Archive for 8 November 2007

News: Ministerial podcast

By Vicki Costello on 8 November 2007 | No Comments

Joan Ruddock MP - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Climate Change, Waste and Recycling, and Biodiversity has recorded a podcast about the Big Green Challenge. She speaks about her personal interest in the environment, some of the work she’s observed in her own constituency and the work Defra are doing on Climate Change.

It’s great to see that the Government are watching what happens with the Big Green Challenge and looking forward to seeing what ideas groups come up with.

At NESTA we want to learn as much as possible about how the Big Green Challenge works, about which ideas are out there and about how those ideas can grow. We’ll share these lessons with government, other funders and other organisations to try to make sure that, in the future - beyond the Big Green Challenge - ideas with the most potential to contribute towards solving big issues like climate change can be spotted and helped to grow.

Download the podcast

The (Big Green) Challenge for inventors

By Alan Morton on 8 November 2007 | 6 Comments

Can groups use new inventions in their entry for the Big Green Challenge? It would be great if they can but we thought there were a couple of stumbling blocks. First, really revolutionary ideas take years to become useful technology – the humble zip took decades to develop. That’s too long for the Big Green Challenge. But there might be problems for the inventor too. If they don’t have a patent or can protect their idea in other ways and it became public through the competition, then the inventor would not be able to get that protection afterwards. So the inventor might lose out.

But inventors could still enter if they want when they have – or are not bothered about – legal protection for their idea. Here’s how:

A group entering the Big Green Challenge would be a great way to test exciting new gizmos and get rid of the last bugs. So an inventor could get together with a community who use that invention and they could enter the Big Green Challenge. If that device does make a big energy saving, and the community show it could be taken up across the country, then they are well on the way to having a great entry.

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