Cmd R ScotSoft 2020 is virtual this year and completely free to attend, which means anyone can join! Even if you’re part of a non-tech industry, you might learn about how technology could help improve your business, or you might be interested in advice about investment or building brand awareness.
With over 30 speaker sessions and a little something for everyone, we thought we’d highlight some of the speakers in our leadership stream, one of the key themes of the event.
Here’s a bit of a taster of the lineup we have in store for you on October 1st.
One of our keynote speakers on the day is Colin Cook, Digital Director at the Scottish Government. Colin will be talking more about the upcoming consultation on a new Digital Strategy for Scotland, already shaped by contributions received during the #DigitalNation challenge run in conjunction with ScotlandIS. You will be able to learn more about the plans laid out in this new strategy, and how you can help shape them.
We will have Janet Onyia, Technology Consultant at Accenture, asking how inclusion can drive economic growth. Janet is experienced in delivering large-scale Platform Transformations in the Financial sector, and has also established two key internal communities covering gender inclusion within technology and another for Black colleagues. Her session will explore how diverse workforces make for better businesses, and how we can ensure we can connect people from across our communities into the opportunities within our growing sector.
Entrepreneur and global speaker, Richard Marshall, will join us to talk about what happens to technology when there’s a fundamental change in the world. This session looks at actual, likely and probable technology trends in light of the current pandemic, exploring how the future of work and social life is going to be irrevocably changed by the current crisis. This will include everything from digital transformation to collaboration, events and well being.
We’ll have a panel session on collaborating across clusters, featuring David Dunn, CEO of Sunderland City, Ben Shorrock, MD at TechSPARK, Jane Morrison-Ross, our own ScotlandIS CEO, and panel Chair, Dr Poonam Malik. Our panelists will discuss how, to compete globally, our UK tech clusters need to be of a sufficient size to match up, whether it’s with Silicon Valley, the Pearl River Delta or even Greater London. They will discuss how we can build compelling narratives and programmes across many UK localities in order to rival international superclusters.
Austen Mulinder will join us in his capacity as a highly experienced CEO, entrepreneur, investor and coach, having also held previous global roles as a Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, and in transforming Fujitsu’s retail business to a top right-hand Gartner Magic Quadrant performer. Austen will lead a session highlighting ten tracks to setting up a technology venture for success, drawing from his own experience taking his firm Ziosk from pre-revenue startup to market disruptor status.
Immigration Law specialist and Partner at Burness Paull, Jamie Kerr, will be discussing issues around migration and upcoming changes to UK policy. Jamie has worked in the field of immigration and nationality law for over a decade, and has lectured on immigration law in the UK, Europe and in the Far East.
We’ll be joined by Managing Director of Copy House, Kathryn Strachan, who will be advising on building brand awareness for your tech company. Kathryn launched Copy House in 2019, a content marketing agency specialising in technology and FinTech content. She’ll be explaining what innovative tech companies can do to stand out to attract new customers and three key actions to take to boost brand visibility and generate new leads.
You’ll hear from Forrit founder and CEO, Peter Proud, who will be sharing his ongoing journey from a one-man start up to a company of 50 staff. Also a member of the ScotlandIS board, he started Forrit as a joint venture which was followed by a management buy-out to be a stand alone firm. He will talk more about his methodology that he calls ‘crawl, walk, run’, to build and take to market an enterprise software product.
Skills Development Scotland will be running a session on the launch of their Neurodiversity in Tech report. This panel will feature Bev Harrow, company director and advocate of inclusion policy, Lee Hutchison, Co-Chair Neurodiversity Workstream for Digital Skills, and Chris Hughes, Founder & CEO of Estendio, to talk about the importance and benefits of neurodivergent individuals to technology companies.
Brian Baglow, founder of the Scottish Games Network, will be speaking about Scotland’s pioneering video games industry, from Lemmings to Grand Theft Auto. A designer, consultant, business leader, journalist, serial entrepreneur and university lecturer, Brian will tell you more about how applied gaming and gamification can help your business, your software and your audience love you more.
We’ll be joined by Paul Neeson, Director at Scottish Equity Partners, who will talk about the realities of accessing finance for businesses based outside of London, which is significantly more difficult than for those in London. This session will explore some of the reasons why this is the case, and how we can ensure that the best start-ups and scale-ups can access growth capital regardless of location.
Finally, we’ll have David Alexander, Director of the RICE Space Institute, leading a session on how Scotland is well-placed to contribute to the growing need for novel, intelligent, flexible and versatile technologies that expand the societal benefits of the space enterprise and expand the development of a space-based economy. He’ll discuss how the exploration and development of space both inspires and is inspired by innovation in fields as diverse as medical imaging, intelligent systems and deep fried Mars bars.
Don’t forget to register and tune in on October 1st to access all of these insights and more.