CultureTECH - Blog

The CultureTECH Lecture: Mike Butcher

Editor-at-Large, TechCrunch // Co-Founder, TechHub // Founder, The Europas

Friday, March 27th

630pm-8pm

NW Regional Science Park

Bay Rd, Derry-Londonderry

CultureTECH, supported by ILEX, is proud to present our second in a series of informal lectures featuring leading speakers from across the tech community.

One of the most influential people in European tech, Mike Butcher is the Editor-At-Large of TechCrunch. He is co-founder of TechHub, which creates spaces around the world for tech entrepreneurs to meet, work, learn and collaborate. He founded the annual European Tech Startup Awards & Conference: TheEuropas.com and has been an advisor on startups to the British Prime Minister and the Mayor of London. He is also founder of policy group Coadec.com, which lobbies for startups.

Come meet Mike and hear his thoughts on the European startup community and how you can engage with the amazing community being built in the East End of London, Europe and Silicon Valley.

A major new BBC initiative - Make It Digital - will give 1 million coding devices (”Micro Bits”) to children at Key Stage 3, across the UK and launch a season of dedicated BBC programmes and online activity

The BBC will be working with around 50 major partner organisations to make it happen and we are delighted to say that CultureTECH will be working with them  as Northern Ireland partner.

Mark Nagurski, Chief Executive of CultureTECH in Northern Ireland said: “We are delighted to be part of this project and hugely excited about working with the BBC and other partners to bring Micro Bit to Northern Ireland. Enabling young people to be creative with technology is a huge driver of what CultureTECH does both through our festival and outreach activity; Micro Bit will do exactly that and we have some hugely exciting plans for Micro Bit events across Northern Ireland this September.”

There’ll be loads more info to follow and of course, we will be reaching out to schools directly to let them know what’s happening. 

We've teamed up with the NI Science Park for an exciting event on March 20th- the NI Tech Meetup is aimed at those who need help in turning their great ideas into reality. At a FREE networking event, you'll be able to hear from excellent entrepreneurs who have done it already as well as from the support networks who can make it happen.

In the ultra cool surroundings of Hedonist hair and beauty, you'll hear from the guys behind the Science Park and some of the tenants at the 2 campuses as well as music on the night coming from Bounce. 

Airporter are running a free shuttle service from the North West and back on the evening. Places are free but limited, and are available here

More info:

Northern Ireland’s leading technology and business hub is hosting an event later this month, which is aimed at those with a great tech idea relating to fashion, beauty or music, but need help making it a reality.

The Northern Ireland Science Park (NISP), which is often the first point of contact for more established tech businesses in Derry~Londonderry and Belfast is launching the NI Tech Meet Up events to make it easier for start-ups, with a technology focused idea to get access to its free resources.  

The events are being delivered as part of the NW Regional Science Park project; a cross border project which is part funded by the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the INTERREG IVA Programme and managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB). The project is being delivered by the cross border partnership of NISP and Letterkenny Institute of Technology and led by the North West Region Cross Border Group (NWRCBG). The Group works together to develop the North West Region and is comprised of Donegal County Council , Derry City Council, Limavady Borough Council, Magherafelt District Council, and Strabane District Council. 

The first event will take place on Friday 20 March from 7.30pm in Hedonist hair salon on Belfast’s Botanic Avenue and will give those from across the city the chance to network with likeminded individuals from the Belfast Park in a relaxed informal environment.

Andy McDonald of NISP said, “We have almost 200 companies in the Science Park in the North West and Belfast spanning a diverse range of sectors. Science and technology underpin all of these businesses and we are now seeing an emergence of technologies and products that are transforming sectors such as the world of fashion, hospitality, sport and beauty. With the NI Tech Meet Up events we want to show that ideas, whatever sector they fall into need to be nourished early on and we can provide the business support and industry connections to make them a reality.”

The audience will hear from Science Park success stories including Ryan Sharkey from creative digital agency Wurkhouse, Halo Business Angel of the Year Stephen Houston, alongside Connor Doherty who runs the hugely successful CultureTECH festival. 

Connor Doherty, Projects Manager, CultureTECH festival, said, “CultureTECH is now in its fourth year and the 2014 festival saw more than 40,000 people taking part. It shows that there is an appetite in the city for technology focussed resources and the addition of the NW Science Park has provided tech companies with a place to connect with other similar businesses. We always welcome the chance to network with Belfast based companies and out of this event we hope to see collaborations in the future.” There will also be investors, festival organisers and NI

SP programme managers all on the lookout for entrepreneurs of the future. Entertainment will be provided by Defcon, Irish Beat Box champion Cull, complimentary food and drinks will be provided and Kwa Daniels, Founder of Bounce Education will be compering the evening. 

