PortF overlays financial data and ESG/Impact data to give funders a holistic view of both economic and social impact. Specifically, PortF digitalised international standards of impact measurement (Theory of Change, IMP and SVM) to allow a consistent input platform to measure, track, and visualise the impact of a project throughout its lifecycle and map against contribution towards National Performance Framework, UNSDG and other frameworks.

The Team

PortF was founded in Aug 2021. Team of 6 working with many domain experts and advisors. One of the recent wins is the Scottish National Investment Bank.

Find out more:
portf.io

Rethink Carbon

In 2021, Southern Uplands Partnership, The Langholm Initiative, John Muir Trust, South of Scotland Enterprise and Scottish Government posed the Challenge: How can we use technology to help land managers make informed land-use decisions and increase carbon capture and storage?

Challenge background

Land managers regularly face significant decisions on how to best use their land. While much land in Scotland is poor quality in ‘standard’ agricultural terms, we believe it could play a major role in tackling the climate emergency by naturally locking in carbon. We also believe that making better decisions for carbon-capture and storage, will generate significant benefits for biodiversity.

However, it’s currently difficult for land managers to make informed decisions on best use of their land for carbon capture and storage because the data that could support these decisions is either inaccessible or sparse, inconsistent, and often out of date.

The solution

The Rethink Carbon platform provides land managers with carbon storage and sequestration figures in seconds using a friendly, easy to use desktop or mobile app. It fully incorporates the Woodland Carbon Code calculator in addition to the Peatland Code calculator, and can be easily extended to support any future variations of carbon calculators.

The Rethink Carbon platform is also for communities. By publishing surveys, land management options and asking for knowledge or practical input, land managers can really engage with communities as partners and stakeholders.

The Team

Mark Caulfield, the CEO and Founder of both Ginger and Rethink Carbon, has 25 years experience building enterprise software in start-ups, public sector organisations and for private clients.  Rethink Carbon has a dedicated team of 4, spread throughout Scotland and Northern England. Together the team has a unique mix of skills in software development, the environment, GIS, and engaging with land managers in all sectors.

Watch Rethink Carbon’s Demo Day presentation

Find out more:
rethinkcarbon.co.uk

Rivertrack

In 2016 SEPA posed the Challenge: How can we develop an effective hyper-local system to warn people and give them the time to prepare?

Challenge background

Scotland has effective flood warning systems in place for cities and many towns. Now we’d like to reach more and smaller communities.

The solution

RiverTrack’s solution is a robust, low-maintenance river level monitoring and alarm system which incorporates low-power network connectivity, cost effective components and innovative design. Acoustic sensors measure river level changes and feed information to display units, which function independently of any communication infrastructure. It enables users to get almost real-time information regarding water levels in their area. Independent of any communication infrastructure [which can fail in adverse conditions] the displays acted as boosters to create a resilient mesh across wide areas, meaning no-one need be without early warning. The early warning system is designed to help preventing damages from floods and allows communities to be more resilient in case of emergency. Resilience is increased by allowing the users to act timely based on flood information and minimise potential damages to people and property.

There are currently 25 active sites and these cover 15 communities — some are RiverTrack supported communities, others are SEPA research sites, and some sites are for partner work. 

The solution RiverTrack produced in response to the challenge was the first in a planned range and has the potential to dramatically impact on flooding costs, which ran at over £5bn for the UK in 2015 (Source KPMG). The technology offers peace of mind to people in remote areas by allowing them to check water levels safely. There are also worldwide, insurance industry and data aggregation opportunities, as well as significant cost and operational relief for our amazing but hard-pressed emergency services.

The Team

Gary Martin, founder of RiverTrack, addressed this challenge. Gary has over twenty years’ experience as a successful software developer and is a prominent member of the Scottish IoT innovation community.

Find out more:
rivertrack.org

Silvibio

In 2019, Forestry and Land Scotland posed the Challenge: How can technology help us make better use of Scotland’s valuable tree seed supply? 

Challenge background

We need to plant more trees to tackle the Climate Emergency that Scotland was first to declare. The urgent need to do so much and so quickly means that existing processes and supplies of high quality tree seed are under significant strain.

The solution

SilviBio developed its patent pending seed coating technology designed to improve tree seed germination and seedling survival rates in water deficient conditions. In addition, they developed a soil conditioner which, similarly, improves tree seed germination and seedling survival rates in field sown tree seed in the face of water scarcity.

The Team

SilviBio Ltd was founded in response to the above noted CivTech challenge at the end of 2019. From starting with just our founder, Dr Alicja Dzieciol, our team has since expanded to 7 employees and has plans to expand internationally into the EU by the end of 2023. We work with foresters and growers of all shapes and sizes to help them grow more trees, more sustainably. To this, we have projects across the UK, Germany and Sweden.

Find out more:
silvibio.com

“If you are an SME or an individual with a great idea that you think can solve a CivTech Challenge, then I would say apply. The opportunity afforded to us as a small company to really make a difference within the public sector exceeded our expectations.”

