The Founders of Niyo Enterprise are empowering black women through technology by kick starting the ‘Black Disruptor’ Accelerator. Sponsored by the West Midlands Combined Authority, Niyo Network has secured a contract to facilitate Accelerator Bootcamps that are uniquely designed for the benefit of Black female business founders and Black females changing to careers in tech within the West Midlands. The first of these bootcamp accelerators will be launching in May 2021.

Black women are still heavily under-represented in IT & Tech roles; in comparison, across other occupations, their level of representation is 2.5 times higher (according to BCS chartered Institute for IT). The Black Disruptor Accelerator programme has been designed to specifically target this issue head on by taking on women who would not be able to afford learning to help them develop skills in AR & VR by offering training and providing job readiness for the tech industry for free.

Find out more about the ‘Black Disruptor’ Accelerator.

Tramshed Tech, the organisation powering tech spaces, support and skills across Wales, has announced plans for a new space in Swansea.

Building on the success of the Tramshed in Cardiff, the new space will be located in Swansea’s iconic Palace Theatre.

The Palace Theatre has played host to performances by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Morecombe and Wise. Now it will receive a new lease of life, creating a hub for the tech community in Wales’s second city.

Scheduled to open in 2022, the Palace Theatre will be transformed into a modern, flexible workspace for young and growing businesses. Linking up with Tramshed’s current Cardiff location, this Swansea space will create a network across the South of Wales, and continue to support the development of the tech and creative sectors that have grown rapidly across Wales.

Find out more about Tramshed Tech’s plans.

Building on the success of C4DI in Hull, the organisation is set to launch their second incubator next month.

Located in Northallerton, the new facility will be officially opened on 11th May during Hambleton Business Week.

C4DI Northallerton is an exciting new digital hub focused on helping tech companies grow and traditional businesses innovate within the agriculture, food processing and digital sectors.

Unique to C4DI’s model is the way in which traditional business is brought together with fast tech startups and scaleups through custom innovation programmes and startup incubation. This gives the traditional business access to skills and expertise it never knew it needed and gives tech companies unrivalled supply chain and mentor access.

One of the best things about the C4DI is the community of talented people it creates. From designers to hardware specialists, technologists, marketeers and developers, everyone works together to help businesses become more successful.

It is based on the district council’s new Treadmills development where the former Northallerton prison is being redeveloped into a centre for retail, business and leisure.

Read more about C4DI Northallerton.

Northern Ireland’s most exciting competition for innovative start-ups and entrepreneurs is back with a new and improved prize fund and brand new awards categories.

INVENT 2021 is officially open for applications, with an increased prize fund of £47,000 and a £25,000 first prize for the overall winner.

Organised by science and technology hub Catalyst with headline partner Bank of Ireland, INVENT is an annual celebration of the brightest new business ideas in the region, which supports, showcases and rewards the local innovations and proof of concept ideas that have the greatest commercial potential.

Categories for this year’s awards have been refreshed to resonate with global trends and help capture great ideas from across the full spectrum of innovation in Northern Ireland, while also aligning with the clusters Catalyst believes will drive the local economy in future.

Find out more about INVENT 2021.

Tech East is partnering with Amazon Web Services to bring two weeks of digital innovation support to the region’s small businesses.

The first week, April 29th – 6th of May, focuses of the “art of the possible for SMEs”. It will provide inspiration and practical examples highlighting how SMEs in the UK are leveraging cloud capabilities to transform and differentiate their businesses. The aim is to help businesses realise opportunities to drive growth, reduce costs and improve customer experience. The types of session include interactive webinars, fireside chats with SMEs and drop-in support sessions.

The second week, starting 24th of May, focuses on a five day, 9 hour “invent with Amazon program” where businesses will be able to get hands-on help from AWS to define a new product, service or experience that will delight customers. Participants will “work backwards” from their customers, using tried and tested Amazon methods, and then be supported to bring their new digital offering to life and test it with their customers.

Watch Tech East COO Tim Robinson explain more about the programme here.

In our eighth roundtable session as part of the national Recovery Roadmap program, the group discussed how Women are underrepresented in tech — a recent poll said only 8% of women hold tech roles as software engineers. A diverse workforce makes better businesses; how do we work better to support marginalised talent to step up and lead in the public & private sector? What role does technology play in improving our businesses and organisations?

We are significantly pushing women out. We are already falling behind in terms of skills and making progress in this space. If you look at the data around women in STEM, the progress we’ve been making on getting young women into STEM is 0.25% each year, for the past four years. So in four years, we’ve increased the number of women in STEM by 1%.

Zara Nanu, Global Future Council at World Economic Forum, CEO at Gapsquare

Watch the roundtable discussion

In the UKTCG’s third roundtable event, a panel of experts explore how digital skills and capabilities will be essential in the new normal enabling the UK’s economic recovery.

1. Ben Shorrock, Managing Director TechSPARK, UKTCG Steering Board
2. Sarah Fry, Research & Development, TechnologyOne
3. Zara Nanu, Global Future Council at World Economic Forum, CEO at Gapsquare
4. Marina Traversari, Global Head of Startup Ecosystem, Telecom Infra Project
5. Katie Gallagher, MD, Manchester Director, Director Digital Her
6. Lucy Paine, Director, Tech Swindon
7. Jess Philips, Enterprise Innovation Manager, Tramshed Tech

In our seventh  roundtable session as part of the national Recovery Roadmap program, the group discussed how stakeholders from across government, local authorities, and enterprise partnerships help us to create awareness of the jobs available in the tech sector and to undertake positive action to reskill people to fill these roles.

We  do lots of research, but also,  part of the purpose of our pilots will be gathering further information about skills need. These projects are quite short, a year or 18 months, so we’ll have good needs information from business and better be  able to identify the plans for bigger programmes. Alongside this we have skills boards made up of industry leaders in different sectors advising us.