The event is free, but tickets are limited and can be applied for by visiting www.nitechmeetup.co.   

Maggie Philbin, presenter of Tomorrow's World and founder of TeenTech, is going to be the keynote speaker at the Watify Social Session in association with CultureTECH as part of Derry City Council's Enterprise Week.

The session, in association with Ilex, will hear Maggie talk about Teen Tech, which was part of CultureTECH Junior in 2013, as well as her career in broadcasting, which has stretched over 30 years and has taken in everything from Tomorrow's World to Bang Goes the Theory.

Maggie, who has long held a passion for science, will also be talking about the importance of science education and the digital economy.

The social session, which takes place at NWRC's Foyle Theatre at 5.30pm, Tuesday Feb 24th, caps off a day of Watify Programming facilitated by NORIBIC that will see speakers such as Conall O'Morain, Pauline Tambling CBE, Charles Armstrong and Shaa Wasmund.

Wondering what to do with the kids at the end of the Mid term?

This family friendly fun day takes place on Saturday 21st February at St. Mary's College campus, Northland Road. Loads of fun for all the family, the highlight being the Zombie Science show. Never have so many zombies been seen on school grounds since, well, Monday morning.  Also going to be there are the guys from STEM Aware who are going to be doing experiments and Uproar Comics will be on hand to draw zombie portaits.  We've also got a great CoderDojo running as well. 

Beers & Careers is an informal meet up for anyone interested in working in tech/media - and yes, there'll be free beer.

The event is aimed at

recent tech graduates,

tech undergraduates in full-time FE or HE courses,

non-IT grads thinking about tech as a career

anyone else who's interested

Some of the city's top tech employers will be there to talk (very briefly) about recruitment, placements, conversion training for non-IT grads, apprenticeships and jobs.

In short, you'll find out exactly what you need to do - and when - to land a sport with them, whether you're looking for a full-time job or a student placement. No shirts and ties, just bring yourself. Free beers and pizzas provided :)

NB: If you are an IT employer and want to join us on the night, register here and we'll get in touch ASAP.

CultureTECH are coming to London for an awesome little meet up in  Trapeze Bar Basement (near Old St tube station) on Thursday March 5th. There'll be free drinks, nibbles and quick talks and demos from some brilliant Northern Irish companies, who are all keen to find partners and collaborators in London. 

You'll meet companies from:

Games

Motion graphics and design

Animation

Edtech

You'll also hear a bit about how CultureTECH has grown into one of Ireland's largest tech events (43,000 people in Sept 2014) and how you can get involved too.

Thanks to everyone who let us know (here, on Twitter and on FB) how they thought we should spend the lovely £3000 prize we collected at the recent Arts & Business Awards.

The consensus was pretty clear that we should spend the money to teach kids about design-thinking using an arts project. So that's what we're going to do. 

Specifically we will:

Spend £1000 to work with an artist/s (paid of course) to help us design the project, we'll do this via an open call

Spend £1000 to create the resources (print, design etc...)

Spend £1000 to pilot the project in a bunch of schools across NI, before releasing all the resources online for free

We'll keep you up-to-date with progress over the coming weeks and would hope to have something up and running by the start of April!

We are absolutely delighted - and more than a little stunned - to have picked up the main Arts Award at last night's Allianz Arts & Business NI Awards as well as a Highly Commended nod for our ongoing partnership with Seagate (that's the lovely June Coates from Seagate in the pic).

We're delighted because Arts & Business NI are a really amazing organisation that promotes business engagement in the arts (and vice versa). If you're not aware of their work, please go check them out. 

We're surprised (and yes, I might have cursed just a little when they announced it) because of how many brilliant arts organisations where shortlisted for the prize, including some we've had the pleasure of working with and many more that inspire us!

Along with the award we also get £3000 and seeing as we honestly never thought of actually winning, we've no particular plan to spend it. So we'd like to let you decide if that's OK.

The three options are:

ARTSTECH CONFERENCE - Put it towards a one-day arts & technology conference during this September's CultureTECH

OPEN CALL FOR ARTS ORGS - Break it up in to £500 chunks and give it to other arts organisations to do something awesome at CultureTECH

TEACH SOME KIDS - Use it to design some new educational resources that uses the arts to teach innovation and design-thinking to young people

Quote request- Graphic Design

As you can see by the picture, we're in the need for some help with our graphic design. For our 2015 efforts we're putting together a panel of designers that we'll tap into across the year. All the info you need is found here. 

