Announcing the Smart Data Challenge Prize

Announcing the Smart Data Challenge Prize

The Department for Business and Trade, in partnership with the Open Data Institute and Smart Data Foundry, has today launched the Smart Data Challenge Prize, which is  rewarding up to £600,000 to the boldest and most innovative apps and technologies that harness the power of Smart Data and drive real-world solutions to benefit customers and businesses alike.

In an increasingly data-driven world, the Smart Data Challenge Prize is the catalyst for a new wave of innovation in Smart Data enabled services that will increase competition and grow the economy. Focusing on cross-sector technologies that leverage data in new, powerful ways and solve pressing challenges in sectors such as finance, energy, retail and more, the challenge calls on individuals, innovators, entrepreneurs, academia and civil society to enter for the chance to prototype ambitious solutions that would harness Smart Data across different sectors of the economy.

Smart Data has the potential to supercharge a wave of innovative start-ups right across the country. As we’ve seen with Open Banking which has raised over £2 billion of private funding, I hope other sectors can take advantage of the competition to provide real change for customers and boost economic growth right across the nation.

Testing and refining

Building on the momentum of the Smart Data Discovery Challenge which named winners in March 2024, the Smart Data Challenge Prize is the next step in the UK’s incredible journey and focuses on prototyping the first working cross-sector Smart Data applications beyond banking in a new Smart Data sandbox environment.

As well as financial reward, the Challenge Prize will see successful teams gain exclusive access to this new sandbox, built especially for the prize, so they can test and refine their technologies to work with real-world data. This will not only accelerate innovation but also provide valuable insights into the barriers of Smart Data adoption, ultimately helping the UK to move towards an interoperable ecosystem that works seamlessly across sectors.

The sandbox will bring together synthetic data on people and businesses across 11 key areas – including banking, insurance, investing, property, energy, and retail – each encompassing multiple datasets, without compromising privacy. Solutions, therefore, have the potential to address a wide range of issues, such as the cost of living crisis, the transition to cleaner power and net zero, improving access to services, creating a level playing field for SMEs and supporting vulnerable customers. 

The biggest obstacle facing Smart Data innovators right now is the lack of real-world Smart Data available to them. To experiment, iterate and scale proofs of concept, innovators need access to high-quality, robust and secure data to demonstrate how their ideas will create lasting benefits for people and businesses. The Smart Data Sandbox will enable innovators to develop their ideas into prototype solutions to demonstrate the viability and benefits of Smart Data in different sectors.

Call to action

A Smart Data ecosystem that is interoperable across sectors will unlock a wealth of opportunity to solve problems facing customers and SMEs, in ways that haven’t been possible before. The Smart Data Challenge Prize is particularly keen to encourage ideas across financial services, energy, retail, transport and home buying.

Through the prize, the government will gain insight into a range of in-depth, tested use cases across a variety of sectors, providing a clear picture of the potential barriers to development, and exactly what data would need to be unlocked to bring the most innovative ideas in the Smart Data space to life, in the long term.

Smart Data Foundry is proud to support the Smart Data Challenge Prize, an initiative that underscores the vital role of synthetic smart data in addressing real-world challenges. By empowering innovators with tools like the Smart Data Sandbox with NayaOne, we can drive the development of impactful solutions that support SMEs, protect vulnerable customers, and deliver meaningful benefits to businesses, consumers, and society at large.

Finalists will be announced in May 2025, with 10 teams to be supported with seed funding of up to £50,000, expert mentoring and access to the bespoke Smart Data sandbox, allowing them to test and develop their ideas into working prototypes. In Autumn 2025, an overall winner with the most promising Smart Data solution will be awarded £50,000. There will be two runner-up prizes of £25,000.

Entries to the Smart Data Challenge Prize must be UK-led and submitted by the deadline: 14 March 2025 at 23:59.

Apply now

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