Scotland's tech festivals move into full swing, by Nick Freer

ScotlandIS-run tech conference ScotSoft takes place this week and there is a great line-up of speakers including Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of AI & ISV Engagement, who joined the board of Edinburgh-headquartered Forrit earlier this year (Scottish Startup Strengthens Board of Directors, PR Newswire, 8 June 2020). One notable thing about conferences since Covid struck is how moving to a virtual platform has allowed events to draw an increasingly global number of participants and attendees. 

As Ray Bugg, Founder at technology events player DIGIT who are running the 7th annual Financial Technology Conference this week says, “DIGIT took the decision to pivot to virtual events early in the pandemic, allowing time to create an event environment that mirrors that of the physical events we’ve produced since 2013. It was imperative we created something more than ‘Death by Zoom’ that would allow delegates to network, collaborate and interact. Also, attendees are no longer constrained by geography resulting in an increased attendance from other parts of the UK and around the world. Our sponsors now have a richer environment to demonstrate their products and services and post-event analytics that are undeliverable by physical events.”

I’ve been fortunate to support Turing Fest, Startup Summit and EIE, three of Scotland’s other main tech conferences, through the years and individually and collectively they form an important part of the fabric of our tech scene, something that was emphasised in Mark Logan’s recent Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review. 

Personal highlights from these conferences, in addition to the in-conference talks and sessions, are some of the memories from the sidelines including hanging out with CodeBase founder and chairman Jamie Coleman and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in 2012, walking through Edinburgh with RocketSpace founder Duncan Logan en route to The Scotsman for an interview during Startup Summit in 2016, and a late night malt whisky session with Chris van der Kuyl and a celebrated tech journalist from Forbes following EIE17. 

EIE, Scotland’s top tech investor conference, is the one I know best - both in terms of the EIE team itself and the slew of startups who have come through the year-round programme that is now run out of the University of Edinburgh’s Bayes Centre. In terms of the numbers, EIE has supported over 500 startups who have raised over £750 million in investment.  

EIE was launched in 2008 to bring tech founders together with investors who could help fuel their ambition and in 2020 it is comforting to see that investors continue to invest in startup talent in spite of prevailing Covid winds. Many of this year’s company cohort are on a mission to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges - around health, including Covid itself, climate, energy, agriculture, cybersecurity and robotics.

The recent Logan Review, commissioned by the Scottish Government, pinpointed the importance of conferences like EIE to the greater good of the tech scene here: “We recommend that these conferences are internationalised to showcase startups regardless of their origin country, and that a level of public finance is provided to ensure that ticket prices and pitch-entry prices are not prohibitive. The reason for doing so is to attract external investors and international industry expertise to Scotland that won’t come to see a solely domestic portfolio.” 

Having said that, investors from outside Scotland should not underplay the opportunity they have to meet Scotland-headquartered startups as history shows that we have produced homegrown ventures who have gone on to great success - startups like Skyscanner, FanDuel and Two Big Ears. Many investors’ first chance to see FanDuel, which went on to become Scotland’s first billion dollar-valued tech startup in 2015, was at EIE in 2010 and virtual reality audio startup Two Big Ears pitched to investors at EIE15 before going on to be acquired by Facebook the following year.

This year’s EIE20 takes place on Thursday 14th October, with an investor-only event with Mark Logan and a webinar for international delegates both taking place the day before.

Another Scottish tech sector conference runs on the 13th October with the inaugural edition of Ada Scotland, referencing English computer pioneer Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace. Organised by the University of Glasgow’s School of Computing, the festival is aimed at improving gender balance in computing and providing a hub for girls and young women to get inspired about opportunities to study and work in computing and IT. 

An edited version of this article appeared as on op-ed in The Scotsman on Monday 28th September 2020