TECH NATION REPORT – HAVE YOUR SAY

By Brigette Currin 2 minute read

Put bluntly, Tech Nation has since its inception become THE barometer for the health, growth and importance of UK regional tech. Cities featured benefit from a disproportionate level of government, investor and international interest. Cities that do not aspire for inclusion. At TechEast We are lucky to have three strong cities in the 2016 and 2017 reports: Cambridge, Norwich and Greater Ipswich, with ambitions to grow this network further.

However, only by individuals within businesses and organisations taking a moment to complete the survey can UK tech regions continue to be visible to these key audiences.

Over the last 18 months TechEast has championed the East of England as a leading cluster of international significance, and helped join the dots, culminating in three very important successes:

  1. Enhanced UK Government focus. The publication of the BEIS sponsored East of England Science and Innovation Audit which has directly informed UK Governments new Industrial Strategy green paper with enhanced investments in AI, digital upskilling and the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford business corridor
  2. The Tech Nation UK cluster network. The inclusion of a new East cluster, HQd in Cambridge, in the new Tech Nation network of UK cities. This will leverage research, innovation, start-up, scale-up and corporate tech assets from Silicon Fen to BT global innovation HQ at Adastral Park, to ARM, AstraZeneca and Microsoft campuses up to Norwich Research Park and UEA, The Institute for Data Analytics, to Hethel Innovation Centre and beyond.
  3. A sharper tech media spotlight. The development of UKTN’s East of Englandtech portal and monthly East of England tech roundup edited by TechEast providing a national and international platform to track the region. It’s no surprise that this last couple of years we’ve seen regional exits to Google and Amazon; strategic partnerships with IBM, Huawei and Facebook, inward investments from Apple, ofo, Softbank and others.

Much has been achieved, but there is more work to be done. For any business or tech support organisation in the emerging tech diamond that stretches from London via St Albans and Stevenage to Cambridge and Peterborough in the North, across to Norwich and Greater Ipswich in the East and back via Colchester and Chelmsford, the Tech Nation report matters. So please…

Take the survey here

Thanks to you all in advance.

Tim

COO, TechEast