Funding

The MyWorld Challenge Call programmes have awarded £50,000 to a total of 18 companies, alongside a 16-week accelerator programme delivered by Digital Catapult.

Catalysts and Connectors: Tools for the Creative Industries is the first of the MyWorld Challenge Calls led by Digital Catapult. Nine companies were  awarded £50,000 of funding to address the industry challenge set by Industry Partner NVIDIA or the open challenge, exploring innovative tooling solutions relating to the creation, delivery and assessment of experiences. The Challenge teams will also benefit from a 16-week support programme delivered by Digital Catapult with, NVIDIA.

Amplifying Imagination: AI in the Creative Industries is the second MyWorld Challenge Call. The theme looks to address Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions optimising or enabling creative approaches or processes, specifically addressing industry challenges related to the creation, delivery, and evaluation of experiences. Nine companies have been awarded £50,000 of funding to address commercial industry-led challenges in partnership with partners Amazon Web Services (AWS) and BBC Research & Development, as well as an opportunity for companies to explore their own challenges – aiming to build products, processes, services or innovative experimental prototypes that demonstrate clear advancements in the exploration, application or adaptation of AI technologies within the creative industries.

As part of MyWorld’s Collaborative Research and Development (CR&D) Open Calls, led by Digital Catapult, a total of 13 projects have been awarded a grant. 6 projects were awarded a share of £1m for CR&D 1 and 7 projects were awarded a share of £1.2m for CR&D 2.

The projects represent a mix of early-stage and award-winning companies whose work is steadily gaining momentum. The projects will explore a range of ambitious ideas addressing emerging challenges from across different areas of the Creative Industries.

In collaboration with our globally recognised universities in the region, the project teams will develop an exciting mix of innovative prototypes. These prototypes will drive cutting-edge research and impact industry which will further fuel the West of England’s creative technology sector and beyond.

For each of Watershed’s Sandbox funding calls, six creative teams were each awarded £45,000 to build a prototype.

The first Sandbox call, ‘Playable City’ produced projects which place play at the heart of the city, sparking imagination and conversation about inclusion, sustainability, surveillance and the future of cities.

The second Sandbox Call ‘More than AI’ invited SMEs, artists, designers, technologists and creative practitioners to experiment creatively and propose new distinctive ideas responding to the theme of ‘More than AI’, recognising it as one of many diverse intelligences in our world.

These calls are part of the MyWorld IDEAS programme, which supports small companies with high-risk ideas through community building, research and development and audience engagement locally and internationally.

Individuals join as a MyWorld Fellow in Residence, embedding themselves within a relevant regional organisation to investigate an associated research theme. Fellows in Residence create work that explores a specific idea connected to a MyWorld research theme and become an active part of an interdisciplinary community. Fellowships in Residence calls have taken place throughout the programme, and run for either 6 or 10 months.