CREATING A DIGITAL REGION
Taking place over two days, the event focused on identifying the opportunities within the information and communications technology industry (ICT) especially the challenges and opportunities for young people as they progress through the education system and into the workplace.
It also brought together global technology brands, industry professionals and knowledge experts to engage, educate and energise individuals, businesses and public sector organisations around the use and uptake of digital technologies in order to achieve organisational goals and deliver economic success.
The venue for the conference was opportune, given the recent strong statement of intent made via the Newport City Task Force to create a major presence in the digital and ICT world.
This includes creating an innovation company to act as a hub to attract investors to the area, establishing a National Centre for Cybersecurity and building a Software University to propel Newport forward as the best place in the UK for a software degree.
But what are the ingredients for a successful ICT region and can Newport ever hope to become one?
The answer may lie in a recent report from the European Commission that examines how to reinforce and further develop Europe's industrial and technology leadership in ICT.
This research analysed every region in Europe according to three elements namely business activity, R&D and innovation in the ICT sector. In assessing these, it examined the intensity of each element (business turnover, turnover growth, number of employees), its internationalisation (e.g. how many international partners businesses/research centres/universities have) and networking (what is the role of each region in networks: which of them are hubs and connect directly to many partners, which of them have links that only allow few exchanges).
Several data sources and databases were used to develop the various indicators including university rankings, citation indexes, information on European research projects' collaborations, how many global top R&D investor companies in ICTs are present in each region, venture capital funding or employment data and companies' turn over information.
The three most successful regions in ICT are Munich, London and Paris although report also throws up some fascinating results about other how ICT has developed across the continent.
For example, whilst Germany ranks first in research and patenting activity, the UK provides eight of the top ten European regions in developing computer science graduates and has the top five academic centres of excellence in this area. Surprisingly perhaps, the biggest employment growth in the ICT is not to be found in the major cities but in the more peripheral areas of Lisbon in Portugal and Rzeszowski in Poland showing that ICT clusters can develop anywhere if the right factors are in place.
So what are the ingredients for digital success?
According to the conclusions of the report, ICT excellence is linked to research and development activities, to the ability to take knowledge to market via innovation and, most importantly, to being able to then build an intense business activity around this innovation.
The good news for Wales in this respect is that some of the building blocks identified by the report are already in place. We are a long-standing industrial area and have developed long-term policies on research and innovation. However, there is a need to further boost the research activity in ICT and related areas within our educational institutions. Many of the successful ICT regions will tend to cluster together, which means that more bridge building needs to take place between Newport and the West of England that also has a growing presence in the digital arena.
It is also worth noting that smaller regions can be successful in developing ICT clusters, despite the fact that major cities are at the top of the report’s league table.
For example, the city of Darmstadt in Germany has a similar population to Newport but thanks to its research and innovative output and its active business community, it currently ranks number seven at EU's top ten ICT poles of excellence. Other small-sized regions showing strong performance are Leuven, Karlsruhe or Cambridge.
The excellent map developed for the project can be found here where each region's score can be analysed graphically.
Therefore, there are vital lessons to be learnt from this important study into ICT regions across Europe and I would urge Welsh policymakers to read it to ensure that we are on the right track.
But probably the most important lesson is that there is no real barrier to Newport quickly establishing itself as an ICT hub of excellence if the right policies and practices are put into place over the next few years.
