news Taking Thames
Valley Tech into 2017 In many ways, 2016 has been a milestone year for the Thames Valley technology community, writes Louize Clarke of ConnectTVT
The Tech Nation report placed Reading and Bracknell second in terms of digital turnover, just after London. It also has one of the largest digital tech workforces and the highest density of digital tech businesses in the UK.
Having launched our inaugural 50 Game Changers, we’re now seeing these trailblazing businesses forging ahead:
•
Cycle.land, the UK’s first peer-to-peer bike-sharing company, launched a £100,000 investment campaign on equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs and was over-funded
• EchoMany, the video personalisation platform, won the Digital Innovation category at the Wirehive 100 Digital Agency Awards
• Our good friends at Volume are making artificial intelligence a reality via pioneering technology, extending its experience to optimise human performance for other organisations around the globe
• Isansys Lifecare, the new generation digital healthcare company, was nominated for a prestigious national innovation award.
This gives us more to celebrate as a region and more to build on as we look to ensure our tech and digital eco-system continues to flourish.
We’ve just wrapped up the third Thames Valley Tech Week, a series of tech-led events to celebrate the Thames Valley’s growing digital economy. Artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality and coding were all on the agenda. Highlights included the Google Developers Group and Thames Valley DevFest and the launch of Reading’s first Code Club Meetup, a network of free, volunteer-led, after school computing clubs for 9-11 year olds. Part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a charity which works to put the power
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of digital making into the hands of people all over the world, the meetups will be friendly and informal gatherings for teachers, community leaders, volunteers and anyone interested in finding out more about Code Club.
We also ran our expert panel on how the UK can create a culture of challenger brands. With over 500 members of the tech community signing up to our events, it was our most successful Tech Week to date, culminating in the Basingstoke Hack Weekend.
As Joe Gardiner, solutions architect at Chef, who opened our DevOps Meetup, explained: “Initiatives like Thames Valley Tech Week really bring the tech community together and open it up to colleagues and partners. We spend so much time behind our screens – really amazing things happen when you come out, hear a talk, ask questions and meet like-minded people. Collaboration is critical to our ethos at Chef and we share this with Louize and her team at ConnectTVT. We’re delighted to be part of it.”
Next year is about ConnectTVT reaching out further into the tech economy. As part of our commitment to sustainability in business, we’re super-excited to announce our forthcoming partnership with Pineapple, an organisation that aims to innovate, educate and accelerate sustainable values and business within our global economy. The collaboration will provide expertise, networks, places to work, resources and finance for start-up and early-stage business within the Thames Valley.
We hope you’ll join us as we continue to drive Thames Valley tech forward for the region.
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businessmag.co.uk THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – DECEMBER 16/JANUARY 17
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