Stuart Clarke, Director, Leeds Digital Festival

Opportunities in Leeds?

Leeds is a very collaborative city and we’ve seen how the entire city and tech sector has come together to build the Leeds Digital Festival into the largest tech event in the UK. There are also around 50 regular monthly tech meetups. Opportunities exist in bringing the universities and the sector closer together, and building mentoring schemes across the city.

Challenges in Leeds?

As the tech sector in Leeds is growing fast, there is pressure on in finding candidates with the right skills. We have world-class universities on our doorstep and we’re getting better in highlighting opportunities to students and keeping more talent in the area. We also need to ensure there are opportunities for people who come from non-traditional routes into tech, particularly encouraging young people from the more disadvantaged areas of the city.

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Opportunities in Leeds?

Leeds is distinctively ambitious, powered by innovators, entrepreneurs, and social pioneers. There is real momentum across the city with the arrival this year of the Barclays Eagle Lab in the new AvenueHQ co-working space. Additionally, there is NEXUS, the University of Leeds Innovation Centre, and Co Space North – a space for people passionate about digitally-enabled health and care to connect, collaborate and co-create.

Challenges in Leeds?

We’ve proudly promoted diversity in the tech sector in Leeds, working hard to empower women in particular in recent years. However, we want to see a more diverse range of people being able to take advantage of the opportunities in the city, so we’re working with everyone from startups to major employers such as Sky, Deal Trak, NEXUS, and Crisp Thinking.

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Opportunities in Sheffield?

I feel like Sheffield is genuinely turning a corner in that we’re starting to see a lot of people not only found businesses but keep them here too. For a long time, we lost talent and businesses to Leeds or Manchester. At Sheffield Technology Parks we do a lot of work around ecosystem support, hosting meetups, workshops, events and socials aimed to drive people’s confidence to start and develop a viable and successful business.

Challenges in Sheffield?

There’s still a cultural reticence to shout about success. A lot of people, including me, generally like this modesty. It’s what makes Sheffield, Sheffield. But it also has a huge impact on people’s confidence to start something up. We’re working to address this cultural shift which will ultimately help the economic development we’re here to achieve.

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Opportunities in Hull?

Hull, in its own idiosyncratic way, is both competing with other cities in terms of external investment but more importantly is nurturing tech within a commercial, civic and social context, building a solid and sustainable infrastructure within the process. There is a growing understanding from policymakers, business leaders and politicians that the digital agenda is not an ‘add-on’ in terms of driving economic growth and sustainability; it is something that is integral to any business, local authority department or charity.

Challenges in Hull?

The challenges facing the city are not unusual nor are they unknown. There is a serial skills gap in Hull that is endemic of its inability to unlock the potential of its population towards technology-related industries, resulting in ‘brain drain’ with better-qualified people accessing jobs that would otherwise remain within the city’s local economy.

Slanted Theory is an innovative data visualisation and analytics company that utilises virtual, augmented and mixed reality to disrupt the way data is analysed.

Why Sheffield?

Sheffield is continuously evolving and is a city with a vibrant community of creative and ambitious individuals. It’s a place where you can set up and experiment with your ideas, drawing from a fresh talent pool from the two universities here.

National and international focus?

Our focus is on international markets such as the USA, where our clientele is predominantly based. As an emerging market, there is greater involvement and experimentation in mixed reality. We are also looking for national companies with interesting use cases for large-scale data analysis, and we currently looking for investment.

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Hark’s cloud-based platform allows companies to simplify the route to intelligent assets to increase efficiency while reducing waste.

Why Leeds?

Leeds has always had a strong digital community. In the last five years, we’ve seen it grow and the city has turned into a digital and technology hub. Startups, scaleups, corporates and enterprises have everything they need in the North. That ranges from a diverse talent pool (which continues to grow) to financial institutions who are willing to back the right businesses.

National and international focus?

Hark operate out of Leeds; however, our cloud platform and technology has been rolled out nationwide for the top supermarkets in locations ranging from Cornwall to Inverness. We have deployments across England and Scotland with pharmaceutical customers and life science-based businesses. Internationally we’ve been working with partners in North America to deploy our technology in factories and manufacturing settings.

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Carbon Performance is an automotive consumer technology company that develops next-, smart, 3D printed environmentally sustainable automotive parts that save fuel and reduce carbon footprint.

Why Leeds?

It is very hard to find reasons for tech companies to not be based in Leeds. It’s a vibrant city with access to multi-national talent with over 70,000 students, giving Leeds one of the fastest-growing tech scenes in Europe. With new tech hubs booming with startups and innovation, it’s really gaining momentum.

National and international focus?

Although our primary market is outside of the UK, with North America and mainland Europe being our two largest markets, we are proud to have every bit of our supply chain including advanced manufacturing in the UK. We will soon be establishing a Dutch branch to have a footprint in mainland Europe and have access to European talent and customers.

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Twinkl was founded in 2010 with a mission to ‘Help Those Who Teach’. This is still central to everything they do.

Why Sheffield?

Twinkl started out in Sheffield as an ‘after-work’ business operated by my wife Susie and I. Now it has over 480 team members worldwide, including 290 at our head office in the city. We are proud that Twinkl was born in Sheffield and our growth is a testament to the amazing talents of people based or moving here, particularly in the digital and education sectors.

National and international focus?

As Twinkl is a digital business, our resources have always been available to people anywhere. Although we have always created a range of resources, we initially targeted England by including materials specifically tailored to the National Curriculum – the company grew as schools embraced our resources. We have now adapted to suit different curricula and cultures and have been translated into 15 languages.

