The Mayor of London’s latest open innovation challenge programme aims to harness the power of innovators and start-ups to power the city’s post-Covid recovery.
The Designing London’s Recovery project sees the GLA partnering with the Design Council and the London Office for Technology and Innovation (LOTI) to attract and support design-led approaches to the city’s recovery.
It aims to support London’s recovery by addressing a range of social, economic and environmental improvements such as reducing unemployment, tackling health inequality, accelerating a greener, cleaner city and creating new opportunities for young people.
Three different briefs have been launched, inviting submissions from collaborative teams, start-ups and agencies:
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Helping Londoners to do good work
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Building strong communities
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A green new deal and high streets for all
With a focus on user-centric solutions, the programme has already run a series of co-design workshops with communities, local authorities and businesses to identify the priorities and guidelines for the projects, which include:
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Putting Londoners at the centre: The lived experience, aspirations and skills of Londoners will drive ideas.
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Building on what works: Collaborating with, rather than duplicating, existing programmes and initiatives.
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Creating connections: Building new relationships across and beyond the city.
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Being radical and sustainable: Prepared to take risks and deploy prototypes to create radical solutions.
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Systems thinking: Taking a holistic, collaborative view of solutions.
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Shifting power: Putting control in the hands of users and organisations closest to the issue.
The closing date for initial expressions of interest is midday on 15 June 2021.
Tim Coulthard
