Tales in crypto, by Nick Freer

Social media giant Meta announced this week that it is on the cusp of having the world’s fastest artificial intelligence supercomputer, called AI Research SuperCluster or RSC for short, at its disposal later this year.

In a blog post, a Meta senior engineer wrote: “RSC will help Meta’s AI researchers build new and better AI models that can learn from trillions of examples; work across hundreds of different languages; seamlessly analyse texts, images, and video together; develop new augmented reality tools.  Ultimately, the work done with RSC will pave the way toward building technologies for the next major computing platform - the metaverse.” 

Neal Stephenson coined the term “metaverse” in his 1992 science fiction novel “Snow Crash”, in which the author envisioned lifelike avatars who meet in virtual reality environments.  When tech groups like Meta and Microsoft talk about the metaverse, essentially they too are outlining a vision of what the internet could look like in the years ahead.  

All things crypto

Over $30 billion was invested in cryptocurrency-related ventures in 2021. And while Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have taken a pounding at the beginning of 2022, commentators expect the inflow of investment into all things crypto to increase in 2022.   

According to Digital Galaxy Research, 43 per cent of crypto funding in 2021 went into companies in trading, exchange services, investing, and lending of crypto assets, with 17 per cent invested into non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), Web 3.0 or Web3 (a decentralised online ecosystem based on the blockchain), and the metaverse.  

Getting your head around blockchain can be testing, but I heard a good explanation recently by John Wu, president of smart contracts platform Ava Labs: “When you think about crypto and blockchain, it’s kind of like they are all different cities with their specific characteristics, based on the technology and the community that’s there.” 

Wu continues: “For Web3 to really flourish, you are going to have to get from one blockchain to another really easily.  You are not going to get the best of crypto 3.0 unless all these blockchains are able to connect to each other in a multi-chain world.” 

Looking ahead to the next twelve months, analysts expect decentralised finance (or DeFi) to be one of the next big things in blockchain, becoming more mainstream as banks and financial services groups move increasingly into the space.   

The tortoise and the hare

Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare could be applied to news last week that Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, seen as a bellwether for value investment, narrowed the gap between its two-year investment performance and that of highly-rated growth investor Ark’s flagship Innovation Fund as tech stocks continue to tumble.

An improving economic outlook, combined with a record spike in inflationary trends is seen to be at the foundation of this reversal of fortunes for two of the US’s best known investors.

An end to the great supply chain crisis? 

Latest Baltic Dry Index statistics, which measure the price of shipping bulk materials and rose steeply during the pandemic, hit a downward curve at the end of last year.  In good news for world trade, economists say this reflects a return to stable and efficient worldwide supply chains.

An edited version of this blog ran as an op-ed in The Scotsman on Monday 31st January 2022

Tech trends, Tesla and tweeting from the toilet, by Nick Freer

Having helped a few publications out recently by connecting them with clients who are well placed to comment on tech trends for 2022, I thought I would sum up some of my own observations, albeit in a fairly scatter fire manner.

Healthcare is prominent in any narrative on tech trends as we approach two years of living with the pandemic.  While tech companies have leaned in to support the fight against Covid, healthcare companies have increasingly turned to technology to deliver products and services.  Accordingly, significant levels of investment have followed.  

In October, Edinburgh-headquartered Current Health secured the second largest European digital healthcare exit to date.  Because of this success story, expect more international investors to train their eyes on Scottish health tech startups in 2022.   

Overall, in 2021, more investment was made into our fast-growth companies than ever before, more than £700 million by some estimates.  Crucially, we are also seeing more International investors back companies here.  

A few months on from COP26 in Glasgow and with greenhouse gas emissions spiking around the world as Covid restrictions are eased, PwC estimates that climate tech is coming off a year in which the sector’s startups received around seven times the investment that went into artificial intelligence (AI) startups.  

Good news you would think, until you factor in that only 25 per cent of that total investment is going into companies who are developing 80 per cent of the technologies viewed as most impactful at addressing the climate emergency - sectors including solar and wind power, green hydrogen production, and food waste technology.  

The lion’s share of investment is being pumped into transportation and mobility, with electric vehicles (EVs) and related technologies garnering most, in addition to hogging the headlines across global media outlets.  

TIME magazine named Elon Musk its Person of the Year for 2021, of whom the publisher says, “few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too.” 

The companies Musk has founded - Tesla, Tesla Energy, SpaceX, Starling, Neuralink, Boring Co., and Starship - are streets ahead of the competition on electric cars, carbon-free electricity, space travel, building the internet in space, human-machine interfaces, underground travel, and achieving the goal of life on Mars. 

Bitcoin became more of a household name when Tesla purchased $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency at the beginning of last year.  Although Bitcoin’s value dropped last week to $40,000 from an historic high of $69,000, analysts expect Tesla to make more from its Bitcoin holding than from selling cars in 2020.  

There are influencers, and then there are influencers, and Musk’s tweeting regularly moves markets.  As described by a Bloomberg reporter recently: “The way finance works now is that things are valuable not based on their cash flows but on their proximity to Elon Musk.” 

