CivTech Challenge 10.3 - How can technology help improve the monitoring and protection of seabirds in various environments, focussing initially on the challenge of monitoring puffins above and below ground?

You would think that with a bird as iconic as the puffin, we would know how many of them we have in the UK and how successful a breeding colony is in any year. Yet, of all the seabirds we are internationally responsible for, the puffin is one of the hardest to count because they breed in burrows underground. Traditional methods are either extremely labour intensive, with specialised fieldworkers required for counts, or can only give us an indication of how many puffins there are on land or on sea. It is also hard to tell how successfully they are managing to breed.

CivTech’s mission is to drive daring and innovation in the public sector by collaboratively solving Challenges that make people’s lives better – and in doing so create generations of sustainable, high growth businesses.

CivTech brings together public sector expertise and private sector innovation to solve real problems, develop new products, and deliver better, faster and easier services for everyone. Central to the approach is co-production with the citizen.

Part of the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate, CivTech’s approach is helping transform public sector engagement with tech and innovation, delivering significant benefits to public services, producing genuine uplifts for the Scottish economy - and along the way, making lives better.

Across the country there are problems public sector organisations would like to solve and in the current environment the need for smart, efficient and effective products has never been greater. The Scottish Government is aware innovation is a good way to create them and is committed to ensuring a large part of its tech spend goes to smaller, innovative businesses. This is where CivTech comes in.

The CivTech Innovation Flow is designed to create products as quickly and effectively as possible, and uses a true Accelerator model at the heart of its Innovation Flow model. For you – whether you’re an individual, team or company – it’s an opportunity to take on a Challenge, solve it, and win contracts with a blue-chip public sector organisation. You’ll build a product, and a business to take it as far as possible. Because here’s the kicker: the Challenges we issue aren’t ‘single organisation’ problems – most exist worldwide.

In short: Open Challenges are set. Any organisation, team or individual can respond. Applications are assessed, and shortlisted proposals go into an Exploration Stage where they’re developed further [for which participating applicants are paid]. The best go through to the Accelerator – a period of intensive work to create the solution, and through CivTech’s unique business workshop system, a business capable of taking the product to the world.

Please visit our website for information on CivTech and how to get involved:

https://www.civtech.scot/how-to-apply-civtech-10

https://www.civtech.scot/civtech-10-challenge-3-monitoring-and-protecting-seabirds-in-various-environments