How to nurture North East tech growth – David Dunn, CEO, Sunderland Software City

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5 • 6 Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sunderland Software City CEO David Dunn explains how the North East can grow its tech sector, gives his assessment of the government’s tech department, and explains how increasing the number of regional startups can help the UK become a “tech powerhouse”.

From Newcastle to Middlesbrough, the North East of England is bursting with clusters of tech innovation. But Dunn believes that with the right support, the North East “could be adding more value to UK PLC”. In this episode, Dunn explains how focusing on talent pipelines rather than job creation can stimulate tech sector growth. He also explains steps to overcome funding challenges for North East businesses and how to promote the region internationally. And ahead of an almost certain general election this year, Dunn looks at how the two main political parties have been faring when it comes to tech policy.

Dunn has held leadership roles at Sunderland Software City since 2008. The not-for-profit provides support services to tech businesses in the region. Dunn also holds the CEO role at support organisation Dynamo North East and is a founding member of the UK Tech Cluster Group, an organisation representing regional tech businesses.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine if every area in the UK had the same amount of start-ups as they did, we just see this.
0:12.0	Massive rockets towards the UK being more of a tech powerhouse.
0:18.0	I think the Department of Science Innovation and Technology,, D-SIT has started off well.
0:23.6	I suppose if I was doing a school report card, it would probably be around a B-plus.
0:31.6	A forward-thinking VC who wants to fish in a market that's potentially underserved should get on the train and come up and see what we've got going on in the northeast.
0:41.6	From the first-time founders to the funds that backs them, innovation needs different.
0:47.2	Our episode partner, HSBC Innovation Banking, is proud to accelerate growth for tech and life science businesses,
0:55.5	creating meaningful connections and opening up a world of opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors alike.
1:01.3	Discover more at www.h.hsbc InnovationBanking.com slash EN dashGB.GB.
1:13.4	Hello and welcome to the UKTM podcast, a weekly chat with the movers and shakers of the UK
1:19.1	tech industry and the destination for all things UK tech related.
1:23.9	And this week we are joined by David Dunn, the CEO of Sunderland Software City and Dynamo Northeast,
1:30.1	and a member of the UK Tech Cluster Group. Welcome, David.
1:34.0	Hello, Jane. Thanks for having me.
1:35.4	Now, let's start off with you explaining a little bit about what you do in both of those
1:39.7	organisations I've just mentioned.
1:41.6	Brilliant. Yeah, I can do. So Sunderland Software City is a not-for-profit,
1:46.5	as the name would suggest, it runs out of the northeast of England. We've been around for 16 years,
1:52.8	and we still do what we were set out to do, which was to support the growth of the tech sector in
1:58.2	the northeast of England. We've grown a bit and now what we do
2:01.8	is we focus on skills activity, innovation activity, start-up activity, scale-up activity and R&D stuff.
2:09.7	So we get quite a lot done on an annual basis. And give us a little sense of what the tech scene is
	...

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