Government offers £500,000 for tech firms to tackle social issues

Areas of focus include reducing plastic pollution, boosting clean growth and developing low carbon mobility

The UK Government is offering technology firms the chance of up to £500,000 in funding to commercialise technologies able to reduce plastic pollution, boost clean growth and develop low carbon mobility.

It aims to incentivise tech specialists to tackle social challenges by initially offering up to £50,000 for companies to develop their ideas.

The organisations providing the best potential solutions will then be awarded research and development contracts of up to £500,000 to build prototypes, which will later be available for the public sector to purchase.

The first of these competitions opens today and will run for six weeks, with the remaining competitions being launched in the coming months – they will be delivered using the £20 million GovTech fund.

Minister for Implementation, Oliver Dowden, said: “The GovTech fund encourages firms to find innovative ways to fix the big social problems we all face – loneliness, plastic pollution and national security.

“Through emerging technologies, this fund will elevate British companies onto a global market while helping to deliver outstanding public services and improving lives for people.”

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