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North East digital agency launches in-house R&D hub

Newcastle-based software company Shout Digital has launched what it’s dubbing its own innovation hub to help encourage intrapreneurship and upskilling within its walls.

The in-house hub will also allow its team members to take advantage of necessary research and development time needed to help clients make a commercial success of emerging technologies.

Shout founder and CEO, Gary Boon said he wants to put the organisation at the front of the progression in fields such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality and iBeacons.

He said: “Allowing the team to commit proper research and development time to understand how to apply these technologies in ways that offer obvious commercial benefit to our clients is of vital importance.

“Agencies that deliver complex solutions, like Shout, will need to master these fields if they are to stay relevant. The lines are blurring between what people might commonly perceive as being technological and digital solutions. Digital agencies have a fantastic opportunity to take ownership of these areas and consult their clients effectively and knowledgeably.”

Shout has recently developed a range of advanced software applications for clients in both the UK and US including having developed a solution involving iBeacons for a Fortune 100 company. Last month, the organisation announced it had opened an office in Philadelphia on the United States’ East Coast.

They say the development of the in-house technology hub will be free of client billing time and, Boon claims, will free up his team to think more expansively about the range of solutions at their fingertips.

Boon, who studied for a PhD in artificial intelligence as long as 15 years ago, added: “The fact is, these so-called emerging technologies have been around for many years, but it is only now that we’re starting to see compatible hardware that starts to make developments in AI or AR commercially viable.

“I’m keen to balance the research and development time alongside on-going client projects to delve deeply into these fields.”

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