Red Ninja: business transformed after taking part in challenge
A business that uses design to solve complex problems transformed itself after taking on a challenge to improve ambulance response times.
Design and technology company Red Ninja led a consortium in an Innovate UK urban living challenge to create a smart-city technology to improve ambulance response times, reducing fatalities from heart attacks and stroke.
The £687,000 challenge – including an award of £223,000 from Innovate UK – helped transform Red Ninja as a business.
The Liverpool-based business operated as two departments before the challenge, one dealing with health and social care, one with transport and smart cities.
It had self-funded some small-scale research and development into open transport data for smart cities and had developed open data-driven digital products for the health sector.
Funding helped to grow capacity and restructure
The funding helped the company grow its engineering capacity to match its design capability while restructuring as one team, sharing knowledge and best practice across all disciplines.
Red Ninja also created its own R&D methodology: an open innovation approach involving industry, government, research institutions and end-users in the innovation process.
Last updated 24 October 2016