The Department for Business and Trade, Challenge Works and the Open Data Institute have issued a Smart Data Challenge with a total prize fund of £600,000.
The three entities have said the prize money will go to “the most innovative apps and technologies” and that they encourage entrants from the “data and innovation sector” to enter. They are especially keen to see ideas that can be applied in financial services, energy, retail, transport and home buying.
In support of the challenge, Justin Madders, minister for employment rights, competition and markets, said: “Smart data has the potential to supercharge a wave of innovative startups right across the country. As we’ve seen with open banking, which has raised over £2bn of private funding, I hope other sectors can take advantage of the competition to provide real change for consumers and boost economic growth right across the nation.”
The government hopes that the UK’s past role in promoting open banking, which allows for financial data to be shared between banks and other third parties through application programming interfaces (APIs), can be a model for using smart data to improve services for consumers and small businesses.
The three sponsoring entities said the biggest hurdle facing data technologists is a lack of real-world “smart data”. Successful teams will gain exclusive access to a “smart data sandbox” that has been built for the prize to test and develop their ideas into working prototypes.
The idea looks to be to reward cross-sector technologies that benefit consumers and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), increasing competition and growing the economy.
The sandbox comprises synthetic data – which is data artificially made, not generated from real-world activities – from multiple datasets about people and businesses across 11 data domains, including banking, insurance, investing, property, energy and retail. The sponsors said the prize money will go to those who identify use cases that use multiple datasets and show benefits for people and business that will last.
The Smart Data Challenge Prize is … calling on diverse innovators from across industry, academia and civil society to enter their smart data solutions that will make people’s lives better and easier Holly Jamieson, Challenge Works
Holly Jamieson, executive director of Challenge Works, which is part of Nesta, a government-supported charity that encourages innovation, said: “The Smart Data Challenge Prize is an open innovation competition – it is calling on diverse innovators from across industry, academia and civil society to enter their smart data solutions that will make people’s lives better and easier. Challenge prizes have a proven track record of creating opportunities for innovative entrants, startups and entrepreneurs because they support the best ideas no matter their origin.”
Louise Burke, CEO of the Open Data Institute, said: “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 bring together data on people and businesses across 11 broad data domains. It will enable innovators to develop their ideas into prototype solutions to demonstrate the viability and benefits of smart data in different sectors.”
The Smart Data Challenge Prize follows on from a smaller Smart Data Discovery Challenge, which was launched under the Conservative government in October 2023 and named winners in March 2024.
The winners of that smaller-scale challenge include Rodeo, an app to help gig workers understand their variable pay to plan their finances, and Mealia, an app that integrates supermarket data to recommend cost savings and healthier eating.
Challenges being targeted by this new competition include the cost of living, the transition to clean power and net zero, improving access to services, creating a competitive level playing field for SMEs, and supporting vulnerable customers.
In May 2025, 10 finalists will be supported with seed funding of up to £50,000, mentoring and access to the sandbox. In autumn 2025, an overall winner will be awarded £50,000. There will be two runner-up prizes of £25,000.
Through the prize, the government hopes to 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.
