Member Article

What’s Tech North doing for the North East?

Just over one year ago, Nick Clegg, former deputy prime minister, announced the launch of Tech North, to create a “northern tech hub to rival Berlin, New York, or Shanghai.“

When Tech North was first announced, the remit of this quango-esque organisation only included: Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool and the North East tech cluster, which included Newcastle and Sunderland.

Since then, Hull has made the list, making this Tech City UK initiative with a £2 million annual budget and a team of 10, responsible for seven cities.

Despite time being “of the essence” when this initiative was announced, it took six months longer than expected to get up and running, in September instead of April 2015.

Already Under Fire

Speaking off the record to Techworld, a ‘Northern startup guru’ criticised Tech North for lacking a strategy and failing to articulate a strategy. It would be hard to disagree with that assessment.

Techworld’s source had two main concerns. Before launching, they largely ignored key players in North Eastern cities, and then, based the headquarters in Manchester.

“As soon as everything got located to Manchester I think a lot of the other cities lost heart and I don’t blame them because it does get everything. It’s like the London of the north,” the source said. Included in that list of “other cities” are those playing an active but unsupported role in the digital economy: Teesside, Darlington, Durham, Carlisle, York, Harrogate, Bradford and dozens others across the North.

So far, little has been done to engage with the tech community of the North East. This was one of the risks identified in a leaked copy of their business plan: “Failure to get northern tech communities behind Tech North.” Ministers have also criticised this as a “pet project”, within the vaguely understood Northern Powerhouse initiative.

The only thing it appears Tech North has done to date is organise Northern Stars, a startup pitch competition, not unlike the one hosted by Thinking Digital every year. The grand final, on Tuesday 24 November, in Manchester, will see the winner secure a place on the Tech North Pavilion at TechCrunch Disrupt London.

The net result of Northern Stars: a handful of startups will receive five minutes of media exposure and, the winner, the chance to pitch to investors. The digital economy in the North employs over 200,000 in this region. A broader, more coherent strategy is required, for Tech North to have a meaningful impact.

A Manchester Bias Within the Northern Powerhouse?

As England’s second city, Manchester exerts outsized influence over surrounding regions. In Manchester, the concerns of dozens of towns and cities in the North East seem distant, smaller, thus unimportant.

Reports that JEREMIE 2, the successor to the JEREMIE fund, could be pooled into a larger pot covering ‘Northern England’ (Yorkshire, Humberside, the North West and North East) is another sign that Manchester could control the innovation and funding agenda in the North. Technology startups and SME’s are at risk of losing out to those based in and around Manchester.

What Can the North East Do?

Grumbling about seemingly being overlooked won’t help the North East. Instead, we can seek to ensure our voices are heard.

Keeping JEREMIE 2 in this region would be a start, which means lobbying the British Business Bank to ensure we retain control of this region’s fund. VC firms across Yorkshire, Humberside and the North West need to do the same.

At the same time, representatives from government-funded organisations, startups and small businesses could find ways to work with Tech North, to ensure they deliver more meaningful support to the tech sector across the wider Northern region.

The north is not Manchester. Neither is it Newcastle, Leeds, Sunderland or Liverpool. A Northern Powerhouse will emerge when these tech hubs connect, support and forge stronger working bonds.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jerome Iveson .