IDEAS ranging from how to use tech to cut NHS waiting lists to helping young people with mental health issues are being championed under a Scottish Government link programme.
Tech firms that are bidding to help overhaul the way public services are delivered in Scotland are preparing to unveil prototypes at a presentation event in the Scottish capital next week.
CivTech, which is part of the Scottish Government, links firms who reckon they have the solutions to problems faced by public sector bodies such as councils, police and the NHS.
Read more: Channel the power within and change lives, conference told
Open challenges are set, to which any organisation, team or individual can respond.
Shortlisted proposals go into an exploration stage and are further developed.
The best go through to the accelerator - four months of working with challenge sponsors, citizens, and the CivTech team through a workshop system - to create the “best possible solution and a business capable of taking that solution to the world”.
Alexander Holt, who heads CivTech, said: “We set out to see how we could radically change how we procured designed and delivered public services.
“We are absolutely achieving that. Contracts are being won, jobs created and investment is being secured.”
Read more: Agenda: Scotland's public sector procurement model is unfair to small and medium enterprises
One challenge from the NHS National Services Scotland seeking to make the NHS waiting time system more efficient and effective has been met by Cohesion, a young technology company based in Glasgow offering digital health solutions in healthcare and life sciences.
Stirling Council and the NHS are pushing to open a wider mental health conversation to help young people with problems affecting relationships and work or study.
Read more: Glasgow's intrapreneurial conference
Edinburgh-based Voxsio’s conversational search tool uses artificial intelligence to help people get personalised answers to complex questions.
The firm said it “turns each search into a conversation that delivers personalised results by understanding the question and the individual’s context, then connecting them the right answer, just like a librarian does”.
Scottish Anti-Illicit Trade Group, represented by former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill who is chair of the group, wants tech to help stop illicit trading and Get Market Fit entrepreneur and founder Vicky Brock has come up with an innovation that will be outlined at the CivTech Demo Day at the EICC on Wednesday February 6.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here