The UK government is asking the public for ideas on how to harness smart data across numerous sectors
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With open banking now being fairly well established in the UK, the country’s government has sought other ways to harness smart data.
As part of the process, the government asked Brits to offer their ideas on how this can be done across numerous sectors, which includes financial services. What they are looking for is something that would allow both individuals and businesses to benefit from.
Smart data can lead to life-changing new solutions
Smart data allows people and businesses to access their data and share it with authorized third parties only when they want to. However, the government believes that it can expand the benefits of the process, and it needs the citizens’ ideas on how to go about it.
The country’s Department for Business and Trade has already revealed its teaming up with Challenge Works, Smart Data Foundry, and the Open Data Institute in a partnership that aims to harvest ideas from the public. The name of the program is the Smart Data Discovery Challenge.
The program is asking individuals and organizations alike to offer cross-sector solutions that would showcase the potential benefits that consumers, small businesses, and a wider society may experience in relation to smart data. The challenge is encouraging those with ideas to present them, specifically if they have thoughts on solutions involving retail, energy, home buying, or transport.
Winning proposals will be rewarded with cash prizes
The program will be open for the public to comment on and provide their ideas and solutions until 8 of December. After that, a longlist will be selected ahead of a pitching event in March 2024. Once the best proposals are selected, those who offer them will be granted cash prizes for their contributions.
The UK’s Minister for Enterprise, Markets, and Small Business, Kevin Hollinrake, stated that smart data has great potential to help create solutions for several real-life issues that consumers face daily. In addition, it can support small companies around the country and even help grow the UK’s economy as a whole.
He added that smart data is already helping consumers through open banking and that he is excited to see what other game-changing technology the challenge might help produce over time. This is why the country is inviting all of its entrepreneurs and innovators to pitch their ideas, as it believes that there are many great solutions waiting to be uncovered.
