What was the Mayor’s Resilience Fund?
The Resilience Fund was the Mayor of London’s £1 million challenge fund to incentivize innovators to address socially impactful issues facing London, help us emerge stronger from COVID-19 and ensure the capital is prepared for future disruptive challenges. It was run in partnership with the Mayor of London and funded by the London Economic Action Partnership.
The Resilience Fund identified specific challenges in partnership with resilience partners, and innovators were then invited to present how they planned to address and solve these challenges through new technologies or by applying creative and innovative ideas. In April, we selected up to four innovators for each of the 10 challenges to receive up to £10k each to refine their solutions.
In July 2021, 10 organisations were announced as winners of each of the 10 challenges and awarded £40,000 each to further develop their solutions between July and September 2021.
Why did we run the challenge?
There’s no doubt that COVID-19 has changed London—indeed, cities the world over—forever. There are reasons to believe that life will slowly return to normal in the next year, but the impact to our communities, our businesses and our society will remain. That is why London Mayor Sadiq Khan launched the Mayor’s Resilience Fund, a £1 million innovation programme to help London’s businesses and community groups emerge stronger from COVID-19 and to ensure the capital is prepared for future disruptive challenges.
Resilience partners
Instead of issuing broad open calls, Challenge Works and the GLA partnered with 10 specific local organisations – termed Resilience Partners – who acted as problem-holders and test sites. These included:
- Local Authorities: Lambeth Council (Air Quality), Ealing Borough (High Streets), Hackney Council (Public Markets).
- Civic Organisations & BIDs: Living Wage Foundation (Gig Economy), Thrive LDN (Bereavement), Better Bankside (Smart Mobility), and the Royal Docks Team (Renewable Energy).
This setup ensured innovators had direct access to real datasets, regulatory pathways, pilot spaces, and end-users.
Meet the winners of the Mayor’s Resilience Challenge
Activating High Streets: Sqwyre by Whythawk
A commercial location database designed to help councils, landlords, and occupiers research business properties to reactivate vacant high street units.
Affordable Workspace: Arbeit Project
An adaptable, modular fit-out model for shell-and-core or empty premises, aimed at drastically lowering property setup costs for creators and small businesses.
Air quality: HEAL – Healthy Air Quality Impacts in Lambeth
An intelligent data platform that models and assesses the direct health impacts of air quality interventions to help boroughs protect vulnerable residents.
Bereavement Services: Loss in Translation by Apart of Me
A culturally competent, peer-led digital platform that empowers young people from minority ethnic backgrounds to process grief and access tailored guidance.
COVID-Safe Travel: Aubin by JNCTION
A door-to-door transit app tailored for neurodivergent travelers and anxious commuters, allowing users to map quieter, lower-stress public transport routes.
Gig economy: Finmo
Software tailored for multi-job and gig-economy workers to track incomes, auto-calculate tax obligations, and access affordable accounting services.
Local Food: Spaze
A cloud-based coordination system that connects food suppliers, community groups, and local stakeholders to balance food supply/demand and combat food insecurity.
Public Markets: OpenMarkets.London by Tabled
A centralised digital gateway that simplifies trader licensing applications, making it easier for market vendors to operate across multiple London boroughs.
Renewable Energy: Floating Solar Arrays by Renewable Connections
A floating solar panel array situated in London’s Royal Docks to supply clean, renewable electricity directly to London City Airport and surrounding developments.
Smart Mobility: DynamicLink by Kale Collective
An on-demand freight optimization platform that uses predictive analytics to help logistics operators streamline delivery journeys and lower fleet emissions.
The Mayor’s Resilience Fund served as a operational template for the GLA’s broader Challenge LDN platform. It demonstrated how city governments can utilize open challenge prizes rather than traditional procurement pathways to rapidly onboard tech startups, social enterprises, and SMEs into civic problem-solving.
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