On a more ‘need to know basis’, Musk engaged in a bit of toilet humour in November when informing his 66 million Twitter followers that at least half of his tweets are sent while he is sitting on his “porcelain throne”.

Less about tweeting from the toilet, and more about cryptocurrency, blockchain and Web 3.0 next week.  

This blog ran as an op-ed in The Scotsman on Monday 24th January 2022

Viewpoints on our entrepreneurial ecosystem, by Nick Freer

In last weekend’s blog, I wrote about curating opinion pieces for the business section of The Scotsman, and how I always think there should be some Scotland-specific context to whatever is being written about.  

What I should have added is that, where possible, I think the best columns combine themes around doing business in Scotland with how that fits into the global equation.  So, for example, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist writing about why his or her firm decided to back an Edinburgh-headquartered startup, and their views on our entrepreneurial ecosystem.  

In November, Infracost CEO and co-founder Hassan Kjajeh-Hosseini, penned a piece about the “incredible power of networks for startups”.  Last year, Infracost was selected as one of 350 startups from over 40 countries to be funded by renowned technology startup accelerator Y Combinator in Mountain View, California. 

As Hassan put it: “Our success is tied to the support of our network, and if we had more strong networks like this in Scotland, we would have more successful startups.  A network of founders willing to share stories, learnings and connections.  An example of where this is starting to work is at CodeBase in Edinburgh, and I can’t wait to contribute more.” 

Ahead of COP26 last October, the CEO of digital skills academy CodeClan, Melinda Matthews-Clarkson, wrote that “we know technology can be one of the main drivers of recovery, to leverage creativity, engineering and complex problem-solving to reset our climate course.”  Matthews-Clarkson continued: “In Scotland, we have a number of companies that provide a shining example of climate tech at its best.”

In August, Geneva-based Scot Gib Bulloch wrote about how he believes Scotland is “ideally placed to reinvent the future of work.”  Former Accenture senior executive Bulloch, author of The Intrapreneur: Confessions of a Corporate Insurgent and founder the Craigberoch Business Decelerator on his native Isle of Bute, is an inspirational individual whose thinking has made a big impression on me.  He wrote: “For much of my adult life, the Scottish and British economies have been heavily dependent on North Sea oil.  For the next half century, it needs to be something different.”

Also last summer, Scottish tech entrepreneur George Mackintosh wrote a piece about post-pandemic work dynamics: “Our experiences since March 2020 have changed the way we work and how business is done.  In part that’s good: fewer commuter miles, less emissions, greater productivity, and improved wellbeing.  But what’s being lost?  How do you build team cohesiveness, brainstorm, agree strategy, solve problems and negotiate shared goals?”

In my own opinion pieces, I think I have written in more personal way over the last couple of years than ever before, over and above the more business-focussed articles - including around subjects like mental health and wellbeing, work-life balance, living through pandemic times, and the shock of being struck down by Covid after having dodged the dreaded thing for so long.  

Writing from a very personal point of view can be hard, taking that step outside your comfort zone and really opening up, but if the result resonates with a number of people then I always feel like the exercise is worthwhile.

Curating content and tales from Edinburgh's entrepreneurial scene, by Nick Freer

I first wrote a business column for The Scotsman in 2010 - a piece about corporation reputation in the wake of negative publicity faced by investment bank Goldman Sachs, who had been described as a “great vampire squid” by a journalist at Rolling Stone magazine.  

For the last few years, I have been a more regular columnist, writing or curating a weekly comment piece for the Saturday edition of the paper.  Generally, it is a discipline and routine I greatly enjoy - with the exception of the times at which I’m bashing out some words far too close to deadline. 

If there is a regular theme that runs through my opinion pieces, I guess it would be around entrepreneurship.  Being based in Edinburgh, living and working here, and mixing with a lot of entrepreneurs, that feeds into a lot of what I write.  

It’s the curating bit, as opposed to my own scribblings, that I get the bigger kick out of though - very probably in common with The Scotsman’s readership!  Curated content, in terms of how we assimilate news on the internet, is trending ever upwards, and you can see why given the sheer amount of content on the web. 

Generally, when someone is writing a piece for me, they ask for my view on what they should write about, or how it should be framed.  On the whole, I will recommend that there is at least some Scotland context to the thing - I mean, the article is going to be published in The Scotsman!  Having said that, when it’s a captain of industry type pulling a business comment together, typically they don’t need too much hand holding.  

Looking back at 2021, there were a few standout columns.  

In April, Andy MacMillan, CEO of UserTesting, the first Silicon Valley tech group to set up a European headquarters in Edinburgh, wrote about empathy in business - how it isn’t just about being nice, rather it should be a stone-cold business strategy.  As MacMillan put it: “For businesses, empathy seems to have become not just a value but a paradigm governing nearly every aspect of the operation, from marketing strategy to employee engagement to corporate citizenship.” 

MacMillan recently guided the company through an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange that valued UserTesting at over $2 billion.  As his surname suggests, he has Scottish heritage and completed a MBA in Corporate Strategy and Management at the University of Edinburgh between 2002 and 2003. 

