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Bid for Newcastle Business and IP Centre begins

The campaign to bring the first regional Business and IP Centre to Newcastle began at the City Library last night.

Representatives from Newcastle City Council, Newcastle Science City and Newcastle and Northumbria Universities were all in attendance to demonstrate the business community’s need for an information hub to help start ups and established businesses grow.

The event, which was the first in the ‘Science of Success’ series, was designed to showcase Newcastle as the ideal location for the first of these centres, which could provide a massive boost to the local economy.

Solvej Biddle, a former contestant on Dragon’s Den and now a business success story in her own right, was the headline speaker at the event last night.

Speaking to bdaily, she stressed the need for people to receive the right business support when setting up alone. She commented: “It’s important that people can get through their initial ideas out in the open, and then you can take inspiration from everyone’s business ideas.

“I know when I was sitting up my business I found it to be a very isolated and lonely experience because you have this idea and then you’re working away at it in your head so this could help.”

Simon Green from Newcastle Science City believes that if the centre does come to Newcastle, it will provide businesses with an invaluable resource to get together and talk about business.

He added: “There’s a lot of information that people can’t simply access through the internet, information that only comes from meeting and talking with experts.”

“We are building it around intellectual property which I think is an important move. “Because we have actually experience the process of business start up, the issues and challenges behind it, the project will be so much more worthwhile.”

The original centre at the British Library in London has already supported over 200,000 people with business questions over the past five years.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .