The five successful applicants in the Creative Informatics Resident Entrepreneurs programme have been named, with two games and interactive creators part of the programme.
Tom Methven, the indie developer behind Amicable Animal, the creator of the critically-acclaimed SOLAS 128 and Martin Fisher, the founder of Visible Ink have both been selected for the fifth round of the programme.
Resident Entrepreneurs provides funding of up to £12K to individuals or teams of creative practitioners who want to develop new products or services using data or data-driven technologies.
Successful applicants receive a package of support to enable them to build their business, or take their product/service to market.
Recipients receive:
- Up to £12,000 of grant funding (VAT exempt)
- A mentor via the Creative Edinburgh Mentorship Scheme.
- The Edinburgh Innovations Enterprise Toolkit
- Support and signposting to relevant opportunities from Edinburgh Innovations and the Creative Informatics team
- Invitations to participate in and present at Creative Informatics events
- A paid for membership to FutureX Plus, including access to all FutureX events.
Amicable Animal
Tom Methven, the 5D conceptual hypothesist behind Amicable Animal is using the support to work on a new project called Fabricate Reality, in collaboration with the excellent Luci Holland, the composer, performer and powerhouse behind the equally excellent PlayAway Festival.
Tom told the Scottish Games Network:
Fabricate Reality is a game where the player takes the role of a newly self-aware AI who seeks to learn more about humanity, and what it means to be human. Players will be tasked with overseeing the construction of a virtual base, the programming of the autonomous agents within it, and creating production lines to capture, clean, and process data using simplified versions of real-world data science techniques. This is a hugely ambitious project for a solo developer, so Creative Informatics’ support is invaluable in making this a reality, and allows for in-depth collaboration with Luci Holland, a local professional freelance composer and musician.
Alongside Amicable Animal, animation and production company Visible Ink have also been selected as Resident Entrepreneurs.
Visible Ink
Visible Ink is a creator producer of fantasy live television series for national and international markets. The company’s previous productions are in drama, documentary, comedy, children’s TV and dance for Sci Fi Channel, Discovery Channel, Children’s Channel and ARD in Germany.
Visible Ink is was founded by cameraman, writer, director, and producer Martin Fisher. Drawing on its live action and animation expertise, Visible Ink is working to develop MoPaCT, a performance capture and precise positioning system that allows animated characters to be precisely integrated into video footage.
Martin said:
MoPaCT is currently patented in USA, GB with EU to follow. From the initial feasibility study and through a process of constant development we are moving forward to building the initial MVP, which will be used to excite further investment and potential customers. MoPaCT’s precise positioning and perspectives are derived from a single or multiple high-end production camera(s), which can be positioned anywhere – in a studio, on location or even underwater.
With our established network of expertise we are looking forward to moving towards realising this exciting integration technology product. We are fortunate to be supported and encouraged by high level know-how and internationally famous names from the worlds of children’s TV, situation comedy, Scifi and dance and of course the fantastic Creative Informatics team.
Other Entrepreneurs
In addition to Tom and Martin, the other successful entrepreneurs in the fifth round of the programme are:
Jeni Allison: a knitwear brand based in Edinburgh, prioritising digital design and simulation technologies to make the product development process as accurate, sustainable and visual as possible. The brand is a celebration of Scottish knit innovation with its first products launching in September 2021. Jeni also works freelance designing and developing knitwear for manufacturers, arts organisations and brands, as well as being a design educator. She works part time as a knit technician at Glasgow School of Art and is s currently working on an education programme with Craft Scotland exploring teaching STEM through contemporary textiles.
Jeni’s Resident Entrepreneur project is focused on building a web-based application to facilitate affordable, bespoke knit customisation.
Jules Horne is a writer and publisher from the Scottish Borders. Her writing includes stage and radio plays, spoken word, film, museums interpretation and song lyrics, and is inspired by the life and languages of her native region. Her work often plays with scale and layers of epic and closeup storytelling. Her site-specific plays Allotment and Thread (dir. Kate Nelson) have won Edinburgh Fringe Firsts, and she is under commission to the Lyceum Theatre for a play about women’s rugby. As a rural entrepreneur, she publishes her own books and audiobooks and is exploring ways writers can work with technology to expand performance.
Jules’ RE project will focus on developing creative IP to transition from services to products, for a more sustainable writer livelihood.
Caro Overy is a musician and sustainability professional. She leads community choirs, facilitates community music projects and collaborates with other musicians as a vocalist, songwriter and guitarist. In Caro’s environmental work, she builds on her professional background in Higher Education Sustainability, supporting cultural organisations and artists with practical responses to the climate emergency both in her role with Creative Carbon Scotland and with her current development project, Climate Friendly Culture.
In 2020 Caro was selected as one of the first Connected Innovators and has now secured funding as a Creative Informatics Resident Entrepreneur. Her Resident Entrepreneur project will focus on developing a plan for a tool to support creative practice in collaboration with Creative Carbon Scotland and InGenerator.
Creative Informatics Resident Entrepreneurs
Creative Informatics, the Edinburgh-based research and development programme based in Edinburgh, which aims to bring the city’s world-class creative industries and tech sector together, providing funding and development opportunities that enable creative individuals and organisations to explore how data can be used to drive ground-breaking new products, businesses and experiences.
Creative Informatics is nurturing local talent through five key funding programmes and regular events that support Edinburgh’s creative industries to do inspiring things with data.
Find out more about the recipients of the Round 1, Round 2, Round 3 and Round 4 Resident Entrepreneurs.
Round six of the Creative Informatics Resident Entrepreneurs programme will open on Monday 18th October 2021.
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