I am blogging this from the Connecting Bristol update session following the submission of the Digital Challenge bid. The meeting was intended as an update and to invite feedback, but events today have superseded this – half an hour ago the Govt Digital Challenge team emailed us to let us know that Bristol has been shortlisted as one of the final bid three south west bids.
10 – 13 bids were submitted to the Challenge from the South West and these have been narrowed down to three. Bristol, Cornwall and West Devon are the regional contenders – two of which will go through to the national shortlist. This is going to be done by peer review on 9 June – competitors will score our bid and we will have to score theirs.
At the national level, final shortlisting will take place on 15 June. 18 regional winners will get narrowed down to ten, who get up to £200,000 to develop their strategies for the final bid submission at the end of 2006.
Since the Bid was submitted people have continued to sign up on the website – we now have 400 people. One of the key criteria in the peer review process is to what degree we have joined things up… hopefully the names speak for themselves…
Obviously we hope people have read the Connecting Bristol bid – but we would still like feedback from people..
The Digital Challenge team have given us a specific steer on what they are looking for at the peer review. What problem/challenge are we looking to solve? What is the proposed mechanism for achieving this? What is truly innovative about your bid? And how can we demonstrate the capacity to deliver and a route to sustainability.
Innovative can mean a cultural approach as well as a technological approach…
Tomas from fluffylogic has suggested we use a film as part of our presentation, which I think is a great idea, especially as we already have the Knowle West film.
Now we are discussing this blog – the website has been a bone of contention as the interactivity was limited. The blog is to try and make things more fluid and to share examples of things as we are coming across them. We will be inviting contributions but we also need people to contribute and give some input….
Our open source ethos for developing and publishing the bid has meant that we have had feedback from people who may not have seen it othewise. Nationally there are some very expensive looking websites knocking around.
On the Connecting Bristol website we have been trying to showcase some case studies. We really want people to keep sending examples of innovative effective practise – this should be an ongoing process to share information…
Stephen Hilton is hoping that we can organise a conference in the Autumn to recognise and acknowledge the strength of the South West’s responce to the Digital Challenge. This would have a ‘local to global’ theme, linking up with what is going on elsewhere but also demonstrating Bristol’s leadership in this area. We are looking for partners to help us put this on so get in touch if you have ideas/time/money to invest. Helen Bream suggested that Microsoft and Cisco may be interested in egtting involved as part of their support for Schools for the Future.
Laura mentions Bristol as the leading city for start-ups… (see previous post..
We now have to consider who will be going to Taunton for the peer review. The four people allowed must represent the nature of the partnership – we need to make sure the voluntary/community sector are in there and the local Govt. Carolyn Hassan from Knowle West Media Centre comes up as a good person to go, given that the amazing film they made. Jaya suggests we should have a representative from each of the areas we need to address.
People are introducing themselves before we hit the bar – there has been a really good turnout: people from Bristol City Council, Delib, University of Bristol, Fluffylogic, Potential Difference, Watershed, Nameless, Bristol Residents, Points West, HP Labs, GreenBristol, First Born Creatives, Futurelab, ITV West, Future Learning, South West Screen and City of Bristol College, sorry to anyone I missed out.