In May, Munich-based energy sector consultant David Scrimgeour MBE, formerly a Scottish Government investment representative in Germany wrote about the shadow formed by Brexit: “For British companies and economic development agencies the world of trade and investment with Continental Europe has changed dramatically since the beginning of 2021.”  

Also back in May, Varun Nair, someone who is always in my top list of Edinburgh-based entrepreneurs, wrote about his journey from co-founding a startup here that was acquired by Facebook in 2013: “Transforming an idea into a successful venture is hard.  It takes tremendous energy, constant iteration from failure, and good timing.”

As I’ve run out of word count, tune back in next Saturday for more entrepreneurial tales - until then, Happy New Year!

An edited version of this blog ran in The Scotsman on Saturday 1st January 2022

Education key to Scotland's digital future, by Nick Freer

CodeClan marked a milestone this week, with the two thousandth graduate from one of the range of software development and data analytics  courses run by the Melinda Matthews-Clarkson-led not-for-profit organisation.  In Matthews-Clarkson’s own words, CodeClan has become “integral to Scotland’s digital future”. 

Scotland’s digital future has been a hotter topic than ever before over the last twelve months, in no small part sparked by the publication of the Scottish technology ecosystem review by Mark Logan last year.  Logan was back in the press this week, with a worrisome view that our nation’s computing science students are lagging behind their European counterparts in Scotland’s higher education system. 

Logan’s gist is that the issue stems from the standard of computing science teaching in Scotland’s secondary schools.  It’s an area that organisations like Digital Xtra Fund are addressing, with a mission for “every young person in Scotland to have access to innovative and digitally creative activities, regardless of their gender, background, or where they live”.  

In many ways, the so-called talent pipeline, which enables companies to access the right kind of qualified people, goes right back to the grassroots, and that’s why the whole holistic educational piece is so important.  

In my own dealings with the Scottish tech scene, my back of a napkin estimate is that for every company that is able to hire the requisite amount of programmers and developers, there is another who finds it extremely difficult to identify key hires from the local talent pool.  On client calls with journalists over the last couple of weeks alone, I’ve heard that divergence of view on more than one occasion.  

Global tech bible Wired magazine approached us earlier this year to source a couple of technology companies who could comment on how their hiring processes were impacted during the pandemic.  We lined up Trustpilot, who have a growing R&D hub in Edinburgh, and Peter Proud-founded Forrit, with both companies subsequently featured in the piece.  

We also put Wired in touch with Edinburgh-based Kelli Buchan, who has helped build teams for the likes of FanDuel and Administrate.  Buchan explained to Wired that while Scottish startups and scale-ups are continuing to attract investment and hire, the real uncertainty is around how long we’re going to be working in a pandemic-impacted fashion.   

In Scotland, in common with the rest of the world, there is an ongoing war for talent.  If you look at one end of the spectrum, Alphabet-owned Google plans to hire 30,000 people next year according to CEO Sundar Pichai.  In an interview with Bloomberg earlier this week, Pichai said that the $2 trillion-valued tech giant is tackling diversity by hiring outside of Silicon Valley in metropolises like Atlanta, Chicago, and New York.  

Talking of digital skills, Pichai didn’t have a computer or access to the internet growing up.  In fact, he didn’t own his own computer until he moved to the United States and attended Stanford University on a scholarship.  Today, he oversees Google’s ever deeper push into artificial intelligence and quantum computing, areas he believes will be the most revolutionary tech trends over the next decade.   

This blog ran as on op-ed in The Scotsman on Saturday 4th December 20212

Big in Japan, by Nick Freer

The Scotland versus Japan autumn test at Murrayfield last weekend was a great day out, with the kind of atmosphere and buzz in and around the stadium that you would expect for a near capacity crowd at the home of Scottish rugby.  

The Scots and Japanese teams have been evenly matched in recent years, with the latter edging Scotland when the East Asian nation staged the Rugby World Cup in 2019.  Scotland reversed the scoreline on Saturday, although by the final whistle I had already made tracks back into central Edinburgh to avoid the post-match throng.  

I always think of these kinds of international sporting events as being cultural experiences too, more so if you’re travelling to an away game of course, and it was good to see a sprinkling of Japan fans before, during and after the match.

I caught up with a pal earlier in the week who studied Japanese at Kobe University, in the city of Kobe, situated in the Hyōgo Prefecture in the south of Japan.  Murdo Maclean, a client investment manager at investment management firm Walter Scott, explained how culture and sports are intertwined in Japanese culture perhaps as much as anywhere else on the planet.

In Maclean’s view, “As island nations, neither countries are particularly used to dominating world sport. Nonetheless, both have a long and rich history, at points punching well above their weight on the international stage. Perhaps because both draw upon a relatively small domestic pool of talent, in turn they must develop their own particular brand of play.  Both play the role of underdogs well, with a style typified by bags of spirIt and passion that always seems to draw in the neutral.” 

Murdo also reminded me about Thomas Blake Glover, a Scottish merchant from Fraserburgh, immortalised as the ‘Scottish Samurai’ in the book by Alexander McKay.  Surely, biographies of business figures through the centuries don’t get much better than Glover’s. 

