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Background

Since 1999, Tweeddale Youth Action (TYA) has operated as a youth-led organisation that gives young people a safe space to congregate, an alternative to bus stops and street corners. They operate two youth clubs in Peebles and Innerleithen and through the provision of free opportunities for all, they support young people in accessing advice, developing skills, confidence, and a sense of belonging and responsibility within the community.

Challenge

Five years ago, TYA received LEADER (a European Union initiative to support rural development projects in rural, coastal and urban areas of EU member countries) funding that allowed them to invest in a metal workshop, a bike repair shop and a fully kitted out commercial kitchen.  Off the back of this, TYA has grown several micro enterprises within the youth club – Bike Punks and Food Punks.

Bike Punks is based around their in-house metal workshop.  They started repairing unwanted bikes and giving them back out to the community, teaching young people metalwork as well as bike repair skills.

Food Punks is based around their commercial kitchen and delivers outside catering for events, weddings etc. As well as the kitchen, they have a van and outside cookery equipment and teach young people the skills involved in outside catering.

Pre-Covid, both endeavours had healthy income-generating capacity. With Bike Punks, TYA had a service level agreement with local authorities to support young people in learning metalwork skills. In addition. they had an agreement with the South East of Scotland Transport Partnership to provide an e-bike library locally as well as an e-cargo bike delivery service. Similarly, Food Punks saw a steady demand for events catering. 

This pipeline of business disappeared with the onset of Covid and TYA found themselves at a crossroad. Both Bike Punks and Food Punks had a strong brand to build upon and TYA had ideas they were interested in taking forward to diversify their offering.

Tweeddale Youth Action needed help with developing a business strategy to see where the opportunities lay and which of their ideas should be taken forward.

Solution

After being referred by South of Scotland Enterprise, Shelley Breckenridge, Business Engagement Executive at Interface, was able to connect Dave Hodson, Locality Manager at TYA, to Ed Green, Business Development Manager at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, who was looking for consultancy projects for his students.  The TYA project received the support of two separate groups of University of Glasgow students.

The project brief for the students was:

Initially, as part of their consultancy projects, a group of full-time MBA Students at Glasgow University researched and prioritised these ideas, considering in-house resource to develop a strategy and a way forward. As a follow up, a group of undergraduate students on the ‘Entrepreneurial Ventures: Management & Growth’ course (which works primarily with social enterprises and charities) were given the same brief to deliver new viewpoints for the company.

Benefits

This process of consultation meant that the time commitment needed from TYA was reduced to a minimum whilst receiving insightful and helpful suggestions from the students.  Equally helpful for the Locality Manager was being given the luxury of taking time out from the usual spinning of plates to think and reflect on where the organisation was and where they needed to get to.  Creating the time to articulate the organisation’s needs, and having this reflected back in reports that they could share and act on, was invaluable to them.

Background

Floco (formerly Lilypads Group Ltd) is a mission driven company that manufactures and sells reusable sanitary pads and provides menstrual health education. Founder and CEO of Floco, Alison Wood, strives to end period poverty and stigma by providing affordable reusable sanitary pads and education to communities around the world.  They currently work in Malaysia and Kenya, with preparations to start working in Cambodia and Nigeria.

There is a growing market opportunity for natural, sustainable, durable, and reusable sanitary products in the UK and current reusable sanitary pads are limited by several factors including leakage, lack of absorbency and the very high price point.

The company aim to develop a product suitable for the UK market, with the long-term aim that profit from this product can subsidise the cost of their international pads, ensuring they are affordable to all.

Challenge

During the product development phase, Floco trialled their product and learnt that the consumers found it more comfortable than their conventional sanitary pad. However, for these women the pad’s thickness was imperative; ideally the women could wear the pad all day and it be no thicker than standard disposable pads. With the current materials available on the market this looked unlikely and therefore the pad would need to be much thicker, limiting its attractiveness.

The company were also keen to look at ways to make reusable pads more affordable and environmentally friendly.  They recognise that absorbent textiles are key to this development along with being able to ensure the current attributes of pads are maintained. 

Floco approached Interface in the hope of undertaking a feasibility study with a research team to establish initial options and the key design principles for absorbent textiles that would offer the following attributes:

Solution

Following a search of Interface’s academic partners, Dr Danmei Sun, Associate Professor of Textile Materials & Engineering at Heriot-Watt University was introduced to Floco and undertook the initial feasibility project funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher. The results identified two materials – a quick drying fabric that was soft and felt like underwear and an absorbent middle layer than holds the moisture so even when pressure is applied it does not leak. The constructed pad is discrete, easy to use and wash and fits the user needs perfectly.

