Member Article

VentureFest North East attracts largest crowd to date

Collaboration and opportunity were the key themes at VentureFest North East yesterday.

A record number of people from the North East business community attended the innovation event, held at St James’ Park in Newcastle.

The day’s Innovation Challenge took centre stage, a project giving small businesses the opportunity to connect with and provide solutions to larger organisations.

Delegates also had the chance to meet face-to-face with a range of organisations actively seeking solutions to specific issues including Northumbrian Water, ENGIE and Durham County Council and discuss how their business might be able to help.

Caroline Hopkins, UK & Ireland Development and Innovation Director of ENGIE, spoke to businesses about their potential to provide a range of solutions for the global energy and services group including how to improve air quality.

She said: “The North East is a hotbed of innovation and we’ve always known that the business community here has the skills and talent to help us tackle our operational challenges.

“The Innovation Challenge project provides us with a simple way to tap into this intelligence and provide us with the best chance to find the best solutions.

“We have challenges, the business community has solutions – it’s win-win for everyone. It’s been really exciting to talk face-to-face with so many innovative companies that we could possibly be doing business with in the future.”

Anu Chandra, a former strategist at Nokia who moved from London two years ago to set up Durham-based data analysis company Rylore, was among the many businesspeople introduced to potential new clients on the day.

He hopes to a conversation he began with Northumbrian Water Group about how his firm can potentially provide sophisticated machine-led solutions to mapping the region’s vast sewage network could lead to work in the future.

He said: “The Innovation Challenge project is very exciting for a business like ours that employs six people and is looking to grow.

“It not only gives us access to very large companies with very interesting problems but it also helps us to form quality relationships with the people behind them.

“The additional insight provided by the Innovation Challenge team means we can really understand what companies are looking for before we suggest how we can add value.

“Northumbrian Water has a massive amount of complex data that we can crunch and apply our skills to and it would be fantastic for a Durham company to be able to get the opportunity to provide their solutions.”

As well as a number of other innovation workshops on show throughout the day, the event also featured keynote speeches from: Nigel Mills, Entrepreneurs’ Forum, Gilbert Corrales, Leaf Music, Lucy Armstrong, The Alchemists and Ian Campbell, Innovate UK.

Estelle Blanks, Deputy Director at Innovation SuperNetwork which delivers VentureFest North East, said: “What a phenomenal event this has been to celebrate and showcase the innovative spirit of the North East.

“To have attracted our largest crowd of innovators to date is testament to the wealth of ideas being generated by the region and a sign of the scale of ambition here.

“When we first engaged with Innovate UK back in 2012 to bring the event up to the North East we struggled to believe that it could attract the same critical mass as it did in Oxford. But we did it.

“By stimulating new ideas, building networks, brokering funding deals and providing practical tools for business growth, our aim is to increase the number of innovative products and services coming out of the region still further.”