One of the very first westerners to establish a business in Japan, more impressive is the widely held belief of Glover being one of the very founding fathers of modern Japan itself.  

In 1859, at the tender age of twenty-one, he helped establish Jardine, Matheson & Co in Nagasaki, going on to set up his own trading company two years later.  The 1860s were prolific for Glover, trading ships and arms to clans across Japan, introducing the country’s first steam locomotive, the Iron Duke, in 1865, and then commissioning one of the first modern warships to serve in the Imperial Japanese Navy.  

Glover’s list of firsts go on - coal mines and dry docks included, while ingratiating himself with the clans that toppled the incumbent regime in Japan.  All great entrepreneurs fail at some point, the low point for Glover being his bankruptcy in 1870.  

But by God, this is Thomas Blake Glover from Fraserburgh we are talking about, and the determined young man was back with a punch, founding the shipbuilding company that became the Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan, and co-founding what is now the Kirin Brewery Company - if ever a guy deserved a cold beer after a long day in the office…

Presumably though, it was a few glasses of sake that were raised when Glover became the first non-Japanese recipient of the Order of the Rising Sun in 1908. 

An edited version of this blog ran in The Scotsman on Saturday 27th January 2021

'If you build it, they will come', by Nick Freer

It was good to be back at a tech conference earlier this month, when Turing Fest rolled into the EICC following a virtual get together in 2020.     

Two Big Ears co-founder Varun Nair, whose startup was acquired by Facebook in 2016, was in the ‘not to miss’ category.  Back in Edinburgh after leaving his role as head of augmented reality/virtual reality in the audio software team at the social media giant’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, Nair, who wrote for this column a few weeks ago (“An overnight success is always years in the making”), is now working on a new venture while advising a number of other startups in the city.  

Having known Varun for years, and being aware of his humble disposition, it didn’t surprise me that he didn’t mention his alma mater, Facebook, or Meta going by its new brand iteration, once during his talk to conference. If the Silicon Valley experience has changed Varun, it’s not apparent when you talk to him.  If anything, he might just be wearing slightly more expensive shirts than when I first met him back in 2014. 

In his keynote address, titled “Move Fast and Ship Things”, the former Facebooker stressed that when you’re developing software, “every moment counts”.   Measurement of success in developing code can be imperfect, said Nair, “metrics can hide the truth, the real metric is the time it takes to ship code and validate it”.  What kills startups?  According to Varun, it comes down to a lack of focus and an inability to ship code and make an impact.

A big crowd, certainly the biggest crowd I’ve been in for I don’t know let’s say the last eighteen months, assembled for the closing session - with Turing CEO Brian Corcoran interviewing Chris McCann, CEO and co-founder of Current Health, the health tech company acquired by US consumer electronics retailer Best Buy in October*.  Corcoran and McCann’s ‘fireside chat’ outlined how the pandemic had highlighted the importance of Current Health’s technology, which allows healthcare operators like hospitals to monitor patients at home.  

McCann recounted how Current Health’s headcount had grown five-fold since 2020, how the Covid crisis “reinvented healthcare overnight”, and how investors “don’t just believe what you are today, they believe in where you are going”.  McCann also stressed the importance of the co-founder relationship.  “It’s not just about the work, it’s about sharing the emotional ups and downs”, he said.  

Later at the bar, I reminded Chris that we had handled his original seed round investment announcement back in 2016, before the company had rebranded to Current Health and was called snap40.  At the time, the £2 million round was the largest ever seed investment into a Scottish startup.

Fast forward five years, and this week we handled the press announcement of the $21 million seed investment round into BetDEX, a soon-to-be-launched decentralised sports betting exchange that runs on blockchain technology where bets and trades are made using cryptocurrency.  

Perhaps more important than it being the largest ever seed round investment into a UK startup, is co-founder Nigel Eccles’ view that Scotland has access to world-class talent and that our ecosystem can make a name for itself in Web 3.0, the next stage of evolution on the internet.  

• On 23rd November ‘21, Best Buy disclosed that its all-cash acquisition of Current Health totalled $400 million, representing Europe’s second-largest digital health exit to date.

An edited version of this blog ran as on op-ed in The Scotsman on Saturday 27th November 2021

The incredible power of network for startups, by Hassan Khajeh-Hosseini, Co-Founder and CEO, Infracost

In the startup world, your network will not only help you in times of stress, but if done right will act as a catalyst to your company's success. This is one of the reasons why Y-Combinator, a venture capital firm who has helped launch the likes of Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe and Reddit has become the world’s most successful startup accelerator. A few months ago, I saw how the network works firsthand.

After selling our second startup in 2019, I and my co-founders Ali Khajeh-Hosseini and Alistair Scott took some time off and started traveling. It didn't take too long before we started brainstorming about what to build next. In January 2020 we launched our third company: CircuitOps. It was aimed at helping software companies hire for a specific technical role. In March 2020 as Covid-19 really hit, all budgets were frozen and a lot of people were laid off. Our startup was dead.

