BT Infinity Lab - Friends, family & community

BT Infinity Lab

BT’s Consumer team are looking for innovations that help busy people stay and feel connected to their family, friends and communities. Clearly this is not about reinventing social networks but more about smart devices and tools that people can use at home, at work or when out and about. We are reaching out to the start-up and scale-up businesses with new applications and services which we can jointly take to BT’s UK customer base.

David McDonald – director for broadband & bundles explained: “BT’s voice, broadband, TV and mobile services connect millions of families. We are looking for new services that help families, friends and communities to share experiences, simplify lives and stay safe.”

He added: “Examples could be connected devices for different age groups, family safety apps, the linking of digital presence with the real world environment, also location information and services. They could include new ways of supporting or sharing life at home and on the go, or ideas to make the web more accessible. We are keen to investigate the breadth of new Consumer services.”

This is the 10th Innovation challenge being run by BT’s Infinity Lab. The programme is part of BT’s Open Innovation ecosystem and aims to identify potential innovation partners. BT does not look to invest or take equity in the applicant companies as part of this process.

Will Pryke – head of the BT Infinity Lab said “We want to work with innovative companies and engage our customers through market trials. As such we are looking for companies that have an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and share our ambition. The aim is to develop commercial partnerships for BT to use or sell these new services.”

Applicants will be asked to complete a simple online form to describe their product or service, and optionally (but strongly advised) provide a short video which brings the customer experience to life.

Each submission will be reviewed by a team of BT product and technology experts. Short listed companies will be called for interview with finalists presenting to a dragons den of BT executives at an event which will be held in January 2017.

Launched in partnership with TechHub in September 2013, BT has run nine Infinity lab competitions to date, attracting hundreds of applicants from around the world.

The winning company will receive:

Mentoring: support from BT research, engineering, commercial and marketing teams to help develop their product or service.
Support from BT to evaluate and trial the winning product or service
Six months’ membership of the TechHub entrepreneur community with flexible desk space at their main London office and access to events.
For more info see: www.techhub.com .
Please register to receive a full briefing pack: https://techhub.typeform.com/to/DmQqCn

Entries close 10 December 2016.