Deadline: 25 May 2017
Ufi Charitable Trust is inviting applicants for its VocTech Seed fund that plays an important role in creating a pipeline of new approaches by supporting innovative and creative projects at a relatively early stage of development. It enables new ideas to reach a point where they can demonstrate their potential to customers or funders and reach the market.
This call will support projects that show the potential to have a real impact in the world of vocational learning and to ultimately make a difference to how people learn and to the number of people gaining new skills. To achieve this, projects need to offer high quality, innovative solutions that are flexible and adaptable to future change; are cost effective and could improve business efficiency. Projects must aim to improve outcomes for learners and improve the quality of vocational teaching and training.
This is part of Ufi’s work to encourage greater awareness of the potential for vocational learning solutions – encouraging digital innovators to explore the market for voctech solutions and providing evidence to potential investors and purchasers of the range and scale of opportunities in voctech.
Funding Information
Up to £50,000 is available for projects of up to 12 months duration.
What will VocTech Seed fund?
- The design and development of novel approaches to digital vocational learning; helping to take those ideas through basic prototyping to the next stage of ‘seeding the market’ by delivering a first proof of concept prototype.
- This can include projects looking to extend an existing approach to a new market, industry or community of learners; or the develop of innovative technology to advance an existing learning approach; as long as there is significant innovation and intention to achieve a step change beyond normal business development activity.
- Projects that show good understanding of the vocational learning market and provide evidence of the issue they plan to address. They must describe how the learning will be delivered in addition to the technical advances that are proposed; and include plans for testing with relevant users/learners and for incorporating feedback into product development.
- Ambitious projects which show the potential to scale up and reach a large number of learners; and with a vision of their route to market and outline plan for reaching their users and customers.
Priorities
This is an open call and they are interested in creative and interesting ideas from all industries, sectors and technologies, in line with our normal parameters. Some of the areas where they believe there is great scope for digital approaches to vocational learning are shown below, but they equally welcome ideas which fall outside of these:
- Learning in context – Learning that is delivered where and when it is to be used enables learners to make connections between knowledge and its application. Digital technology offers mechanisms for delivering vocational learning on a ‘just-in-time’ basis, in more places and for learners to have control of what and where they learn.
- Automation and machine learning – Machine learning underpins adaptive learning systems that can predict student outcomes and generate personalised learning recommendations on what next to study or practice, based on individual assessments of performance, learning style and so on.
- Hyper-local projects linking employers and learners – Innovations in digital technology can match the needs of learners and employers at a very local level. Technologies developed at this level could be replicable across wider geographies for increased impact and scale.
- Analytic tools – Data collected from learners and from engagement in on-line learning and networks can be used to improve the learning experience, enhance understanding of the links between inputs and outputs in learning, and improve information for educators and learners.
- Harnessing digital to support individualised and differentiated learning – technology can transform differentiated learning, enabling individual learners to progress according to their own needs, skills, interests, readiness, or choice.
Selection Criteria
Projects must:
- Focus on vocational learning
- Provide an innovative digital solution to a defined learning issue
- Offer new learning tools, not just new learning content
- Understand who the customers will be and the likely route to market
- Have ambition for the future growth of the project and a vision for how it could be scaled up to impact on a large number of learners
- Have a plan for business sustainability beyond the period of Ufi funding
- Be realistic and deliverable within the timeframe
Eligibility Criteria
- The VocTech Seed funding round is likely to be particularly suitable for early stage businesses, smaller digital innovators and other organisations looking to test new digital approaches on a small scale. It is also suitable for digital innovators currently working in other markets who can see opportunities to adapt their approach to vocational learning. It may be particularly useful to edtech businesses looking to expand their products and series to delivery to the voctech market.
- However, it is open to all organisations, including charities, trade bodies, existing learning providers and employers who would like to test new approaches to using digital technology for vocational learning. Applications can be strengthened by demonstrating a collaborative approach, especially where employers and digital learning specialists are working together. They do not have a fixed view on how collaboration is structured or who is the applicant or lead partner but they do expect all partners to be actively engaged in project activity.
- The majority of organisations funded are UK-based. Applications from outside the UK will be considered if they can clearly demonstrate how they will address vocational learning challenges faced in the UK. Only projects that can demonstrate their impact in the UK will be funded.
How to Apply
Interested applicants can apply online via given website.
For more information, please visit Ufi Charitable Trust.