We went back to brainstorming. While we did that, Alistair took parts of the code we had written for CircuitOps and opened it up for the world to see and use. It didn't take long before a community of people found the code and started using it, requesting new features and sharing it. The network effect was very powerful.

Our network of users gave us great feedback and insight on the problem space which ultimately encouraged us to apply for Y Combinator (YC). We were accepted into the W21 batch along with 350 other startups from 41 nations. We are one of the first Scottish companies YC has funded. As we would come to learn in the first week, the majority of learnings from YC are public and free, however the network that we would be dropped into is one of the massive value adds that is reserved for YC funded companies.

We were connected with 20 other startups from the W21 batch and could immediately see how helpful the network is. Learning together about how to create a great sustainable business, we would help each other by sharing knowledge about sales, contracts, compensation packages and anything else that was in our path. It is incredibly useful to have a group of companies openly sharing their experiences and insights. For example, imagine the first time you negotiated a raise and knew how everyone else successfully negotiated theirs. A lot of the companies in our batch even became customers of each other's products.

Two months after the batch had finished I read a blog from a publicly listed YC company and thought they could benefit from our product. I emailed the founders. Incredibly, within a few hours they were connecting me to the person responsible for the area of work we are in. This is the power of a strong network.

Our success is tied to the support of the network, and if we had more strong networks like this in Scotland, we would have more successful startups.  A network of founders willing to share stories, learnings and connections.  An example of where this is starting to work is in CodeBase in Edinburgh, and I can’t wait to contribute more. 

This blog ran as an op-ed in The Scotsman on Saturday 13th November 2021

The post-pandemic office, guest post by Alexandra Derbyshire of HK Surveying & Design

If the coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything about our working lives, it is that businesses need to be agile. The pandemic has caused a wave of uncertainty to crash over the business world, and a lack of preparation meant that many organisations were left swimming against the tide. Rather than desperately clinging to a life raft of temporary fixes, we can now use the lessons learned from this past year to create a robust and proactive strategy for keeping our businesses afloat, even in unprecedented times.

Despite the unpreparedness of businesses, homeworking became an effective and accepted way of working. Through observation and data, we can see that most workers remained productive and that many actually found it preferable, thus changing how we interact with the workplace, and what we expect going forward, as both employees and employers. 

While tangible perks like free breakfasts and Friday takeaways have their benefits in luring staff  back into the office, employees are now more concerned with the workplace environment as a holistic experience. In today’s candidate-driven market, choice is abundant for workers, and so employers are raising the stakes in order to recruit and retain the best talent. For many, this has taken the form of hybrid working.

The mundane but dependable regularity of the so-called Taylorist office model collapsed with the pandemic, leaving behind a fragmented working day based on a rigid and now largely irrelevant structure, centred within an abandoned office. The problem arises when staff, now accustomed to homeworking, return to an office that is more of a relic than a functional workspace. 

Building on observational data and that regarding employee satisfaction, hybrid working is now the norm and the general preference of employees. Free address or activity-based working, for instance, can be highly effective in boosting productivity and wellbeing outcomes at both personal and organisational levels, but this requires a very different office landscape to the one that we are used to. 

Replacing traditional desk layouts with free-flowing, open space allows for a nomadic vibe, encouraging spontaneous, collaborative and creative conversation, where the sharing of ideas is not limited by tightly scheduled Zoom calls or the worry of whether it’s important enough to justify bothering a co-worker with a phone call or email. 

With this comes the reinforcement and fostering of one of the most valuable and attractive aspects of the office: the social. Catering for hybrid working in turn creates the social opportunities crucial to the cohesion, wellbeing and success of an organisation. Soft furnishings, private call pods and biophilic design extend the home comforts that we have grown accustomed to.  It can provide an inviting and tranquil space away from the chaos that can be associated with homeworking.

The pandemic has emphasised that the socialisation and creative collaboration that the office provides is irreplaceable. So we see the keys to a successful and enjoyable workplace as being functional, sociable and adaptable, each aspect is vital to welcoming staff back to the office. Utilising intuitive, human-centric design means that the space can be flexed to suit the changing requirements of the organisation and its staff, resulting in a proactive strategy and adaptable environment that can withstand any future Covid-19 aftershocks.

This blog ran as an opinion piece in The Scotsman on Saturday 30th October 2021

Resetting our climate course, by Melinda Matthews-Clarkson, CEO, CodeClan

On one hand, the task seems too great, environmental commentators paint bleak pictures of a world that is already on its knees from carbon emissions that are not slowing at nearly the pace that is required to stop the rot.  On the other hand, we know technology can be one of the main drivers of recovery. to leverage creativity, engineering and complex problem solving to reset our climate course.   

At the very foundation of technology as an enabler of real and lasting change, we first need to have more clarity over the state of play, which can often be murky and opaque.  If companies are more transparent with their data, individuals can make more informed decisions, and can better understand how our decisions affect the environment.  We need to know more about the products we consume, how they were produced and how they will be disposed of. 

Digital technology provides a means to communicate this data - think, for example, of QR codes which can provide information without the need for printed packaging, revealing where goods were produced and how they arrived at your local store or front door.  Digital technology also makes it easier for companies to gather this data, while making them more efficient and their operations more environmentally friendly.  

