Smart Data Challenge Prize: driving cross-sector innovation
15 January 2025
Introducing the Smart Data Challenge Prize: Designed to identify and develop Smart Data use cases across the economy that will benefit customers and SMEs.
The Department for Business and Trade, in partnership with the Open Data Institute and Smart Data Foundry, has today launched the Smart Data Challenge Prize, which is rewarding up to £600,000 to the boldest and most innovative apps and technologies that harness the power of Smart Data and drive real-world solutions to benefit customers and businesses alike.
In an increasingly data-driven world, the Smart Data Challenge Prize is the catalyst for a new wave of innovation in Smart Data enabled services that will increase competition and grow the economy. Focusing on cross-sector technologies that leverage data in new, powerful ways and solve pressing challenges in sectors such as finance, energy, retail and more, the challenge calls on individuals, innovators, entrepreneurs, academia and civil society to enter for the chance to prototype ambitious solutions that would harness Smart Data across different sectors of the economy.
Smart Data has the potential to supercharge a wave of innovative start-ups right across the country. As we’ve seen with Open Banking which has raised over £2 billion of private funding, I hope other sectors can take advantage of the competition to provide real change for customers and boost economic growth right across the nation.
Building a smarter economy
As a global pioneer of open banking, the UK was at the forefront of using Smart Data to improve services for customers and small businesses, while establishing the regulatory framework that has paved the way for many British fintech start-ups to flourish.
With Open Banking already increasing competition and innovation in the financial sector, there is still huge opportunity to drive momentum towards a Smart Data ecosystem that promotes economic growth – focusing on new sectors such as finance, energy, retail, transport and others, to drive positive change that works for all customers. These sectors hold vast potential for innovation, with solutions that can directly address societal issues, from reducing costs to promoting cleaner energy.
The Smart Data Challenge Prize is an open innovation competition calling on diverse innovators from across industry, academia and civil society to enter their Smart Data solutions that will make people’s lives better and easier. Challenge prizes have a proven track-record of creating opportunities for innovative entrants, start-ups and entrepreneurs because they support the best ideas no matter their origin.
Testing and refining
Building on the momentum of the Smart Data Discovery Challenge which named winners in March 2024, the Smart Data Challenge Prize is the next step in the UK’s incredible journey and focuses on prototyping the first working cross-sector Smart Data applications beyond banking in a new Smart Data sandbox environment.
As well as financial reward, the Challenge Prize will see successful teams gain exclusive access to this new sandbox, built especially for the prize, so they can test and refine their technologies to work with real-world data. This will not only accelerate innovation but also provide valuable insights into the barriers of Smart Data adoption, ultimately helping the UK to move towards an interoperable ecosystem that works seamlessly across sectors.
The sandbox will bring together synthetic data on people and businesses across 11 key areas – including banking, insurance, investing, property, energy, and retail – each encompassing multiple datasets, without compromising privacy. Solutions, therefore, have the potential to address a wide range of issues, such as the cost of living crisis, the transition to cleaner power and net zero, improving access to services, creating a level playing field for SMEs and supporting vulnerable customers.
The biggest obstacle facing Smart Data innovators right now is the lack of real-world Smart Data available to them. To experiment, iterate and scale proofs of concept, innovators need access to high-quality, robust and secure data to demonstrate how their ideas will create lasting benefits for people and businesses. The Smart Data Sandbox will enable innovators to develop their ideas into prototype solutions to demonstrate the viability and benefits of Smart Data in different sectors.
Call to action
For more information on the Smart Data Challenge Prize and how to enter, please visit the prize website.
