In our latest guest blog, Astrid Sandoval Program director for BBC Worldwide Labs explains their plans for the coming year.

Entrepreneurs always value the opportunity to convene, come together and create. Sharing ideas, kicking opportunities around and collaborating is something that such business builders thrive on. It is a key ingredient in any successful digital ecosystem, and is clearly on display in East London’s Tech City.

When we launched the BBC Labs last year, we were looking to reproduce exactly this kind of networking effect. We wanted to create a community of ideas that drove business innovation and entrepreneurship. We did this by creating an initiative that combined support from mentors and industry experts, access to intellectual property, content and technology and the use of office space in our London headquarters.

One year on, and the six digital businesses involved – wireWAX, KO-SU, Flooved, Yakatak, MiniMonos and Foodity – have made great strides. The founders have all made considerable progress in pinpointing their core customers and markets, developing their ideas into practical applications, sharpening the user experience and securing investment.

During this time, we’ve integrated them into our ecosystem, and given them access to experts across the business including technology, content, legal, advertising, marketing and sales.

Just this month for example, Foodity became the first Labs start-up to strike a commercial deal with BBC Worldwide. Thanks to Foodity’s technology and working with BBC GoodFood site, Tesco.com customers’ baskets are automatically filled with ingredients at the press of a button, meaning they can shop at Tesco without ever leaving BBC GoodFood’s site.

The businesses have also had the opportunity to work alongside a host of external companies and mentors benefiting from a range of support and advice including from experts at Wayra, SVC2UK and businesses based in Tech City including General Assembly and Google.

In fact, it’s proven to be so successful that we’ve decided to do it all over again. Building on the success of the current programme which closes next month, our second Labs initiative will start this June with spaces for six more businesses. 

From 6pm this evening, Tuesday 5th March, we’ll be hosting an induction session at Wayra’s Academy in London giving hopeful applicants the opportunity to meet and hear from members of Labs team. Any businesses looking to get involved should attend, or email us at [email protected] or follow us at @BBCWLabs to find out more.

Together, we’ve made real progress during these last six months. We look forward to welcoming even more future success stories through the door in the coming months.