Shepherd and Wedderburn congratulates innovative VentureJam participants

11 September 2015

Shepherd and Wedderburn congratulates innovative VentureJam participants

VentureJam, a feeder event to Venturefest Scotland 2015, was held by Young Scot and Glasgow City of Science on 8 and 9 August in Glasgow to encourage the city’s youth to develop and promote new ideas in the green and digital spaces.

The initiative comprised a weekend workshop where participants worked to create and develop ideas for digital apps, products and art installations—in fact anything with the potential to make people rethink their attitude to climate change and to help promote sustainability.

During the jam, Young Scot, together with a team of inspirational mentors made up of creative gurus, technologists, business advisors and environmental experts, guided young people between the ages of 16-24, living, working or studying in Glasgow and surrounding areas, through the creative process.

Since then, two of the teams have taken their ideas a stage further by exploring working with industry and green policy experts from Glasgow City Council. The Urban Superhero team developed a concept for a digital advertising campaign to support climate resilience planning, climate education and behaviour change. A second team, ‘GoEco: Do Yourself a Favour’, created a new smart card based rewards scheme to incentivise young people to recycle and reuse. After weeks of hard work, creating their own film, and meeting with Young Scot’s Depute CEO, David McNeill to explore the ways in which the Young Scot Rewards programme could fit into their idea, the teams had the opportunity to pitch their propositions to investors at Venturefest Scotland 2015.

George Frier, Corporate Partner at Shepherd and Wedderburn, and a Venture jam mentor said: “We greatly enjoyed being involved with VentureJam and helping the ideas of the participants to take off. The firm has a strong tradition and considerable experience in advising and helping innovative companies realise their objectives, and works closely with leading universities such as Edinburgh and Strathclyde in commercialising technology. We place great importance on nurturing the talent of tomorrow”.

Notes 

  • Shepherd and Wedderburn is a leading UK law firm with offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and London delivering comprehensive multi-jurisdictional legal advice across every business sector. While it counts FTSE 100 blue-chips, AIM companies, large SMEs, and public service organisations among its clients, the firm has an impressive track record in advising some of Scotland’s fastest growing businesses, including FanDuel, TV Squared and DeltaDNA.
  • Young Scot is the national youth information and citizenship charity which provides young people, aged 11-26, with a mixture of information, ideas and incentives to help them become confident, informed and active citizens.
  • Venturefest Scotland 2015: an innovation summit for Scotland  is part of the Innovate UK Venturefest network, will take place on 9th September 2015, Glasgow Science Centre.
  • Glasgow City of Science is a pioneering partnership engaging an eclectic mix of around 80 organisations (including academia, government, arts and culture, and business) which aims to build on, and profile, Glasgow and the West of Scotland’s offer as a world-class region of science, culture and place through a range of inspirational partnership programmes.