Benefits

Floco tested the product and identified a manufacturer. The pad was launched to the market in July 2020 by Crowdfunder with sales in the UK subsidising Floco’s work internationally to ensure no one is limited by their period.

Follow-On Activity

Following this initial project Floco returned to Interface to undertake a consultancy project around Strategy and Business growth. Working with a student at the University of Stirling, Floco have explored: the potential of targeting the pads at a specific demographic, behavioural attitudes towards buying sustainable products, analysing the sustainability of the whole business, not just the product, and optimising supply chain opportunities.

To learn more about Floco, please visit their website.

Background

NjordFrey, established and registered in Rwanda in 2018 as a social enterprise, offers advanced farming solutions to developing farmers in Rwanda, so that they may decrease levels of malnutrition within their immediate community while experiencing stable economic growth.

This is done by offering these farmers access to sustainably designed aquaponic starter kits, seasonal input product lines, e.g. seeds & fingerlings, and operational training to allow them to become independent, all as part of an outgrower credit model.

NjordFrey are in the process of implementing their flagship farm in 2020 to showcase its solution and secure further collaborators and investment for large scale-up.

Challenge

NjordFrey were looking for an academic partner to apply for the Innovate Catalyst Round 8 Agri-tech competition. This Department for International Development (DFID) funded competition was for projects on agri-tech and food chain innovations with partners in eligible African countries. The aim of this competition was to increase the pace of development and scale of uptake of agricultural and food systems innovation by farmers and food systems actors (such as manufacturers, processors, retailers, distributors, or wholesalers) in Africa.

NjordFrey was specifically looking for support from an academic partner in any of the following areas:

Solution

NjordFrey was referred to Interface by the Knowledge Transfer Network to find an academic collaborative partner.

After scoping up the project and sending it on to various universities within Scotland, Ruth Oliver from Interface matched NjordFrey with four academic institutes for further discussions. After which, NjordFrey partnered with the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) for funding applications. The partners were successful in receiving an Innovate UK grant of almost £300k to collaborate on an 18-month project. This project is now underway and both organisations are working together to develop a Digital Health Monitoring System (using non-invasive sensors to provide a real time status of the farm health to improve yield and reduce errors) to improve food security in the developing world.

Benefits

Within Rwanda, 1.8 million smallholder farmers, looking to provide a nutritious protein and plant-based diet while increasing yields to support economic growth, are limited by; high capital costs for high yield solutions, promotion of basic farming techniques by competitors, lack of routes to market, and falling into a dependency trap with other solutions.

NjordFrey (NF), Rwanda, offers these farmers access to sustainably designed aquaponic starter farms via an outgrower credit model, seasonal input product lines e.g. seeds and fingerlings, operational training to allow them to become independent, and facilitates routes to markets.

In collaboration with the University of West of Scotland (UWS), this project is looking at developing a Digital Health Monitoring System that has a high-tech back end (sensors and machine learning) with a low-tech font-end approach (SMS/voice call) to feedback actions to farmers in an inclusive manner, providing NjordFrey with a data-driven product to capture market share in Rwanda.

Overall, our solution will remove high upfront costs and technical barriers, provide increased yields of organic produce, increase calorie intake by 28% and income 10-fold for up to 100,000 farmers and their 240,000 family members, via 2,000+ farms within 10 years. Tackling malnutrition (affecting 34% of children under 5) while improving livelihoods via this model is an innovate first within Rwanda and targets many of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
 

Business benefits

Follow-on Activity

NjordFrey has since gone on to have the following work-based learning projects with students at both the University of Strathclyde and the University of Glasgow, facilitated through Interface:

MSc Management Science (Strathclyde) – Supply chain and Market development – The business required additional data on agriculture markets / supply chains within Rwanda and the opportunities and challenges as a result.

MSc Management Science (Strathclyde) – Business Modelling – NjordFrey required a financial/business model to be developed that would allow them to forecast their 5-year financials and, importantly, run multiple scenarios/simulations within the context of a developing country in East Africa. Ultimately, the outputs of this project would be used to direct their financial strategy.

MBA Consultancy Week (Glasgow) – Export Strategy development – The MBA group were assigned to look at the projected amounts of fish and veg produce over five years, from 32 farms, and develop and market the business’s export strategy to Europe and the rest of the world from Rwanda.

Background

Bright Light Relationship Counselling is a charity that provides counselling, family therapy support, sex therapy, life skills coaching to young people, and counselling in schools. They also support families in recovery after alcohol addiction.  

