UK government offices often host sensitive conversations, and it is important to ensure that these are not under threat from accidental or nefarious eavesdropping attempts.

These risks are continually assessed due to the high pace of change in technology. In its latest challenge, HMGCC Co-Creation wants to hear from organisations developing artificial intelligence / machine learning techniques that provide advanced noise cancellation to help us understand what is now possible and to test in a government office scenario.

Organisations are being asked to apply if, over a 12-week period, they can develop and demonstrate technology to meet this challenge, HMGCC Co-Creation will provide funding for time, materials, overheads and other indirect expenses.

Key information

Budget up to £60,000
Project duration 12 weeks
Competition opens Thursday 10 October 2024
Competition closes Thursday 7 November 2024

Context of the challenge

Government offices are often found in multi-occupancy buildings and open plan offices. All offices are designed to National Protective Security Agency specifications, to ensure a standard in physical and cyber protection. But there is more to learn.

Understanding risk in this type of working environment is an important function. If there is an opportunity for eavesdropping, either accidentally or by a nefarious party, we would like to understand how challenging it would be to cancel out the irrelevant ambient noise to focus in on the conversation of significance.

The latest challenge launched by HMGCC Co-Creation sets out to understand the threat of third parties using artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML) to cancel out randomised and unwanted noise.

Who should apply?

This challenge is open to sole innovators, industry, academic and research organisations of all types and sizes. There is no requirement for security clearances.
Solution providers or direct collaboration from countries listed by the UK government under trade sanctions and/or arms embargoes, are not eligible for HMGCC Co-Creation challenges.

Evaluation criteria

All proposals, regardless of the application route, will be assessed by the HMGCC Co-Creation team. Proposals will be scored 1–5 on the following criteria:

Scope: Does the proposal fit within the challenge scope, taking into consideration cost and benefit?

Innovation: Is the technical solution credible, will it create new knowledge and IP, or use existing IP?

Deliverables: Will the proposal deliver a full or partial solution, if a partial solution, are there collaborations identified?

Timescale: Will the proposal deliver a minimum viable product within the project duration?

Budget: Are the project finances within the competition scope?

Team: Are the organisation / delivery team credible in this technical area?

HMGCC Co-Creation supporting information

HMGCC works with the national security community, UK government, academia, private sector partners and international allies to bring engineering ingenuity to the national security mission, creating tools and technologies that drive us ahead and help to protect the nation.

HMGCC Co-Creation is a partnership between HMGCC and Dstl (Defence Science and Technology Laboratory), created to deliver a new, bold and innovative way of working with the wider UK science and technology community. We bring together the best in class across industry, academia, and government, to work collaboratively on national security engineering challenges and accelerate innovation.

HMGCC Co-Creation is part of the NSTIx Co-Creation network, which enables the UK government national security community to collaborate on science, technology and innovation activities and to deliver these in partnership with a more diverse set of contributors for greater shared impact and pace.

HMGCC Co-Creation aims to work collaboratively with the successful solution providers by utilising in-house delivery managers working Agile by default. This process will involve access to HMGCC Co-Creation’s technical expertise and facilities to bring a product to market more effectively than traditional customer/supplier relationships.