UP Singapore was established in June 2012 as a platform for creating enterprises aimed at addressing social and environmental challenges, and will be hosting the Reducing our Environmental Impact Hackathon from the 25 to the 27 of January in collaboration with private and public agencies. The hackathon aims to bring together individuals and organisations to create real ways help people better protect our environment and save energy.  Read more

From Newtown Circus

Inspiring ground-up innovation to improve our urban environments through the creative use of technology and data

UP SINGAPORE

UP was created by Newton Circus as a platform for creating technology and data enabled enterprises that tackle a wide range of social and environmental challenges.  We crowdsource groundbreaking innovations by bringing together individuals and organizations from the people, private and public sectors and providing them access to new technologies and big, real-time data. The result is meaningful prototypes of enterprise solutions (for companies and government agencies), as well as social, mobile and web consumer applications.

Established in June 2012, UP has participated in over 20 leading events and organised two highly successful weekend Hackathons focused on Urban Solutions and Marginalized Women. The UP community now includes 1,500 Singapore based professionals and the Hackathons have involved over 500 participants contributing 13,000 working hours towards building more than 40 working prototypes. A select few continued on through the UP incubation process and are receiving both corporate and government funding.

See: www.upsingapore.com  and watch the video at: http://bit.ly/up-video

DATA AND TECHNOLOGY SANDBOX

Through the work of UP, organisations from both the private and public sector contribute to building the “UP Data Sandbox” (a unique and unprecedented testing environment with over 30 and growing private and public datasets to be used for prototyping during a hackathon). See: www.upsingapore.com/datawiki/doku.php

We continue to extend the scope of the Data Sandbox by broadening the datasets and including access to realtime data streams. UP will also be adding a Technology Sandbox where participants will be given access to the latest technologies developed by our private and academic sector partners.

REDUCING OUR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

At the end of January, UP with the support of the World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour, National University of Singapore Research Labs, National Environment Agency, Infocomm Development Authority and Economic Development Board will host the Reducing our Environmental Impact Hackathon. Tackling the issue of Energy Conservation and Efficiency, the Hackathon will bring together a broad spectrum of scientists, architects, sustainability experts, economists, government researchers, policy makers, design thinkers, developers, programmers, and creatives who want to create real ways to help people better protect our environment. The central themes are:

I WILL, WILL YOU? – Solutions to drive behaviour change and quantify the impact of individual actions, with the potential to be adopted as Earth Hour’s flagship application.

SMART CHOICES – Test out the latest technology to help individuals and businesses optimise energy usage and reduce their environmental impact.

CITY SOLUTIONS – Tackle environmental challenges with creative solutions that help Singapore become ‘A City in a Garden’.

SUPPORT UP SINGAPORE

UP provides a unique opportunity to engage with diverse communities in Singapore. Partner organizations have the chance to build connections with startups and specialist enterprises, researchers, creatives, data scientists and technology developers, multi-national corporations, government agencies, NGOs, social enterprises, and community organizations in Singapore. Technology and Data providers gain a fresh perspectives on the value and potential of their technology and data via thousands of hours of creative innovation. Finally, everyone involved will have a fantastic experience and benefit from the growing media coverage of UP – we have already been featured on television (Channel5 ,Channel News Asia), radio (93.8 Live), print (Straits Times) and numerous other leading print and digital media outlets.

We are inviting organizations to be a part of this growing platform by supporting UP in a few ways:

FUNDING & AWARDS – Funding UP puts an organization in the center of the innovation and media buzz that each Hackathon generates. Organizations that give in-kind services and monetary support to short-listed Prototypes can also help shape the focus and challenges for the Hackathon.

DATA SHARING – Detailed, relevant data not usually publicy available is a critical driver of the UP prototypes. Access is strictly controlled and can be customized to suit each organization’s needs.

PARTICIPATION & MENTORING – Each Hackathon and workshop features industry experts that act as mentors and coaches to the competiting teams and, of course, we hope that all interested organizations will encourage their employees and partners to participate.

We invite you to join us as pioneers in ground-up innovation.

For more information contact: daryl.arnold@newton-circus.com or stefan.jacob@upsingapore.com.

ABOUT NEWTON CIRCUS

At Newton Circus, we believe “doing good is good business.” We are a sustainability-inspired business incubator with a wealth of experience and expertise spanning all areas of business. We establish our own communities and ventures, working in partnership with multi-national corporations and government agencies to create new products, services and applications that are good for People, Planet and Profit. Newton Circus was the driving force behind the hugely successful UP Singapore in June 2012; and is at the forefront of open citizen innovation and harnessing data for value creation. www.newton-circus.com