Accelerating Innovation
« 19 March 2010 »

Welcome to the latest enews alert from Creative Industries KTN.

In this issue:

Are you a champion?

There is still time to get involved in the CI KTN’s exciting Theme Champions programme to help us drive a series of important projects for the creative industries.

We are currently searching for five people to join us as “theme champions.” These are part-time positions but require a high level of skills and experience as well as the ability to be a self-starter.

The five themes are
1) Investment/business models and growth
2) Exploiting new materials and functionality
3) Global markets
4) Creativity everywhere
5) Digital content metadata and convergence

These projects will run for 12 months and are part of our Beacons for Innovation activity. For more information visit our web site.

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Win tickets to the premier digital tech event

The Technology Strategy Board’s prestigious Collaboration Nation event takes place the end of this month and CI KTN has two tickets to give away.

Collaboration Nation - Inspiring Innovations for a Digital Britain is an inspiring one-day event that will showcase innovative technology projects and companies, including the winners of the TSB’s Digital Britain feasibility study competition. It is also a great opportunity to meet other innovators and make new connections and to discuss future collaborations.

As well as hearing from the people behind the winning feasibility study projects there will also be a number of key speakers from major organisations including Oracle, NESTA and Hewlett Packard. It is also a great opportunity to meet other innovators.

The event takes place on March 31 at Congress Centre, 28 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS more details click here.

If you are available to attend this event email Jess to register your interest. The winners will be picked out of a hat and informed on Wed 24th March.

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Strike the right note with PIANO+ funding competition

PIANO+ is a trans-national call for project proposals on "photonics-based internet access networks of the future.“ Co-funded by the participating national funding bodies and the European Commission. The competition is open to organisations from a number of countries including the UK. Proposals are sought for the development of photonic technology and system architectures for the scalable, future proof and energy efficient access network and its extension to the customers´ premises including the home. Download competition paper (PDF).

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Gaining influence in cyberspace competition

The MOD’s Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) is launching a competition for innovative research proposals that explore human and social behavior in the virtual worlds of cyberspace. This will support the increasing need to win the “battle for hearts and minds” not simply in the physical world using traditional personal interaction and broadcast media but also in cyberspace.
The CDE will host a seminar on 22nd April 2010 to further describe this area of investigation. The competition will open on this date and applications are to be made through the CDE portal. A competition brief will be produced for the seminar and will be available on the website from this date. Companies are strongly advised to attend the seminar to hear firsthand the challenge.
More detail on this competition is on the Technology Strategy Board website.

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Funding master classes

Enterprise Europe Network South West and its partners are running three events to help UK organisations get involved in European R&D funding. The events will explain what funding is available for FP7 projects in the areas of ICT and nanosciences and materials The events will also provide details on how to access further support and how to write a proposal.

April 22: NMP (Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies Materials and new Production Technologies) @Bristol, Bristol
April 27: ICT HP Labs, Bristol
May 25: Forming a Team & Writing a Proposal - Master Class
Marriott City, Bristol.

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Best in Yorkshire wanted

RTS Yorkshire is calling for entries for its sixth annual awards. The awards recognise and promote high quality TV and related digital media production in the Yorkshire region. Deadline for entries is April 16 and the awards ceremony will be held on June 14 in Leeds and hosted by Barry Cryer.

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ELSPA quiz the politicians night

Videogames trade body ELSPA is staging a pre-election question time on March 29 at BAFTA in London. Taking part are Don Foster, Liberal Democrats, Ed Vaizey, Conservative and Tom Watson, Labour.

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Make an Impact and win an award

PraxisUnico, the UK’s leading research commercialisation organisation has launched its Impact Awards designed to recognise and celebrate the success of knowledge transfer. The Impact Awards are open to all sectors of research that have made an outstanding impact through successful knowledge transfer. The categories are:

  • Business Impact - Aspiring
  • Business Impact - Achieved
  • Environmental Impact
  • Public Policy and Service Impact
  • Newcomer of the Year

For more information and to enter

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Creative opportunities festival

Own-it, a project led by the University of the Arts London, to provide Intellectual Property advice for creative businesses is staging a two-day creative opportunities festival on June 29 and 30. More details

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Prototyping the future

The University of Dundee is staging an event to explore how prototyping can encourage understanding, collaboration and best practice across a wide variety of disciplines. Big name speakers include Michael Schrage from MIT, Turner Prize Winning conceptual artist Simon Starling, Biomedical Engineer Stuart Brown from the University of Dundee and Cultural Critic Norman Klein from California Institute for the Arts. The event takes place on June 10 and 11
Find out more

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