Challenge

Bright Light was facing challenges reaching as well as supporting young people as, typically, they were not found to be comfortable with face-to-face counselling.  Bright Light also have clients, such as carers and people with disabilities etc., where travelling to a venue is very difficult for them. Their services are crisis driven – they receive calls for help when issues have reached crisis point and relationships are near to or have broken down.  

To combat these challenges, Bright Light were looking to:

Solution

Bright Light approached Interface, looking for a university or further education student to compile a feasibility/business plan that would include:

Benefits

The feasibility study came just before the COVID-19 outbreak and the recommendations provided by the students allowed Bright Light to rapidly adapt their service model and set up digital counselling sessions. This enabled them to continue to help their most vulnerable clients, to keep in touch with them, as well as bringing in much needed income to the charity when many others were struggling.

Bright Light’s doors are wide open and welcomes people and families who feel they could benefit from counselling support in these strange and challenging times.

Contact askus@bright-light.org.uk and visit their website www.bright-light.org.uk.

Background

Go Upstream provides a practical training and design programme for transport providers, helping to make services more inclusive for people living with dementia. They bring people with dementia together with people who provide travel and transport services, putting their voice at the heart of future mobility service design.

Challenge

Travel connections can be challenging, potentially creating barriers to travel, and if the challenges lie in the spaces in between services, how do we discover them, how do we go about reducing barriers, and who is responsible for making improvements?

In 2018, Transport Scotland called for ideas for projects to address some of the challenges identified in Scotland’s Accessible Travel Framework.  This became the focus of a new project that brought together a broad group of partners, led by Go Upstream and funded by Transport Scotland*, called ‘Making Connections: the spaces in-between’. The project idea was to bring disabled people together with transport staff to explore connections from rail stations to ferry terminals and then collaboratively design solutions to these challenges. 

It was an ambitious proposal that required a partnership with many different skills. 

The project partners tapped into the expertise developing here in Scotland around improving environments and services for people with dementia. Making Connections has benefitted from the growing network of projects and organisations funded by the Life Changes Trust.  Partners include StudioLR who are working on improving signage, Paths for All who are changing the way that we think about inclusive outdoor environments and the British Deaf Association who will ensure that the views of deaf people who are affected by dementia are included.

Transport Scotland placed a large emphasis on evaluation and it was important for Go Upstream to bring in specialist expertise to ensure that they could track and describe the project’s impact. 

Solution

Referred by Business Gateway, Interface introduced Andy Hyde of Go Upstream to Catharine Ward Thompson, Professor of Landscape Architecture and director of the OPENspace Research Centre. 

OPENspace is an international research centre, based in the universities of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt, which contributes evidence on why inclusive access to the outdoors matters.

It is a collaborative, multi-disciplinary team, bringing together experts in landscape architecture, environmental psychology, human geography and forestry.

Addressing the full spectrum of open space environments – from city parks and squares to remote rural landscapes – their work informs policy on health and wellbeing, social inclusion, countryside access and sustainable urban development.  They focus on the benefits to be gained from getting outdoors and the barriers currently experienced by different users, particularly those from disadvantaged groups.

It was OPENspace’s previous experience of working with people in different outdoor environments, as well as taking a qualitative approach, that was key to tracking the project’s impact.

Benefits

A key benefit of having the OPENspace team involved in the Making Connections project was the ability to use their monitoring and evaluation results to inform the design of the project approach and tools as the project progressed. By taking this reflective approach, Go Upstream ensured that they were able to keep aligned with their guiding document, Scotland’s Accessible Travel Framework. 

*The new fund provides support to projects which enable the central vision outlined in the Accessible Travel Framework – that all disabled people can travel with the same freedom, choice, dignity and opportunity as other citizens – with a particular focus in encouraging more sustainable active travel options.

Established in 2012, Tomintoul & Glenlivet Development Trust is a community led regeneration project based in the North East of Scotland. The Trust was created to drive economic regeneration in the area and has a wide remit covering maintenance, regeneration and improvement of the community’s physical, economic, social and cultural infrastructure.

The Trust is focussed on developing the area to enrich the visitor experience, and extending their current season to include sports activities aimed at a younger demographic. Their long term plan being to market the area as the outdoor hub of Moray, these activities include a cycling festival, a motorcycle gathering and further development of the existing walking and whisky festivals.

The Business Challenge

Keen to use digital media to enhance the current visitor experience, the Trust’s aim is to develop the area’s technological infrastructure enabling it to support digital tourism. Conducting a trial marketing project in their already successful whisky sector, aiming to integrate the area’s oral tradition with local history in a site specific tour, would be the ideal first step in the process.

