With around £125,000 in prizes, the Cisco British Innovation Gateway (BIG) Awards is an annual open innovation competition to discover and reward the finest examples of the UK's most innovative start-ups. And there's less than a week to go until the 1 May deadline
The Big Awards are open to individuals or groups in the UK, applicants can enter their ideas into one of five categories:
- Big Data
- Collaboration including.Video & Social Media
- Future Cities
- Internet of Things
- Mobility
All you need to do is to outline your BIG idea in 250 words or less. - you will have the opportunity to provide more information at a later stage of the contest. Once submitted, your idea will be moderated to ensure that it meets the contest guidelines
The overall winner will receive a total prize package of approximately £75k cash, 12 months mentoring from Cisco and a 12 month support package covering PR, marketing & legal services. Runner's up and semi-finalists will also receive cash and technology to support and accelerate the development of their businesses.
1st Place:
- £62,000 in cash
- 12 months of technology and business mentoring from leading Cisco engineers and managers
- £18,500 in 12 month Digital Marketing support from dnx
- Basic digital build
- £18,500 US in 12 month PR support from Octopus Communications
- £9,250 in legal services from Bird & Bird
2nd Place:
- £15,500 in cash
- 12 months of technology and business mentoring from leading Cisco engineers and managers
- 12 months of mentoring support (to a maximum of a further 3 meetings) and initial legal workshop with two leading technology lawyers from Bird & Bird
3rd Place:
- £6,200 in cash
- 12 months of technology and business mentoring from leading Cisco engineers and managers
- Initial legal workshop with two leading technology lawyers from Bird & Bird
To enter the competition, entrants must register online to submit their ideas by midnight on 1 May 2012. The competition will run until September 2012 and involves a four-stage judging process, with the final of the Awards taking place at a special event on 12 September, where the six finalists will present their business plans live to a judging panel before the winner is chosen.
