PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

Thirty years ago, I was travelling around the country in a battered Vauxhall Cavalier interviewing founders of technology-based firms for my Ph.D study into technology-based entrepreneurship.  It was one of the first studies of this phenomenon in the UK and, at the time, was hardly on the radar of politicians and policymakers.  Fast forward three decades and now tech entrepreneurship is at the forefront of every economic strategy in the World.  Indeed, as last week’s column on the report “The State of European Tech” suggested, the tens of billions of pounds of investment going into tech companies across Europe is changing the industrial landscape in so many different ways. As part of that report, a survey was undertaken of over 1,200 tech founders from across Europe and the results give a real insight into who the individuals are who take the plunge to start up their own businesses within technology intensive sectors.   First of all, the tech scene remains a whi...

Last Thursday I was privileged to be at the brilliant Tramshed Tech accelerator in Cardiff for the launch of the latest “State of the Nation” report from Tech Nation, the UK’s network for ambitious tech-based entrepreneurs. Yet again, there were some fascinating statistics including about the situation here in Wales with the report showing that there are currently 3,605 Welsh digital tech firms employing 45,000 people and having a total turnover of over £1 billion. However, the emphasis this year was not to look inward but to examine the performance of the UK tech economy on the global stage and how our innovative companies, entrepreneurial communities and ground-breaking technologies are making an impact across the world.  And rather focusing on start-up firms that usually are at the core of most research studies into the tech sector, the report focuses on those high growth scale-up firms which currently account for 80 per cent of the £6.3bn of tech investment into UK firms in 201...