We were delighted to see some brilliant ideas from the South Coast region this year as a result of our partnership networks with the University of Portsmouth and Hampshire-based community housing association Abri.
Aimi Willmer, based in Hampshire, joined the Programme to develop her community group, NVR South, into a social enterprise. Informed by her own experiences as a parent, Aimi founded the group in order to build a network to help families develop non-violent resistance strategies and support them through their own struggles with behavioural issues.
Bianca David and Carlos Pestana are hoping to tackle social isolation, loneliness and depression are a frequent occurrence in elderly and mobility impaired people with their Bikeables idea. By taking elderly and mobility impaired people for a ride in their bikes, they are aiming to reduce social isolation and loneliness by giving them a change of being surrounded by nature and people.
Tina Chen’s Naturalsway aims to provide an inclusive online gardening community for individuals, of all levels of gardening experience to enjoy growing their own plants and produce. She’s hoping to improve people’s mental and physical wellbeing, as well as potentially leading to a healthier diet from growing and eating their own produce and exercise.
Emma Kemp’s Love Outdoors CIC will enable people and communities to overcome barriers to enjoy the great outdoors, make great connections and achieve greater wellbeing. Through projects such as creating community gardens, Emma aims to build community cohesion and sense of belonging for people in the Solent region.
Barbara Cooke, Karen Hallt and Catt Peace are passionate about improving children’s mental health and resilience through growing their own food. School growing projects make a big impact on children’s health and wellbeing resulting in better attendance, behaviour and social skills, and Incredible Edible Gosport is aiming to work with local schools to deliver practical support and provide inspiration and motivation to empower individual schools to get growing.
Inspired by his experiences keeping his two daughters focused, engaged and motivated during lockdown homeschooling, Maxim Abramov wants want to build an exciting and safe educational social platform for kids between 3 to 12 years old based on three pillars: gamification, flexibility, and adaptability. Red Panda Square aims to keep kids engaged in developmentally appropriate activities, tailored to the goal of achieving educational and social benefits.
University of Portsmouth researcher Shah Siddiqui wants to create a next-generation telemedicine and health advice system, ANGTHAS, alongside Nahid Shuvo, Rezowan Ferdous, Trinath Saha and Elias Hossain. With a combination of live patient and clinician-facing decision support systems, the team hopes their AI-driven system will reduce waiting times, increase accessibility and produce better hospital and home care with its AI decision support tools.
Glen Wicken wants to manufacture and produce a micro mobility cycle transportation which will reduce environmental damage within green air zones and help councils achieve their net zero targets. His StepXcycle is a fun green transportation electric city cycle design, which fits between e-bike and e-scooter but can be used legally on the road by the public.
If you’re inspired by our participants’ stories, and want to support their businesses, get in touch at ingenuity@nottingham.ac.uk
