Parliamentary Nomination for Productivity Innovation | NquiringMinds

innovate-uk-logoNquiringMinds have been shortlisted in the inaugural Innovate UK Small Business Innovation Awards for its Open City Data IOT Platform (OCDP). The awards, run by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, recognise Britain’s most exciting, cutting-edge, growing companies. NQM has been developing software and hardware to help realise the vision of Smart Secure Interconnected cities.

Dr Ruth McKernan, chief executive of Innovate UK said: “British companies, such as nquiringminds, are preparing for the future with their ground breaking innovations. They are building new industries, creating new jobs, and driving productivity. These awards celebrate the best of British innovation and I congratulate all the fantastic nominees.”

NquiringMinds has been nominated in the category of Innovation leading to Productivity Improvement. A Smart City is a Productive City, and NquiringMinds have had two recent successes in this area, based on their OCDP platform.  They are working with Southampton City Council, Liverpool City Council and Cambridge County Council.

The GP Pressure Map developed for Wessex Academic Health Science Network brings together five diverse open data sets with innovative analytics and visualization to help identify which areas of Hampshire are going to undergo the greatest strain on GP service provision. By providing deep strategic insight into infrastructure supply and demand, government can invest its resources more productively. Bronwen Vearncombe Associate Director, for Wessex AHSN said, “The type of work NquringMinds is doing is helping unlock the value from data already out there; this will lead to better decision making within the health service”.

At the other end of the spectrum NQM has developed complex Internet of Things Sensor platform deployed the University of Southampton’s Energy and Climate Change Division (ECCD, www.energy.soton.ac.uk) into domestic houses in Southampton City. This work funded  by the EPSRC Programme Grant “Transforming the Engineering of Cities” allows  the collected data combined with surveys to help determine energy use in buildings,  and the best strategies for refurbishment that could lead to city-wide energy savings and CO2 reductions. Professor AbuBakr S Bahaj  head of ECCD and Chief Scientific Officer for Southampton City Council “NquiringMinds sensor suite and data analytics platform has been key in allowing us to estimate the energy saving that can be attained in buildings, assisted in the validation of our city-wide modelling approaches and the planning strategies for housing refurbishment”

Dr Nick Allott, Founder and CEO of nquiringminds said: “We want to be a British tech company that is making a real difference to people’s lives. We are developing IOT and SmartCities technologies using software and hardware that help a city capture, secure, and put data to work, so that they run smarter. We have a secure internet of things platform called the Open City Data Platform. This stretches from sensor data all the way up to high level data analytics which give real strategic insight.

Jo Johnson MP, the universities and science minister, will present the awards at a ceremony in Parliament on October 13th.

About Innovate UK
Innovate UK works with people, companies and partner organizations to find and drive the science and technology innovations that will grow the UK economy – delivering productivity, new jobs and exports. Our aim at Innovate UK – the government’s innovation agency – is to keep the UK globally competitive in the race for future prosperity.
Link to awards: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sme-innovation-awards-celebrate-success
For further information please visit:  www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-uk