Ross Toomer, Founder, Care Reality

SkillSeeder

In 2020, the Scottish Government and Lantra posed the Challenge: How can technology help develop a skills sharing system that encourages people to engage, and those with expertise to share their skills, in rural and remote locations?

Challenge background

The rural and remote areas of Scotland face significant challenges in retaining and developing the skills required for robust and resilient economies.

Challenges arising from geography and connectivity can make it hard enough to find appropriate mainstream learning opportunities. It is even harder to uncover training that whilst perhaps not certificated by an academic institution nevertheless offers exactly the right content. This is particularly true when what’s needed to observe and learn from the experience of others [for example, lambing, digital marketing, dry staning, or fence repair].

The solution

SkillSeeder is a training marketplace, which plugs gaps in training supply by focussing on interactive and in-person training in the local community. We connect the dots by enabling more people to share skills: for every skill somebody needs to learn, somebody nearby will already have it. The product also generates up-to-date training-demand insights – something currently hard to find in the industry.

Find out more:
skillseeder.com

“CivTech is a great way to bring an idea to life and create a solution to problems that people are facing. It’s been a very rewarding experience and there is a huge amount of support there, I would definitely recommend it.”

Kerry Cowan, Co-Founder, SkillSeeder

The Routing Company

In 2020, HITRANS posed the Challenge: How can we transform the future of rural transport and support out highland communities to thrive?

Challenge background

The geography of the Highlands and Islands results in a challenging transport environment, covering almost 50% of Scotland’s landmass but with only 10% of its population. While dispersed settlements are reliant on a good transport network for connectivity and access to key services, the financial sustainability of traditional transport services is a significant challenge. Traditional models are based on a ‘critical mass’ of demand which by its very nature is lacking in most rural and remote areas.

The solution

The Routing Company’s app tracks a vehicle’s real-time location, it’s capacity, and rider pick-ups and drop-offs: even in low or no-internet connectivity environments. This data is supplemented by data feeds generated from vehicles that do have the requisite hardware installed, and is converted into actionable insights, via a dashboard, that show the network’s performance and other critical reporting statistics in real time.

The Team

The TRC team consists of mathematicians, computer scientists, and academics alongside policy professionals and shared ride experts. They have a growing staff of 35+ spread across the US and key international markets, including Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Edinburgh, Sydney, Singapore, Zurich, and Cairo.

Find out more:
theroutingcompany.com

“You gain so much knowledge from participating in CivTech. Not just the solution you come out with but also the people you meet along he way and the skills that you learn and develop. It’s a great experience.”

Jayne Golding, Projects, and Policy Manager, HiTrans

TreeTape

In 2019 Forestry and Land Scotland posed the Challenge: How might we use technology to make better use of Scotland's valuable but limited supply of high quality tree seed?

Challenge background

Scotland was the first country in the world to declare a climate emergency, and planting more trees is vital if we are to tackle that emergency head on. This demand is well understood by the Scottish Government and is articulated in both the recently published Forestry Strategy for Scotland and the Climate Change action plan. However, the urgent need to do so much and so quickly in order to respond to this emergency means that existing processes and supplies of high quality tree seed are under significant strain. We need to find new ways of approaching the problem that ideally use less manual labour and that make more efficient use of the supplies of seed that we already have.  

The solution

TreeTape is a true innovation in a traditional nursery production system for the key commercial coniferous forestry species grown in Great Britain. Inspired by new developments in vegetable production, the solution uses the most efficient means of production currently available to triple the typical yield of seedlings produced from a kilo of seed. It is a method of transplanting that has never been used before with trees, greatly reduces production time and provides further efficiencies throughout the whole production system, from seed sowing to the final saleable product. 

Volunteero

In 2022, White Ribbon Scotland partnered with Scottish Government and Citizens Advice Scotland to pose the Challenge: How can technology enable organisations and volunteers to organise while expanding and evidencing the positive impact of their work across Scotland?

Challenge background

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.

The solution

Volunteero is a platform that helps charities and local authorities manage their volunteers more effectively and provide their volunteers with the best possible experience. Our easy-to-use digital platform allows charities to manage all aspects of the volunteer journey from recruitment to reporting and volunteers are empowered to take charge of their volunteering in our mobile and web app.

The Opportunity

It is estimated that 1 billion people volunteer every year. This is in a world where volunteer management is extremely inefficient, full of friction and where volunteering is often inaccessible to most. Volunteero’s vision is to remove these barriers and in doing so, unleash the full power of volunteering.

The Team

A founding team who all volunteer and faced the challenges personally and are passionate about unleashing the power of volunteering. Luca Weibel, CPO, volunteers befriending older people; Kedar Kasarekar, CTO, volunteers tutoring children; Ashley Staines, CEO, volunteers befriending older people.

Watch Volunteero’s Demo Day presentation