Member Article

Tech talent matching service showcased at Dynamo conference

AN innovative ‘tech talent matching service’ will be showcased at a major IT conference tomorrow.

A workshop at the fifth annual Dynamo conference will be dedicated to the industry-led initiative’s Talent Matching Service pilot which has been in development for several months.

The conference takes place at Newcastle University, when Matt Hancock MP, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will join a host of big names from the IT world including academics, business leaders and politicians.

The conference’s themes will include AI and robotics; skills development; gaming; shared services; FinTech; coding; digital health, building information modelling (BIM) and the proposed International Centre for Connected Construction (IC3).

Anne Macdonald, Engagement Manager at Dynamo, said: “We thought the conference was the perfect opportunity to showcase the work we’ve been doing in the Talent Matching Service pilot.

“The idea was first suggested last year and since then Dynamo has been working with large companies such as Sage and Accenture as well as many of the region’s smaller IT companies. The aim is to help attract and retain the best IT talent in the region by matching up top talent with vacancies.

“The service will capture pre-screened, high-calibre job applicants that the region’s largest firms like Sage and Accenture don’t have capacity to place and bring them together with Dynamo’s SMEs who have some great vacancies.

“We’ve been developing the pilot for some months and plan to present the project and demonstrate how it will work in practice at the conference workshop. We’ll be very interested in any feedback, particularly from businesses who might like to join the pilot.

“If the pilot proves successful and the feedback at conference is positive, then we’ll continue testing for a few months with a view to have the service fully functional some time next year,” added Anne.

“I think it could be a huge benefit to Dynamo members, but it will also be a benefit to the whole region if we can keep and attract high-calibre, oven-ready tech talent here,” added Anne.

Others speakers at the workshop, called The Talent Matching Story – Capturing New Talent to Grow Digital Business, include Gradvert’s Michaela Reaney and Nicola Short, Graham Jordan from Dynamo and speakers from Sage and Accenture.

Dynamo’s conference has become a hotly-anticipated event in the industry’s calendar and this year’s event is titled Region of the Future: Innovate. Learn. Grow. It is once again sponsored by Sage.

The conference is a key project of Dynamo, an industry-led initiative to connect and grow the region’s tech sector – and shine a spotlight on the expertise that sees North East digital businesses leading on developments nationally and globally.

The Rt Hon Matt Hancock will be the keynote speaker, and other speakers include broadcaster and comedian Timandra Harkness. Ms Harkness is a regular on BBC Radio, writing and presenting BBC Radio 4’s Future Proofing series, as well as documentaries including Data, Data Everywhere. Her book Big Data: does size matter? was published in 2016.

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