AAB: How tech innovation hubs are nurturing Scottish success
Since 2019, our lives, whether it be personal or work-related, have completely transformed. The one constant has been our increased reliance on technology.
Do you need to work from home, want to home school your children, contact your family living across the world, order an item that needs to come the next day? No problem.And what about the bigger picture? Shopping, banking, entertainment, climate change – tech is completely transforming our habits and lifestyles and, excitingly, Scottish tech businesses are increasingly playing a significant part in this transformation.Crafted over the last few decades, we now have a fantastic tech eco-system here in Scotland. Our universities are producing and nurturing talent, we have a mature investment culture with investors understanding the importance of tech, and, of course, Scotland is a great place to live.It’s no wonder that brilliant businesses are establishing themselves across the country.Although investors and the government understand the importance of tech, these businesses face all the same difficulties as others when it comes to finding their feet or expanding into bigger markets.Sadly, there are some fantastic business ideas that simply fail to get off the ground, whether that be to do with lack of investment or a struggle with management skills.On top of this, due to the pressures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, for many it has been difficult for businesses to achieve their growth targets.That’s why innovation hubs and accelerator programmes are more important than ever.ONE Codebase, STAC, Halo, and the Scotland 5G Centre – to name but afew – have undoubtedly taken inspiration from the ways large tech cities around the world have grown their capabilities and helped their native companies succeed.Scotland can look to Silicon Valley (US) and to Kitchener-Waterloo (Canada) to see how hubs and accelerators can really work for companies. Rocketspace in the Valley –founded in 2011 by a Scot, Duncan Logan – lists Hootsuite, Uber and Spotify as alumni from its hub and start-up support programmes.Rocketspace is so much more than a cool office serving great coffee and a ball pit to play in – spoiler: I’m not absolutely sure there is a ball pit. Truly successful hubs and accelerators are more than just an office space for an ambitious company.It’s a huge ambition fulfilled. To quote Aristotle: “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts”, and that’s what these initiatives hope to provide.In addition to the several “parts”, a hub or accelerator can provide such as premises, mentorship, investment and connections. There are also the synergies of firms working together – learning from each other’s successes and failures to add to the “whole”.Kitchener-Waterloo – a public-private innovation hub – is a great example in how hubs and accelerators can rejuvenate a tech community.Ottowa has certainly not done things by halves in the last ten years and has recovered well from several high-profile falls from grace such as RIM (Blackberry) and Nortel.Communitech in Kitchener-Waterloo was founded in 1997 and has grown to support 1,600 local companies, and is responsible for 25,000 tech jobs. Velocity, the University of Waterloo’s incubator, has launched more than300 companies – including Avidbots and Vidyards – to date, and provides ample space with its 37,000sq ft building for its founders to work and learn together.These are just some examples of how tech innovation hubs have helped innovative businesses succeed. They exemplify the good practice our tech hubs here in Scotland are adopting to enhance our tech eco-system and provide the platform for businesses to gain access to support, advice and ultimately thrive.As for our team at AAB, we continue to work with the hubs and the exciting businesses they support, and we are looking forward to focusing our efforts on continuing to serve tech-focused companies.Ian Marshall is a director and head of tech strategy at Anderson Anderson & Brown (AAB).