Climate tech itself covers the sectors and companies within that are developing solutions aimed at decarbonising the global economy and reaching net zero emissions by 2050.  These activities span energy, the built environment, engineering, infrastructure, retail, manufacturing, agriculture, food production, supply chains, travel, and many more facets of the economy.   

In Scotland, we have a number of companies that provide a shining example of climate tech at its best.  At CodeClan, we get to partner with many of the up-and-coming net zero companies that are looking to change the direction of our climate, health, planet and oceans.    AFS Logistics is working to make our supply chains more resilient, Metix Medical and Lumera Health are looking to make the health experience better for our communities and citizens, while Bluebox Aviation Systems and Criton are challenging the status quo on paper usage and digitally transforming their sectors.  

Edinburgh-based Topolytics uses data analytics to help organisations like SAP and Defra monitor and track the movement of waste in real-time.  Intelligent Growth Solutions is showing the way when it comes to the future of food, with vertical growth towers that are robotically managed, can be operated remotely, and dramatically reduce carbon footprint.  Another Edinburgh startup, Space Intelligence, is working with NatureScot (Scotland’s nature agency) to expose ways of using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to tackle the climate emergency. 

A McKinsey & Company report last month found that around two-thirds of senior company executives believe economic recovery efforts should prioritise climate change - so we know the will is there.  

We have the technology, we have the people, and we need governments to support the ideas.  Innovation is the intersection of people with purpose, and passion for a problem to solve.  We can do this, we must do this, we have to leverage the resources we have to make tomorrow a place for our grandkids.  

An edited version of this blog ran as an op-ed in The Scotsman

Knowledge democratisation, by Shaun Millican, Head of Technology sector and Business Advisory partner, Johnston Carmichael

A quick internet search for “knowledge democratisation” will come up with a plethora of articles and quotes concerning the benefits of knowledge sharing – knowledge equals knowledge squared, knowledge is power, knowledge sharing is power squared, etc.

In our own business, the effective sharing of knowledge is central to what we do. Knowledge comes in many forms and encompasses technical skills across the many disciplines in which we advise - including digital skills, soft skills, and experience, which are all essential to developing as a professional adviser. Internally, we share knowledge and insight to help our professional development, leverage our skills, and deliver better outcomes for clients.

Our education system is of course all about knowledge sharing and the Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented challenges in a sector which was already under strain.  The issues are of course varied and complex, but with a shortage of teachers, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, perhaps we need to think differently about how we deliver the curriculum. 

There is a clear shortage of digital skills in Scotland and the only long-term solution is the education and upskilling of our young people. Attracting STEM graduates into the teaching profession will remain challenging when there is a wealth of potentially more lucrative opportunities and we need to recognise that and use technology so that all schools have an ability to teach effectively, irrespective of whether they have a specialist in that subject. Digital Skills Scotland, set up to bridge the digital skills gap in this country, is an excellent example of using remote learning to improve employability prospects and address a shortage of digital skills. 

Digital is now all pervasive across the business spectrum and in the world we live in; it is not simply the preserve of companies in the technology sector. We need everyone to have the opportunity to learn in this area and making knowledge available across our education system is critical to that.

The same principles should of course continue to apply beyond education. The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the recommendations of the Logan Report, and the formation of so-called “tech scalers” across Scotland is one of the foremost recommendations. It is anticipated that these tech scalers will be centres of excellence, providing best-in-class knowledge and insight to founders with the aim of supercharging the ecosystem. 

However, we also need to recognise that tech entrepreneurship will continue to thrive outside of the tech scalers and there are already excellent programmes delivered across Scotland with obvious examples being Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc, CivTech, Opportunity North East, BioCity, EMEC, HIE Northern Innovation Hub as well as university campuses across the country. 

Some companies participating in these programmes will have the opportunity to participate in a tech scaler, but for whoever is successful in tendering to deliver these programmes, it would be nice to see an initiative which allows the information and insight to be shared across the wider ecosystem, to ensure knowledge parity for all.

An edited version of this blog ran as an op-ed in The Scotsman

New economy, by Nick Freer

In a ten-year stint with one of Europe’s top corporate communications firms in London - Maitland, which is now part of the international network AMO - our client roster numbered pre-IPO and stock market-listed companies, global brands and, latterly, around the time of the much chronicled dot-com period in the late 1990s, technology startups.  

While Macdonald Hotels and Morrison Construction were among my own Scotland-headquartered clients, I was also a member of small teams of consultants who advised organisations like Deloitte, NatWest, Sainsbury’s, the BBC, Westfield, private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice, the National Exhibition Centre, and a financial technology venture that was acquired by media giant Reuters before the dot-com bubble burst.  

Now a decade on from founding my own PR agency based in Edinburgh, the similarity in the business sectors we advise is quite striking.  Somewhat crudely, you could describe the client base as ‘old economy’ and ‘new economy’ - so a legal firm or bank being in the former category, and a software company in the latter.  

