Key players in Scotland’s digital technologies industry will gather in Edinburgh tomorrow (Thursday 6 October) to ask what it takes to build a global business and stay agile while scaling for growth.
The issues will be debated as part of the Global Forum at this year’s ScotSoft conference. Two panels of experts will answer questions and share advice, encouragement and their personal war stories with the audience of CEOs and decision makers at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.
Keynote speaker Rob Jones, co-founder of FanDuel, will share what he sees as the three stages to scaling. Sam Ramji, CEO of Cloud Foundry will be speaking on ‘Continuous Innovation and Digital Platforms’ while Adam Stewart, Regional Manager – UK Public Sector at Google, will explore ‘Innovative Disruption’.
FreeAgent’s Kate Ho will chair the panel Q&A sessions and will be joined by:
- Gerry Docherty, Chair, Smarter Grid Solutions
- Nick Maunder, Chief Operating Officer, KAL
- Tom Duke, VP Engineering, TVSquared
- John Peebles, CEO, Administrate
- Gavin Dutch, Founder, Yavi
- Greg Urquhart, Director, Agile 4 12
- Graeme Smith, Managing Director, Amazon Development Scotland
ScotSoft is hosted by ScotlandIS, the trade body for the digital technologies industry in Scotland. The sector generates more than £5bn in GVA and, according to KPMG’s Tech Monitor, the number of tech sector enterprises in Scotland grew 43.3% between 2010 and 2015, second only to London (54.6%).
Polly Purvis, chief executive of ScotlandIS, says:
We have a thriving startup community in Scotland and many of the more established businesses based here have real potential to succeed on the global stage. Entrepreneurs can learn a great deal from each other, and those who have trodden the same path before them so I’m delighted that we will be welcoming the likes of Rob Jones, Gavin Dutch, Gerry Docherty and John Peebles to our stage, who between them have set up and grown a number of successful businesses.
“There are big questions about how we secure the future of Scotland’s digital technologies industry. How do we feel, for example, about acquisitions by overseas businesses? As an industry are we doing enough to make sure we have a strong talent pipeline, particularly in light of Brexit? Do we have access to sufficient growth capital?
“It’s vital that we discuss these issues as an industry so I hope that this will be the start of an energetic debate and one that looks at these questions from many different viewpoints.”
In addition to the Global Forum, ScotSoft 2016 will feature a public sector briefing and a dedicated Developers Conference, offering the opportunity for developers to meet, share knowledge and inspire each other.
The evening sees the annual Young Software Engineer of the Year Awards taking place and speaking at the dinner will be special guest and Olympic gold medallist, Sir Chris Hoy.