CivTech 7 - Challenge 7.4 - How can technology unlock the power of the bike, stimulating demand for cycling infrastructure and support South of Scotland communities?

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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 cannot understand and visualise them. New solutions could help enable ‘modal shift’ in rural areas, with associated environmental and health benefits. This challenge aims to identify a digital technology solution to ‘visualization’ to facilitate more meaningful stakeholder engagement; in turn, this will help accelerate planning approvals and increase cycle path infrastructure investments Challenge the cycle path design/construction status quo by identifying novel and innovative construction techniques and standards for rural areas which would reduce the cost implications and accelerate cycle path infrastructure investment in Rural Scotland. Please visit our website for information on CivTech and how to get involved Please visit our website for information on CivTech and how to get involved: https://www.civtech.scot/how-to-apply https://www.civtech.scot/selection-process 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 which runs from the 15th of August to the 2nd of September 2022, where they are then developed further [and 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. The Accelerator Stage will run from the 3rd of October 2022 to the 28th of January 2023. Please visit our website for information on CivTech and how to get involved: https://www.civtech.scot/how-to-apply https://www.civtech.scot/selection-process