Transport for Wales (TfW) is offering business innovators the opportunity to develop ideas to improve rail users' experiences through its “Lab by Transport for Wales” scheme.
The scheme provides a 12-week accelerated mentoring programme, and recruitment is now underway for the fourth group of creative tech talent start-ups from across Wales and the rest of the UK.
Successful applicants will work closely with TfW to receive dedicated mentoring from business experts to develop their products and innovations.
The programme will be delivered remotely, allowing start-ups to take part online, then at a final demonstration day, they will pitch their ideas to leading TfW decision-makers.
Winners will be awarded funds to develop their products further to help towards delivering the railway of the future.
TfW has already helped over 30 budding start-ups to develop their ideas, with 24 of them reaching business case review.
Although TfW is unable to pursue every participant's innovations, the advice, guidance, and support of working with the Alt Labs team and business experts has been invaluable to the development of those companies' products.
In some cases, companies were given opportunities to work together despite not being chosen on the demo day.
The winners of the second cohort was Spatial Cortex. They have continued to work with TfW on their MOVA technology which aims to analyse and look at tools to reduce the risk of muscular-skeletal injuries while conducting track work.
Michael Davies, TfW's Insight and Innovation Manager said: “The standard of companies pitching during the previous three rounds of recruitment has been incredibly high, so we're really looking forward what the latest group of tech innovators will offer.
“The start-ups are set questions which reflect some of the real-world challenges we face around infrastructure, safety, and security, as well as looking at fresh ways of tackling one of the biggest challenges public transport has faced in recent times: how we encourage people to choose public transport in the future. We're looking forward to getting started.”
To be considered for the latest cohort of the innovation programme, apply online on their website at: https://www.f6s.com/lab-by-transport-for-wales-cohort-4/
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