Nesta has had a long standing interest in how digital technology and data can improve health and care outcomes. We are seeing rapid and innovative ways of gathering, analysing and presenting data to people - via technologies such as wearables, machine learning and chatbots. These present new and exciting possibilities in using data to support people to lead healthier, and more independent, lives.

Funded by the Scottish Government and delivered by Nesta, we launched the Healthier Lives Data Fund in November 2018 to offer grants of £30,000 for organisations delivering benefit to communities within Scotland as well as help to develop and test their innovation.

We are excited to announce the six successful projects which are bold and ambitious people-facing proposals that cover a wide range of challenges in health and social care from how to better self-manage long term conditions to how to control and share data across informal and formal care. The six projects demonstrate innovative approaches to empowering Scottish citizens with data and information, and, we hope, will showcase the potential of a new generation of data-driven, people-facing digital technologies.

Here, the six organisations we’re supporting through the fund tell us more about their projects and their plans to develop their ideas over the coming months.