DEBATE DIGITAL ECONOMY
IN ASSOCIATION WITH:
THE HARD DRIVE TO DIGITAL SUCCESS
PRESENT: Richard Slater
Lancashire Business View (Chair)
Euan Aitken Zigaflow
Steve Brennan Bespoke
Kerry Harrison LEP
Mo Isap In4.0 Group
Victoria Knight BAE Systems
Kam Kothia LEP Digital Lead / eBusiness UK
Alison Schmid Redmoor Health Matt Wright
Lancashire Universities Innovation Manager / LEP Innovation Lead
The digital economy is set to play a massive role in Lancashire’s future. The arrival of the National Cyber Force at Samlesbury promises to be a gamechanger.
We brought our expert panel together, in partnership with Lancashire Enterprise Partnership (LEP), to discuss the county’s strategy and what is needed to ensure it is at the forefront of the ongoing digital revolution.
What is Lancashire’s digital strategy and what will it deliver?
KK: The strategy aims to capitalise on the exponential growth of the digital sector globally. Latest research shows that digital contributes £1bn to the Lancashire economy.
There are some dramatic changes taking place and these will give Lancashire a once in a generation opportunity to catapult itself onto the world stage.
There is absolutely no reason why Lancashire cannot reclaim its position as a global economic powerhouse through this latest digital revolution and why the contribution of the sector cannot go from £1bn today to £5bn in the next ten to 15 years.
The location of the National Cyber Force (NCF), an investment creating 2,000 highly skilled tech jobs, is one of the gamechangers.
One of the most important things we need in Lancashire is a dynamic, vibrant, thriving digital ecosystem with a greater number of start-ups and scale-ups. It is also essential everybody can benefit. We must make it inclusive.
KH: Whenever we get into these conversations we talk about skills, and it comes back to having enough people to fill those jobs. A recent piece I read said that 75 per cent of jobs will require advanced digital skills by the end of 2030.
Another stat shows that 85 per cent of all jobs in 2030 have not been invented yet. We do a lot of work to help our young people understand what digital is, how technology is used in health, in green skills. It is so important for young people to understand that.
But it is also important that we look at the current workforce, how we can pivot their skills and train people internally.
MI: ‘Ecosystem’ is a word banded about, but for Lancashire there’s two decisions to be made.
You can want to be known as specialists in something and Cyber Force maybe gives us an opportunity to make a play for that. Or we can get on with saying we want to develop the infrastructure, so we are the most investable place for either government or business.
And that means that we have the connectivity, we have the infrastructure, we have the education system, we have the skills pool, and we have the R&D and innovation application environments to actually help any business or any investment coming in.
Sometimes we get too caught up trying to define what we’re going to be known for, rather than just saying, ‘look, let’s be the most investable place anywhere in the UK’.
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