The second West Yorkshire Innovation Festival has been taking place this week. It is a celebration of the ingenuity and enterprise of the millions who live or work in that metropolitan county. Here is a programme of the events that have been taking place during this Festival.
I spent yesterday at Innovate Local West Yorkshire which took place at the Great Victoria Hotel in Bradford. InnovateUK is the national innovation agency. It supports business-led innovation in all sectors and technologies. The event, which was staged in collaboration with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and the West Yorkshire Innovation Network, consisted of an all-day conference of local political and business leaders and academics and an exhibition.
The conference was divided into a plenary session in the morning and parallel workshops in the afternoon. There were breaks for morning coffee, lunch and afternoon tea. After a welcome from the leader of Bradford City Council, the Chief Executive of Innovate UK and the Mayor of West Yorkshire there was a panel discussion on what is meant by innovation and related topics. That was generally platitudinous but I welcomed Kamran Rashid's call to think regionally rather than globally. I also noted Mark Roberts's assertion that Yorkshire had the fastest-growing digital sector outside London.
After coffee, we heard from various entrepreneurs and academics. I was particularly impressed with Saille Villegas who had come to Leeds from Mexico to study computing and stayed to set up the medical technology company SEEAI Ltd. Having recently read Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate and having watched the film and ballet of the same name I have developed an interest in Mexico. I had hoped to buttonhole her to find out why she was drawn to this country rather than the United States which is just across the border and has a free trade agreement with her government and Canada but I could not find her in the crowd.
Another impressive presentation was on AMPI (the Advanced Machinery and Productivity Institute). This is a collaboration between the National Physical Laboratory, Rochdale Development Agency, the Universities of Huddersfield, Leeds, Manchester and Salford and other organizations to create new machines and technology to manufacture products and materials for the future. The Institute, which is based in Rochdale, carries out research. consultancy, teaching and training. The presenter, whose name I did not catch, reminded the audience that manufacturing is still important to the British economy,
Yet another memorable talk was given by Ian Laidler of Wayland Additive which develops IP-rich technologies. Dr Laidler said that the company held 10 patent families and that a further 4 were on their way. I have to say in passing that I was surprised not to meet any other IP lawyers or patent or trade mark attorneys even though IP is key to safeguarding investment in innovation. Dr Laidler explained the advantages of his company's inventions. He finished by speaking about the age range of its employees ranging from gap-year students to pensioners. All had contributed to the company's success.
The workshops that I attended in the afternoon were on space and healthcare. Mandy Ridyard of Space Hub Yorkshire profiled the Yorkshire space industry and discussed the opportunities that I had mentioned in Commercial Exploitation of Space: Space Industry Act 2019 in NIPC Law on 10 April 2018. She mentioned some of the facilities for space research and collaboration that are available at NEXUS Leeds. She was disappointed that Yorkshire was the only region that had yet to receive inward investment. In the Q&A that followed her talk, I ventured to suggest that might be because most of the new investment in space in this country was directed to launch technology. Yorkshire does not have a spaceport but Harlech which is a 2-hour drive away does. I told her about the Menai Science Park's webinar to celebrate World Intellectual Property Day and suggested that she should talk to Emily Roberts of the science park and David Young of the Snowdonia Aerospace Centre. The other main speaker on space was Emma Hatton of the Satellite Catapult.
We learned more about NEXUS in the healthcare workshop and the accelerator programme for the businesses that wished to supply the NHS. Next came Professor Liz Breen of the School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences at the University of Bradford. Prof Breen discussed the Digital Health Enterprise Zone of which she is the Director.
The last session was on private funding. We heard from Jordan Dargue who had recently set up a network of women business angels to fund women entrepreneurs in the North of England, Willian Schaffer of Mercia Asset Management and Sophie Dale-Black of the British Business Bank. I asked Mr Schaffer how many of his companies achieved a flotation on the AIM or were acquired at a premium. He replied that out of every 10 companies, 2 to 3 might fail altogether, another 2 to 3 might return the investment, yet another 2 to 3 might earn a small return and perhaps 1 or 2 might be "unicorns." The afternoon was wound up by Ian Edwards of Innovate UK Edge who summariaed the earlier presentations in his "Finance Escalator."
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