Feasibility Studies for #digitalbritain - or just a beauty contest?

http://spedr.com/2b2i

Do you have an idea for a service or application that could revolutionise Digital Britain? Do you need some seed capital to help investigate the potential for your idea? If so get your fingers poised and ready to write the application letter by Oct 1 for entry into the Digital Britain competition. The total 'prize fund' for the competition is £2M with up to £25k being awarded per project which must be no more than 75% of the project cost.

According to the guidance the competition winners will be well placed to "seek investment to develop their ideas" and to enter in further competitions from the Technology Strategy Board.

So, do we applaud the impetus that this may provide or decry the fact that Digital Britain has been turned into a lottery? I think both... on the one hand it is good to see that some startup money is being made available on the other perhaps it is not such a good idea to make it sound like a beauty contest. Ideas for DB should not have to compete against each other in this way but should be assessed up front on their own merits.

Also posted on www.nextgenerationaccess.com