If you are successful, as part of the programme you will benefit from:

• £20,000 in funding
• Identification of business and technical challenges facing your organisation
• Creating technology roadmaps to understand how you can leverage 5G and other advanced digital technologies with your product
• Tailored workshops to support your demonstrator development and organisational growth
• One-to-one technologist and product team support throughout the build process
• Specialist pitch and presentation training in preparation for the Showcase event

As well as meeting the selection criteria for this programme, you will need to be able to show that:

• Your company is registered with Companies House in the UK, based in the UK and will undertake most of the activity in the UK
• You have an interest and use case for augmenting an already developed interactive or immersive experience, installation or production with 5G as well as any other advanced digital technology you wish to experiment with during the programme
• You are currently working within the immersive experience or augmented reality space, and have a proven track record of creating either intimate or large-scale mixed reality experiences, installations or productions.
• You have the necessary skills required for your proposed project
• You must be eligible to receive £25,000 in state assistance
• You must have a UK business bank account (for payments to be made into)
• You must develop a solution enabled by at least one of the technologies from the advanced technology stack: artificial intelligence, immersive, IoT, distributed ledger technologies and 5G/future networks

While experience with 5G is not necessary for the programme, skills in immersive/augmented technology are essential. Your organisation will need to nominate at least one individual to interact with the immersive and 5G technologists provided as part of the programme offer.

Travel to Brighton will be required for the programme kick-off event, bi-weekly visits to the Corn Exchange or Fusebox for 5G use case development during the programme (week commencing 6 March to week commencing 19 June 2023) and the programme Showcase event, which will take place in May or June 2023.

• Shortlisted applicants notified by 13 January 2023
• Programme start date – week commencing 27 February 2023
• Programme end date – week commencing 19 June 2023

Applications are governed by the competition rules. If you are successful, a participation and collaboration agreement will be issued which governs your activities on the programme with respect to the technical activities on the programme, programme deliverables and payment milestones.

Participants will receive £20,000 in tranches according to delivery milestones during the programme.

Digital Catapult representatives will see your application for selection and administration purposes, except for personal information fields whilst judging. BDBF and Wired Sussex team members will see your application for assessment, but not your personal information.

Your application information will only be used for the purposes of the programme and its evaluation, and will only be retained for the duration of the programme and if needed to meet any legal requirements.

• Attend the kick-off event hosted by Digital Catapult
• Create a technology roadmap and scope of work in collaboration with Digital Catapult technologists and BDBF during the concept development period
• Present an updated demonstrator proposal at the end of the concept development stage to other participants on the programme and Digital Catapult
• Attend and provide relevant information for the Business Health Scan
• Attend the 5G Brighton Testbed bi-weekly to support the 5G use-case development
• Attend bi-weekly check ins with BDBF and Digital Catapult technologists
• Take part in a mid-point review meeting and demonstrate that milestones have been reached, according to your project plan
• Attend monthly milestone meetings and present on the overall demonstrator progress, risk and mitigations and focus for the next month of development
• Attend Founder’s Story and social events
• Attend one tailored business workshop
• Attend, present and demonstrate at the Showcase event in May or June 2023
• Provide Digital Catapult and Programme Sponsor with a licence to use the demonstrator

All parties will retain their rights to existing IP developed independently of the programme; and you and BDBF will jointly own all new intellectual property you create on the programme

For full details, please refer to the programme terms and conditions.

Spectrum: B5, B7 (15 & 20MHz), B8, N77 3.4-4.1GHz (5GNR)

Connectivity and computing hardware: 5GNR 3GPP Rel.15 -16(SA, NSA), plus different openRAN chains (through SONIC Labs), 18 LTE small cells, WiFi6 access points, 100GBps switching fabric – SDN-enabled, >2000 cores compute (Dell and Quanta servers), XX NVidia GPU cards (A100, A40), 1Gbps inter-site connectivity and 3 PaloAlto enterprise firewalls.

Software/ services: 5G SA/NSA Cores (Druid, Open5GCore, Amarisoft and OAI), commercial LTE core with local breakout (Quortus), OpenStack, Kubernetes, cellular IoT platform (CWASP), OSM, 5G-VIOS inter-domain orchestration platform and devops-enabled operations

We only use your application information for the purposes of the programme. If information is shared outside Digital Catapult (for example, with programme partners) this will be made clear in the application form and/or programme agreement.

Yes, you’ll be able to save it during the application process, so that you can complete it in more than one session if you need to.

For some programmes this is a requirement. For others, collaborations can include international contributors, but your team must have an establishment in the UK, most of the work should be carried out in the UK, and you need to be able to commit to attending any required events or in-person activities relating to the programme. Please check the programme brief/agreement for details.

Because of the number of applications we receive, we can’t provide feedback on applications that do not progress to the interview stage.

Yes, you are welcome to apply for any suitable FutureScope programmes.

Unless the FutureScope or external programme brief or agreement states otherwise, you can still take part in FutureScope programmes, as long as the timings do not cause a conflict of interest and you are eligible to participate.

If you have been part of any previous Digital Catapult programme you are also welcome to join.

FutureScope is delivered by Digital Catapult, the UK authority on advanced digital technology.

No, Digital Catapult is not an investment firm or venture capitalist. Participants keep 100% of any investment raised as part of the programme.

There is no fee for participating in a FutureScope programme, although you would need to cover your own travel expenses for any in-person events you attend.

If not otherwise specified in the programme brief/agreement, participants will have full ownership of the IP.