Have a look through our social media profiles (Facebook and Twitter) to have a look at the type of things that we're looking for, and look forward to hearing from you.

The CultureTECH Mini-Mission to London happens between March 4th and 6th, If you a tech or creative industries company based in Derry or Strabane and want to meet with key stakeholders in London, this is your chance.

With funding from Ilex, we'll be taking companies over to take part in a number of group meetings, as well as organising one on one meetings for people with relevant individuals, including Tech City, the Barbican and the City of London Corporation.

There may be a contribution to travel and accommodation costs for companies or individuals, and as it's a CultureTECH event, will be excellent fun. 

If you're interested, then we're taking expressions of interest up to January 30th, All you have to do is drop us a 1 page document outlining the following:

Company Description

Outline of existing activities in London

What you hope to acheive

Potential travel and accommodation requirements. 

Travel will be maximum for 1 person per company for flights and 2 nights accommodation. A minimum of 5 companies will be represented, and if we have more than 5 companies applying for travel costs, we'll be selecting companies that we feel will gain most from the experience.

The countdown is on until the CultureTECH Christmas party, and it's coming together with some excellent support from our sponsors on the night. Why not come along and hear how The Cloud Simplified can help your business?

The Cloud Simplified have teamed up with Sync NI for a special offer for new businesses.

Eoin O'Reilly from the company explains what they're offering.

"The Cloud Simplified is a wholly owned Cloud Platform based in Belfast & London and is part Northern Irelands oldest IT firm ‘Xperience Group’

Giving back to the local business market has become very important issue to the owners of the Group, and so they have launched a very special free package to NI Start-up’s.

If you are thinking of starting a business, imagine how great it would be to have free IT and marketing for your first year! Well with the new partnership between ‘The Cloud Simplified’ & ‘Sync NI’ now you can."

The now annual CultureTECH Christmas party is returning on December 11th at Legenderry Warehouse No.1.

In conjunction with our co-hosts Blick Studios, and our sponsors TotalMobile & The Cloud Simplified and ticketing partner GetInvited, we're going to be brining a night of networking, light nibbles, and refreshments. Come along and celebrate what's been a great year for the digital sector in Northern Ireland and further afield. We're going to have some excellent speakers at the event, and pleased to announce that the first is Rich Osborne from Type40 Creative.

Rich has over 15 years experience within the creative industries, working mainly with digital video .  He started his career as a graphic design assistant on the website for The Beatles “1” release at the world famous Abbey Road Studios in their Interactive department.  For over 7 years he worked here, spending time in various roles from web development through video editing to producing.  In 2005 he helped moved Abbey Road into the world of High Definition, producing some of the first commercial Blu-ray titles to be made in the UK.   In 2008 Rich moved to Metropolis Studios as the Head of Digital Media.   During this time he worked on a number of different products, including bringing The Beatles “Yellow Submarine” to Blu-ray, Stevie Wonder “Live at Last” and the BVA award winning “Take That presents The Circus”.  He spent 4 years working with Metropolis until 2012 when he left London and joined the team at Urban 3D in Derry~Londonderry.   In 2014 the opportunity arose for Rich to launch his own business Type40, a creative content production studio.  

 Working with a whole range of clients, Type40 focuses on creating interesting and attractive visual content for marketing, broadcast and promotion.  Using a mix of CGI (computer generated images), motion graphics and video production we are able to meet all video production needs.  Recent projects have included a DVD for inclusion in a George Harrison boxset, animated product videos for new iOS app Stikpics, a TV ad for Sharon Shannon and stage visuals for a live show in London. 

Our education outreach programme just keeps getting bigger - by March 2015, we'll have been in over 125 schools since September - and we need some help!

So we're looking to appoint an Educational Project Facilitator for a 3-month freelance contract starting in January (full time equivalent). 

You'll spend time delivering awesome workshops in schools across NI (roughly 3 days a week), help us develop relationships with new schools (1 day per week) and even get involved in designing new educational programming (1 day per week). 

The right person will love working with young people and be as excited about innovation and technology as we are. You'll enjoy working in an informal but challenging environment and be able to bring exciting new ideas to the table.

If this sounds like your kind of gig, download the attached details and then send us your CV and covering letter before noon on Dec 12th.