In 2011, revered American venture capitalist Marc Andreessen penned his now famous “Why Software is Eating the World” op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.  Fast forward ten years, and the lines are blurred between what is an old or new economy business - we now have online banks, technology platforms allow goods to be delivered to our front door, and smart devices mean manual tasks can be controlled by a mobile app on our phones. 

Smart devices are front and centre for one of our newer clients, Filament STAC, or Smart Things Accelerator Centre, that recently launched from a base in Glasgow.  The pioneering industry-government partnership is aimed at producing Scottish Internet of Things (IoT) companies capable of scaling and competing on a global level, with a 3-year target to create more than 25 IoT companies supporting around 750 jobs, reporting revenue in the region of £750 million, and cohort companies raising investment in excess of £100 million. 

A couple of weekends ago when we did a client photo shoot at Heart of Midlothian FC , with Hearts’ Innovation Centre running one of the digital skills for young people initiatives supported by Digital Xtra Fund.  

Dragging our daughter along for the photo shoot, we were shown around the ground and kindly offered tickets to the game later that day.  Given our daughter had plans that afternoon, I did a quick offspring swap back at the house so our football-mad 7-year old son could watch his first ever live game.  In the taxi back to Tynecastle, I explained to the boy that you don’t always get goals at football matches so not to expect too much.  

When Hearts scored in the first five minutes, then added a second after twenty, my son simply looked up at me and shook his head.  Fair play.  

An edited version of this blog ran as an op-ed in The Scotsman

Shaken, not stirred by Nick Freer

After eighteen months of the pandemic, I tested positive for Covid last week.  While the medics in my family tell me it was something of an inevitability and I’ll now build strong antibodies, it was still a shock to the system after all this time.  As a bordering obsessive-compulsive disorder candidate at the best of times, evidenced by the fact that I carried hand gel around pre-pandemic, I’ve been a relative hermit the last year-and-a-half, while playing things by the book when it comes to ever-changing guidelines.  

My symptoms were pretty rough given I’ve been double-vaccinated, and definitely knocked me sideways for a few days.  I lost my sense of taste and smell too, which I can attest to being a weird one, and I noticed another somewhat less common symptom which was a general feeling of being a bit sorry for myself.  

 A lot of emails and messages these days are prefaced with “hope you are well”, and I decided to be quite up front in most of my replies -  “well, actually, I’ve got Covid but otherwise doing okay” etc.  I got some nice emails back from clients and contacts, asking how the family and I were faring. 

The upside to the whole episode, if there is such a thing, has been a series of small acts of kindness from friends and neighbours since they found out we had returned a few positives (our two kids tested positive at the same time as me, with my wife a few days behind us) - our French friend Letitia dropped pastries at the door one morning, my wife’s Swedish pal Hanna brought a box of craft activities round for the children, our German friends Leah and Ingo posted us a designer candle from Hamburg, and my buddy Raj left a bottle of Malbec at the front door after I had joked by group text that our wine stocks were running low as we self-isolated.  

I was curious to look into the figures on Covid now that I had the bloody thing and, according to John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, generally considered to be one of the top sources of data on Covid-19, as of mid-September over 225 million people have contracted the virus worldwide.  And, in the UK context, I’m one of over 7 million registered cases.  Not wanting to feel like a statistic, I decided that was enough number-crunching and went to make a cup of tea. 

One much less disconcerting data-related story I came across last week was about an Edinburgh-based data scientist who compiled a study of how far James Bond has travelled in each 007 movie, timely with the latest Bond instalment No Time to Die about to hit the big screen.  Richard Carter, a data scientist with Amazon in Scotland’s capital, worked out that Daniel Craig has already surpassed Roger Moore (Moore’s trip to space in Moonraker is excluded) by 739 miles with a grand total 71,064 miles travelled.  

Right, I’m off for one of the vitamin-packed smoothies a nutritionist recommended for post-viral recovery - shaken, not stirred. 

This blog ran as an op-ed in The Scotsman on Saturday 18th September 2021

The rise of impact investing, guest post by Alastair Davis, CEO of Social Investment Scotland and co-founder of SIS Ventures

When SIS Ventures launched just a few years ago, impact investment as a category was still very much on the fringes - an emerging asset class still not on the radars of many investors. Fast forward to 2021, the market has reached roughly $715 billion in assets under management, according to the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). In short, impact investment has finally hit the mainstream, underpinned by several major economic shifts. 

First, we know that issues such as climate change, racial injustice, poverty, and support for under-represented groups have been posing problems for governments for many years. We also know that there is a huge funding gap in meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. However, arguably the biggest trigger for the growth of impact in business has been the global COVID-19 pandemic which has shone a light on the need for business to play a bigger role in helping to address society’s biggest challenges.

Cue the rise of business with a mission and/or purpose. While shareholder capitalism has enabled much progress for the way we tackle some of these issues, it has at the same time struggled to address many of other challenges – primarily due to the demands of meeting immediate shareholder expectations for returns. 

Yet when companies fully leverage their scale to create a positive impact on society or the environment, the benefit can be significant. The pandemic has been a case in point. Many businesses have risen to the challenge at a time when society has been most in need, whether through industry collaboration to accelerate vaccination development and production, or through businesses pivoting to supply hand sanitiser and PPE to meet unprecedented demand.  