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Bombyx PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) is a web-based SaaS system for companies and their suppliers designed to streamline the complexities of the product lifecycle of any manufactured product.

Why Hull?

I was born and raised in Hull and moved Manchester aged 18, before moving around the country to Birmingham, Oxford, and then London, eventually ending up in Berlin for three years; that’s where the concepts behind Bombyx were born. I returned to my home city to become involved in the growing tech community at C4DI (Centre for Digital Innovation).

National and international focus?

Bombyx has users in Europe and North America, and we are currently working with a major university to incorporate our software into the curriculum of product design/engineering degrees. Additionally this year Barclays’ Eagle Labs is taking Bombyx PLM on the road around the UK to showcase the benefits of the software while promoting the importance of wellbeing in the workplace.

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Connexin is an innovative technology company specialising in building and operating award-winning Smart City Infrastructure to support digitisation and internet of things.

Why Hull?

The company’s founders have always been passionate about helping Hull to grow. In 2012, we began the build of our first wireless network here, to not only supply homes and businesses but also provide public wifi. We believe Hull has a lot of talent that migrates out of the city, so we have created a culture that retains and develops strong local talent.

National and international focus?

Connexin uses digital technology to connect, protect, and improve the lives of citizens. We deploy end-to-end IoT and connectivity solutions that often include sensors or intelligent video cameras. With the data this captures, we provide local authorities and citizens constant with feedback so they can make informed decisions.

• Leeds – @LDSDigital (Twitter)
• Leeds – Agile Leeds
• Leeds – Agile Yorkshire
• Leeds – AWS Leeds User Group
• Leeds – Code & Coffee
• Leeds – CodeUp Leeds
• Leeds – Empowering Women with Technology
• Leeds – Hey!
• Leeds – IoT Leeds
• Leeds – LeedsJS
• Leeds – Leeds Sharp

• Leeds – Ladies of Code
• Leeds – Leeds Blockchain Meetup
• Leeds – Leeds Code Dojo
• Leeds – That JVM Thing
• Leeds – Leeds Hackspace
• Leeds – Game Republic
• Leeds – Leeds Government Design
• Leeds – ODI Leeds
• Leeds – Ministry of Testing Meetup
• Leeds – NorthernUX
• Leeds – Leeds PHP User Group

• Leeds – Startup Weekend Leeds
• Leeds – Leeds Raspberry Jam
• Leeds – She Does Digital
• Leeds – Ga-Ma-Yo
• Leeds – Leeds Front End
• Leeds – Data Science Meetup
• Leeds – Leeds Games Toast
• Leeds – WordPress Leeds
• Leeds – Code First: Girls Leeds
• Leeds – Drupal Yorkshire
• Leeds – Leeds Ruby Thing

• Sheffield – Sheffield Digital
• Sheffield – Immerse Sheffield
• Sheffield – Agile Sheffield
• Sheffield – CodeUp Sheffield
• Sheffield – dotnetsheff
• Sheffield – ExpertTalks Sheffield
• Sheffield – Front End Sheffield
• Sheffield – Sheffield Data for Good
• Sheffield – Sheffield R Users Group
• Sheffield – WordPress Sheffield

• Hull – C4DI meetups

• Harrogate – Harrogate Digital

• Huddersfield – CodeUp Huddersfield

• York – AWS User Group York
• York – dotnet York
• York – York Developers
• York – York Code Dojo

• Barnsley – Digital Media Centre (DMC)

• Bradford – Assembly Bradford
• Bradford – Wizu Workspace
• Bradford – Bread + Roses

• Doncaster – Helm

• Halifax – Leeds Beckett University Business Centre

• Huddersfield – The Media Centre

• Hull – C4DI
• Hull – OneSixOne

• Leeds – Avenue HQ
• Leeds – Platform
• Leeds – Leeds Beckett University Business Centre
• Leeds – ODI Leeds
• Leeds – Wizu
• Leeds – One Aire Street
• Leeds – Castleton Mill

• Leeds – Shine
• Leeds – McCarthy’s Business Centre
• Leeds – Duke Studios

• Sheffield – Sheffield Technology Parks
• Sheffield – Showroom Workstation
• Sheffield – a-ten
• Sheffield – Electric Works
• Sheffield – Union ST
• Sheffield – Kollider
• Sheffield – Desk.Space

• Wakefield – Leeds Beckett University Business Centre

• York – Hiscox Business Club
• York – Acollective

• Leeds City Region – Ad:venture

• Leeds – Northcoders
• Leeds – NorthInvest
• Leeds – Natwest Entrepreneur Accelerator

• Hull – C4DI – Tech Startup & Scaleup Incubation
• Hull – OneSixOne – Hull Youth Support Trust
• Hull – University of Hull – The Enterprise Centre

• Sheffield City Region – Growth Hub – Y Accelerator
• Sheffield City Region – Growth hub – Skills Bank/Masterclasses
• Sheffield City Region – Sheffield Digital (Support)

• Sheffield – Sheffield Technology Parks
• Sheffield – Kollider – Barclays Eagle Lab

• Yorkshire – BGF Ventures
• Yorkshire – Mercia Technologies
• Yorkshire – YABA
• Yorkshire – Creative England
• Yorkshire – Venturian

• Barnsley – Enterprising Barnsley – Launchpad

• Leeds City Region – AD:VENTURE

• Leeds – NorthInvest
• Leeds – Leeds City Region Business Growth Programme
• Leeds – Gameslab Leeds

• Sheffield City Region – Growth Hub

• Sheffield – Campus Capital