Based on the famous Glenlivet whisky, The Smuggler’s Trail would give them the chance to understand how technology would be used and at what cost; the practicalities of using it in rural areas- would GPS be an option or were localised servers more feasible; and how would they deliver the idea, would the data be held in the area or would visitors need to download it first?

The overall challenge of drawing in a younger audience required them firstly to ascertain market demand for their ‘outdoor adventure’ activities, carrying out local research but also seeking internationally successful examples offering key points to follow. They therefore needed marketing expertise.

If the Smuggler’s Trail tours are successful, the Trust’s aim is to take this new expertise and, combining this with the new market research, integrate digital technologies more fully into their overall future marketing plan.

The Solution

The Trust’s Local Development Officer, Lindsay Robertson, met Interface’s Kathryn Fraser at the Interface Digital Tourist event and Lindsay soon realised that Interface, with direct access to world class research expertise, would be able to help with both challenges.

Kathryn worked with Lindsay to create a working brief which would be sent to academics across Scotland inviting them to pitch for the project.

Having selected a number of interested parties from a range of universities and research institutions across Scotland, Kathryn put Lindsay in touch with Edinburgh Napier University, whose Centre for Interaction Design would be ideal. Having carried out research in digital applications they provided the perfect environment to test out the pilot project.

With this pilot now in development, Lindsay was keen to follow up by starting on market research for their overall rebrand. Knowing that Abertay University have an excellent Retail Marketing Programme, Kathryn put Lyndsay in touch with them.

Benefits

The Trust is currently considering findings delivered by both Edinburgh Napier and Abertay University. With access to leading digital technologies and space to trial the practical implications of their rurally based concept, Edinburgh Napier University has identified the most suitable platform and will be working with the Trust on its’ implementation. Crucially this research and development stage only required the Trust to match the academic time spent with their own. This will ultimately ensure the success of their ‘Smuggler’s Trail’ enabling this format to then be rolled out to other local heritage sites in their area.

As well as access to leading international interactive research, the Trust had access to top ranking university students who undertook their market research as part of their degree programme. This meant fully developed market analysis at no cost incurred to the Trust and hugely beneficial exposure to the commercial tourism industry for the students.

According to Lindsay,

“We are delighted to be working with Edinburgh Napier and Abertay Universities through Interface. The process so far has been extremely quick and easy and we hope that the key insights delivered from both institutions will have a huge impact on where we see ourselves in the future – we will certainly be incorporating the finds in our future marketing activity.”

August 2018

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon visited the recently opened Tomintoul and Glenlivet Discovery Centre, which received funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise to develop a fully immersive visual experience focusing on the past local illicit whisky industry.

Through Interface, the Tomintoul and Glenlivet Development Trust, which owns and manages the centre, accessed expert academic support from The University of St Andrews. Virtual reality technology is being developed as well as a 360 degree experience of an illicit still.

Solar Bear is an award winning multi discipline theatre company based in Glasgow.

Established in 2002 their aim is to produce inclusive theatre that is exciting, pioneering and accessible to performers and audiences alike.

As well as producing and delivering unique stage productions Solar Bear also offer several tailored training and creative learning programmes aimed at young people, adults, schools, local authorities and arts organisations across Scotland. So far they have delivered over 500 workshops nationwide and in January 2008 launched Scotland’s first Deaf Youth Theatre integrating audio description and British Sign Language into on-stage performances and workshops.

Challenge
To build on the success of their existing training programme, and to increase engagement in their newly formed Deaf Youth Theatre, Solar Bear approached the Royal Conservatoire Scotland to create a partnership project that would promote access and engagement opportunities for individuals who are deaf and wish to pursue a career in the performing arts.

Solution
Through RCS, Solar Bear applied for Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher funding which was administered by Interface. The funding allowed Solar Bear to create a 10 week pilot to test the concept of a deaf theatre short course. The success of this pilot led to the creation of a full short course and summer school programme. Now in its second year the short courses run 40 weeks of the year and now have 9 regular student participants.

Due to the success of this pilot, and the subsequent short courses and summer school programmes, RCS and Solar Bear continued their partnership increasing their scope to investigate the possibility of creating a full time BA Degree Course.

According to Gerry Ramage, Artistic Director, Solar Bear Theatre Company, “Solar Bear is delighted and proud to be working with our partners at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland to establish formal pathways into the profession for young deaf actors. Our pilot training programme, has already resulted in new and ground-breaking opportunities for a new generation of deaf actors and audiences alike. Our shared vision will reflect and celebrate Scotland’s cultural diversity by ensuring that talented young deaf people have access to quality training opportunities at the highest level.”

As part of the extended partnership Solar Bear received further funding from RCS to create an apprentice programme designed to help RCS shape the course by providing a greater understanding of the needs of deaf students; the needs of deaf audiences and ultimately to understand the employability opportunities for newly graduated deaf actors.

