About Nesta

Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

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Kyle Usher

Mission Manager (Scotland) - A Sustainable Future

Kyle was Nesta’s Mission Manager for Scotland working on the sustainable future mission and based with the Scotland team in Edinburgh.

Kyle brought his experience in leading innovative technology projects to explore new opportunities and develop partnerships that work towards accelerating the UK’s transition to a low-carbon, productive economy by cutting UK household emissions and improving efficiencies in the labour market.

Programmes:

This Must be the Place - shared visions of Scotland’s sustainable future. This hopeful interactive project is an invitation to re-imagine a possible future across nine areas of Scottish life, work and industry.
AI for Good – an investigation into the potential of artificial intelligence to tackle social issues in Scotland, funded projects focused on health, education and the natural environment.
ShareLab Scotland – a Scottish Government partnership exploring if collaborative economy platforms can deliver social impact at scale, in the areas of energy efficiency, economising transport and sharing resources.

Kyle also supported projects across Nesta, including:

Democracy Pioneers – supporting 19 innovations that are experimenting with ways to re-energise civic participation and everyday democracy in the UK.
Healthy Lives Data Fund – funding seven innovative digital technologies that make data available and useful to citizens, helping them lead healthier and more independent lives.
Data Dialogues' participatory futures projects – five projects which are embarking on a year-long dialogue with Scottish citizens about health and care data.
The Longitudinal Explorer prize – supported teams of young people to develop uses of AI to combat environmental challenges.

Prior to Nesta, Kyle worked in digital evolution and innovation roles for SCVO, Myeloma UK and Young Scot. With experience of product development, leading agile teams, delivering innovative projects and supporting organisations to leverage technology to improve their products, processes and service delivery.

Kyle is interested in how technology can be used to address social challenges, specifically the climate crisis, our natural environment and sustainable energy.