Test Town - the finalists compete

by Startacus Admin

Back in February we wrote an article on Test Town -  the innovation challenge for 16-30 year olds from across the UK which asked them to come up with original and innovative uses for Britain's town centres...

Test Town was an exciting new Carnegie UK project, and the 70 submitted ideas were put forward to a panel of ‘experts’ who shortlisted down to 12 finalists.

Those 12 finalists are now in the process of preparing for the the TestTown festival which is taking place in Dunfermline, Scotland on 28 - 30 June.  Each of the 12 teams has been awarded £1,000 to help develop their initial idea into a commercial plan including kitting out premises in the town during that period.

Whilst there is the chance to win £10k for the winning idea, the innovative ideas and suggestions from a group that only makes up a 15 year age range of the UK population gives much encouragement going forward for ideas how we could all renovate and regenerate the high street.

Here at Startacus we love featuring stories about high street regeneration, innovative ways to reinvigorate our towns, and pop up shops more generally, so we look forward to seeing what wonderful innovation and creativity transpires at the end of the month.

To check out more details, the 12 teams and to follow all the imminent action check out the TestTown website.  Here are the 12 finalists below for you to take a look at - we have a few favourites which it’d be unfair to name, but we’d like to wish all the competitors well for the next stage of the competition.

• Back on the High Street, Falkirk (Craft)

• Babes in the Wood’s ‘Theatres of Twisted Dreams’, Exeter/Nottingham (Fashion & Creative)

• B’Spoke, Tottenham, North London (Fashion)

• Designed by Mammals, York (Product design)

• Functional Fitness Express, Dundee (Leisure and fitness)

• Innovation for Dunfermline, Dunfermline (Food and drink)

• J’adore les Crêpes, Southampton (Food and drink)

• Modumall, Portsmouth (Retail)

• ShowOff, Dundee (Product design)

• Yours Truly, Harrow (Craft)

• Emzcakes Creative Café, Wrexham (Food and drink)

• Through the Looking Glass, Tayside (Fashion and beauty)

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• #pop up
• #popup
• #high street
• #test town
• #
• #scotland

Published on: 9th June 2013