The three apprentices conducting the research found that interest in visual theatre is becoming increasingly prevalent and audience numbers are continuing to rise. There is also more and more demand from other main stream theatre companies who are looking to bridge international language gaps by incorporating visual theatre into their programmes.

The apprenticeship programme is due to finish in August 2014 but it is ready evident that there is a desire for and from visual performers and therefore the new course has been agreed and is due to launch in September 2015.

Gerry says, “British sign language is beautiful, visual and accessible and with increased interest from more traditional theatres for deaf actors we are confident that demand for visual theatre will continue to increase. Thanks to the initial Innovation Voucher funding we know that the new BA Degree course will give deaf actors the skills and confidence to succeed in what is a very competitive market.”

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case by case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.

Equal Adventure, located near Aviemore in the Highlands of Scotland, is a registered charity with their main aim being to continue the development of equipment, information and resources, making outdoor adventure, fieldwork and active lifestyles accessible regardless of disability.

Equal Adventure works in a number of areas to ensure that adventure is accessible to people with disabilities which includes; equipment development, training, events and information. The trading arm of the charity operates as a social enterprise to ensure that the products they develop are able to reach the people and organisations that require them through sustainable manufacture, pricing and supply.

Equal Adventure had developed and created a prototype of snow board bindings for double leg amputees and needed to complete stringent laboratory based assessments of the product to validate the bindings.However, they did not have access to such expertise or facilities and required a third party to carry out the highly specialised testing so that the new product could be developed for the market.

Equal Adventure approached Interface – The knowledge connection for business after learning about the free and impartial brokerage service they provide.

Interface worked to translate their needs into a suitable brief for Universities and research centres across Scotland. Having conducted an extensive search Interface identified the required knowledge and facilities within the University of Strathclyde. The University’s department of Design Manufacture and Engineering Management’s Industrial Projects scheme allowed a student to undertake the design, development and testing of the product over the course of an academic year.

The project provided a unique work experience opportunity giving the student direct practical industry experience and resulted in a working prototype which established the design viability.

As a result of the knowledge connection made by Interface, Equal Adventure have proved the bindings are safe for use by double leg amputees and in doing so they have been able to add another product to their range.

Suresh Paul, Principal Advocate at Equal Adventure explained, “Interface linked Equal Adventure to the expertise provided by the University of Strathclyde which has been invaluable to us and enabled us to extend our product range making outdoor adventure even more accessible to all.”

Thanks to this partnership Equal Adventure has been able to authenticate the safety elements of the prototype and have subsequently created a new product which has allowed them to enter new markets, increase sales and safeguard jobs.

Albyn Housing Society Limited began in 1973 by building homes for the incoming workers at the Invergordon smelter. Started with only a handful of staff, the Society now has 63 employees and two offices in Invergordon and Inverness and currently manages over 2,750 properties either through affordable rent or low cost home ownership schemes.

Background

Albyn Housing Society wanted to investigate the feasibility of offering Assisted Living Services to their vulnerable residents through the use of Assisted Living Technologies as part of their suite of services.

Assisted Living Technologies (ALT) are defined as those sensors, devices and communication systems that together allow the delivery of Assisted Living Services (ALS) including telehealth, telecare, wellness, digital participation and teleworking services.

Interest in telecare is growing due to concern over caring for increasing numbers of older people and the challenges of service delivery in remote and rural areas. Telecare is viewed increasingly as a means of creating efficiencies and cost savings for service providers, prolonging independence and improving quality of life for service users and supporting carers.

The Business Challenge

Interface – The knowledge connection for business facilitated a meeting between Albyn Housing Society and the Centre for Rural Health at the University of the Highlands & Islands to discuss the idea of providing Assisted Living Technologies to their vulnerable customers as part of the suite of services that they currently provide. Albyn Housing wanted to explore what the new service delivery model might look like, how it could benefit the business/customer and how it could be implemented and evaluated. They were also interested in opening up possibilities for training and job opportunities for young people in rural areas.

Having examined the conclusions and recommendations of the initial feasibility study into telecare delivery, Albyn Housing Society are looking to develop a longer term collaborative relationship that will allow them to proceed with planning and establishing a telecare service to vulnerable customers.

“Our involvement with Interface has been hugely beneficial for Albyn Housing Society Ltd as their introduction has been fundamental in developing our relationship with the Centre for Rural Health and has led to further joint work with UHI. We have already generated interest from the social housing sector in the work we have done so far…” Calum Macaulay, Cheif Executive, Albyn Housing Society