Start-ups can benefit from a €15,000 grant for mobile app-based solutions which they can design, develop and test in a real life scenario at next to no risk, says MITA Innovation Hub manager Alexander Borg
Based in SmartCity Malta, the MITA Innovation Hub is a government-funded incubator with a mission to create opportunities for students and tech start-ups to kickstart a business through digital technologies.
This could stem from a call for ideas about developing and launching a new product. A start-up could also be already in business, but is looking for opportunities to learn new skills and develop its business in a new niche area.
The MITA Innovation Hub provides a co-working space, hands-on support and mentorship, legal advice, access to digital technologies, and access to MITA’s many connections with the public sector. The latter could serve as a test bed where start-ups can demonstrate the feasibility of their solutions.
After carrying out its first successful pilot last summer, when four students demonstrated the feasibility of developing a mobile app to guide ramblers and tourists visiting the Park Majjistral nature and history park, the MITA Innovation Hub will soon be starting its second larger and more complex pilot to test the market’s appetite for such projects.
The hub, in fact, has just published a fresh call offering a total grant of €30,000. Start-ups have to submit a proposal on how they believe their solutions can address latent needs in two areas: quick access to context-sensitive development planning information happening in the neighbourhood, and the enhancement of tourists’ experience when visiting heritage sites, both using mobile phones in combination with public data which the business owners, Malta Environment and Planning Authority and Heritage Malta, will be making available for the projects.
The MITA Innovation Hub will provide a grant of €15,000 to the start-up that submits the best proposal for either one or the other of the two thematic areas.
The winning start-up will have between 12 and 14 weeks to develop and test a solution with the support of MITA staff, the business owners and external mentors. For more information about the call, which closes on February 11, 2015, visit mitainnovationhub.gov.mt/startapp15k.
On January 20 at 5.30pm at the hub’s premises in SmartCity, the MITA Innovation Hub will be holding an information and networking session. During this session, start-upswill be able to meet the business ownersand MITA staff and ask questions aboutthe call and specify their mentorship and technology requirements.
Prior to submitting their proposals, start-ups are expected to engage in basic market research to ensure that their hypothesised solution is validated by features that users would expect to find in a product for the chosen thematic area.
For instance, they should carry out a small survey, conduct interviews with potential users, or cite similar case studies in other cities, to provide some supporting evidence that the hypothesised solution will likely be taken up and used.
It is all very well to develop an excellently designed mobile app, but ultimately it is take-up that can really ensure sustainability of such a solution in the real world.
The MITA Innovation Hub therefore seeks to create conditions that replicate the scenario a start-up would encounter in real life, were it to bootstrap itself.
The difference here is that the start-up would be enhancing its professional exposure and learn new skills at practically no risk other than the time they invest in building the product, and in this manner use the MITA Innovation Hub as a launch pad for new business.
It is then up to the start-up to put the intellectual property it develops to good use either by using the experience as a MITA-endorsed testimonial for future business or by commercialising the product elsewhere.