Virtual Memory Box Business Challenge

South Tyneside Council is looking for innovative businesses from the digital and technology community.

For this challenge you’ll work to develop a Virtual Memory Box for care leavers and care experienced young people. The project will be managed by Digital Catapult North East Tees Valley (NETV), and will result in the creation of a safe and secure digital environment for the collection of important moments and memories from a young person’s life.

Why get involved?

This is a unique opportunity to work directly with South Tyneside Council and Digital Catapult NETV. The programme offers a budget of up to £30,000, to cover development of the solution, maintenance of the platform and technical support for a period of two years.

This programme will make a real impact on young people’s lives in the region: for some care leavers, their childhood memories can get lost throughout their experience of the care system. By creating a Virtual Memory Box, it is hoped that each child leaving care will have a place where they can safely store and access all their achievements and memories from this time.

Who should apply?

This challenge is open for innovative technology startups and the solution would preferably be developed using one of the following programming languages:

• C#
• Javascript
• Python

If this is not possible this must be justified in the application.

Considerations for applicants:

The proposed solution and design should be clean, clear and engaging.
With the use of plain English throughout with considerations to accessibility and user experience focused design. Within this the solution must be intuitive, easy to navigate with an ability to personalise and organise content. Access should be considered across a range of devices and operating systems, including mobile and tablet friendly functionality.

A little more info

A lot of work has already been done to identify the specific use case and requirements of this challenge; that data will become available to those who apply for the challenge to help shape the submission.

Companies who are shortlisted to pitch must give a breakdown of project costs, as this will form part of the evaluation criteria.

Click here to read the full challenge brief and requirements, including programme timelines.