Jane Vivian People and Skills Programme Manager, West of England Combined Authority

Watch the roundtable discussion

In the UKTCG’s third roundtable event, a panel of experts explore how digital skills and capabilities will be essential in the new normal enabling the UK’s economic recovery.

1. Ben Shorrock, Managing Director TechSPARK, UKTCG Steering Board 
2. Jonathan Williamson, SaaS Platform Director, TechnologyOne 
3.  Scott Murphy, Managing Director, HdE TALENT 
4. Robert Walker, Strategic Project Manager Digital Skills for Employability, Sheffield City Council 
5. Rob Dawson, Enterprise Officer, Bath & North East Somerset Council 
6. Caitlin Davies  Senior Manager Economy Skills and Natural Resources, Welsh Government 
7. Jane Vivian, People and Skills Programme Manager, West of England Combined Authority

In our sixth roundtable session as part of the national Recovery Roadmap program, the group discussed how we best support the UK public and higher education sectors to better understand how digital technology can enable increased productivity and be equipped with the trial solutions and knowledge to show the potential return on investment.

Now, we can easily have conversations with anybody at any point across the country, which is really, really good. Although technically we could do that before, there’s been a real culture change and I hope we can take the best things going forward as we reenter the workspace next year. 

Ethan Wroe, Policy Support Officer at Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Watch the roundtable discussion

In the UKTCG’s third roundtable event, a panel of experts explore how digital skills and capabilities will be essential in the new normal enabling the UK’s economic recovery.

Attendees

1. Ben Shorrock, ​Managing Director TechSPARK, UKTCG Steering Board
2. Robert Walker​, Strategic Project Manager, Sheffield City Council
3. Jennifer Wells​, Knowledge Exchange Manager, University of Brighton
4. Emma Woodcock​, Chief Information Officer, Yorkshire St John University
5. Andrew Henley​, Co-I and Wales lead ESRC The Productivity Institute, Co-I ESRC Productivity Insights Network & Professor of Entrepreneurship and Economics at Cardiff University
6. Andy Salmon​, Vice Principal, Bath Spa University
7. James Bedford​, Digital Cluster Development Manager, Science & Technology Council
8. Mark Lockett​, Sales Director, TechnologyOne
9. Michael Veasey​, Economic Development Consultant, Essex County Council
10. Kate de Vries​, Economic Development Officer, Norfolk County Council

In our fifth roundtable session as part of the national Recovery Roadmap program, the group discussed what their experience of the coronavirus outbreak can tell us about the future role, priorities and shape of public services. The session focussed on four key areas: the integration of services; inequalities in access and outcome; the relationship between local and national services; and the role of civil society—the private sector, charities, volunteers and community groups—during coronavirus.

One thing I’ve noticed is it’s much harder to produce serendipity in innovation. A lot of our projects start from bumping into someone on the way to the train station or similar. We’re lucky living and working in Oxford.  Without those accidental moments it’s become harder and we have to work on it much more. 

Llewelyn Morgan, Head of Innovation, Oxfordshire County Council

Watch the roundtable discussion

In the UKTCG’s third roundtable event, a panel of experts explore how digital skills and capabilities will be essential in the new normal enabling the UK’s economic recovery.

1. Ben Shorrock, UK Tech Cluster Group Director
2. Ian Owen, General Manager Public Sector, TechnologyOne 
3. Claire Main, Economic Development Officer, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council
4. Rachel Burdis, Inward Investment Manager, Invest North East England 
5. Sarah Talbot, Head of Innovation, Swindon Borough Council 
6. David Henderson, Head of Transformation, Hargreaves Lansdown 
7. Llewelyn Morgan, Head of Innovation, Oxfordshire County Council 
8. Declan Murphy, Economic Development Projects Officer, Bristol City Council 
9.  Ethan Wroe, Policy Support Officer at Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Covid-19 has accelerated and amplified, digital transformation in universities. With universities shifting their entire workforce and ways of working from on-campus to home to enable remote teaching, it’s had a significant impact on student wellbeing, and with that, an unprecedented change in roles and responsibilities of the educator.

In this session, we discuss how technology providers, educators and stakeholders can closely work with institutions to combine technological innovation that delivers healthier and safer digital learning spaces.Covid-19 has accelerated and amplified, digital transformation in universities. With universities shifting their entire workforce and ways of working from on-campus to home to enable remote teaching, it’s had a significant impact on student wellbeing, and with that, an unprecedented change in roles and responsibilities of the educator.

We did a pulse survey and we found an enormous number of students, about 60% were, registering that they had some kind of digital poverty implications.

Jackie Potter, Professor of HE Learning, Oxford Brookes University

Watch the roundtable discussion

In the UKTCG’s forth roundtable event, a panel of experts gather higher education and university organisations to discuss best practises, solutions and strategies to develop better service provisions.

Panel speakers

1. Peter Nikoletatos, Education Industry Manager, TechnologyOne 
2. Ben Shorrock, UKTCG Steering Board
3. Jackie Potter, Professor of HE Learning, Oxford Brookes University 
4. James Gardiner, Associate of Innovation, University of East Anglia 
5. Laura Stevens, Centre Director, Future Space University West of England 
6. Siobain Hone, Graduate Enterprise Manager, University of Bath and SETsquared Student Enterprise Practice Group Chair (SETsquared is the enterprise collaboration of the Universities of Bath, Bristol, Surrey, Southampton and Exeter) 
7. Simon Chutter, Sussex Innovation & Education
8. Therese Reinheimer-Jones, Associate Director Student Engagement and Achievement, University of Sussex 
9. Robyn Guillaume-Smith, Programme Manager, Mentally Healthy Universities Programme, MIND