Operating within this new economic reality, SIS Ventures now has an opportunity to take a leading role in both supporting innovative mission-driven business ideas and attracting the capital to be able to make a real difference. 

To date, we have invested in a portfolio of eight businesses, all focused on making a significant social or environment impact. One of these businesses is Trojan Energy, established with the aim of ensuring everyone benefits from the energy transition. With a strong focus on enabling the uptake of renewable energy, Trojan Energy developed the Trojan EV Charging System. This system deploys a lance technology that can be removed when not in use, benefiting vehicle owners without driveways, pedestrians and councils. Its technology has the potential to have a major impact on meeting carbon reduction targets, by accelerating the roll-out of infrastructure which will enable greater use of electric vehicles. 

As we look ahead to COP26 later this year, ensuring that we support innovators such as Trojan Energy is absolutely crucial if we are to meet ambitious goals for net zero and sustainability.

That’s why SIS Ventures is also involved in a project helping to fund some of the great business-led social solutions emerging from higher education. As the fund manager of Impact 12, SIS Ventures is working with twelve universities from across the UK to accelerate the development and success of impact-led social ventures spun out of universities. It will support social ventures with innovative finance tailored to their needs, including equity investment and debt. The fund will also provide access to timely and expert mission-aligned finance and impact support.

While we all continue to grapple with the bigger issues facing our societies and economies, we should be confident and optimistic that the emerging wave of mission-driven businesses can play a huge role in making the world a better place in which to live, work and play. As impact investors, it is our duty to ensure that there’s an amply supply of financing to support their ambitions. With supply and demand working in concert, we’ll be seeing and hearing a lot more about mission-led business in years to come.  

This blog ran as an opinion piece in The Scotsman on Saturday 28th August 2021

From big bank to tech startup, guest post by Stellar Omada CFO Zoe Lee

The month of May marked my one year anniversary at Stellar Omada, a year like no other in so many ways.  In joining a fast-growing technology startup from a large bank, I knew I was taking something of a leap, but then again I’ve always believed in grabbing opportunities when they come along. 

After studying to become a chartered accountant, roles with RBS, Aegon and Sainsbury’s Bank set me on a definite path in financial services and banking.  Thinking back, Sainsbury’s Bank was the place where I felt my career and personal development really took off and this was all down to the opportunities that were presented to me during that time.  I was delighted to be selected for the bank’s ‘Stepping into Leadership’ programme and I also owe a lot to the fantastic managers and mentors I had during that period.  They gave me the confidence to bring my own style to the job, pushed me to try new roles and embrace any challenges that came my way.

Whilst my financial services experience underpins being the chief financial officer (CFO) of Stellar Omada, because we’re a startup there are so many other tasks that I have the opportunity to get involved in - from marketing and PR, legals, client-facing meetings and the development of our people.  At a startup, it really is all hands to the pump and the fifteen months I’ve spent here has undoubtedly been the steepest learning curve of my career.  

People development is integral to everything we do at Stellar Omada and that comes from the top in the form of our founder and managing director Colin Frame.  We’re passionate about developing young talent and, for me, it’s about giving back and supporting others in the way that I’ve been supported throughout my career.  Our people truly are our business, so their wellbeing and development is always at the top of our agenda.  

We want to build one of Scotland’s most successful technology firms, headquartered here in Edinburgh and we’re on course to hit £100 million revenue in the next five years - so, of course, the financials are important too!  

Since joining Stellar Omada I’ve developed a strong passion for raising awareness of Women in Technology.  What I’ve quickly realised is that a career in technology can take many different directions – you don’t have to be a developer or coder to be in the tech world, there are lots of other great less tech-focused roles too.  For women considering a career in tech, I would say not to be intimidated by the subject matter or the gender gap, be confident in your core skill set and the value you can add, and remember you don’t always have to be technically-minded, the key thing is to be willing and open to learning.  

A career in technology and the move to a startup wasn’t something that I had in my career plan, however I can thoroughly recommend it.  The move for me has been the best change in my career so far, and underscored my belief in being brave and jumping into new and exciting opportunities. 

An edited version of this blog ran in The Scotsman on Saturday 21st August 2021

Scotland ideally placed to reinvent the future of work, guest post by Gib Bulloch, author of The Intrapreneur: Confessions of a corporate insurgent and Founder of the Craigberoch Business Decelerator

For much of my adult life, the Scottish and British economies have been heavily dependent on North Sea oil. For the next half century, it needs to be something different. 

Thankfully, huge investment is being focused on renewables to wean the UK off its dependency on hydrocarbons. Wind, wave and tidal energy are likely to play a bigger role than solar. But there may be another source of renewable energy that Scotland can tap into and turn into economic advantage. Imagine if we could channel the renewable energy of people towards tackling global challenges like climate change, by reinventing the places in which they work.

Rural Scotland has experienced changing fortunes. In particular, the Island of Bute declined from a thriving seaside town in the 1950s and 1960s to its hotels being sold and repurposed as care homes. As a result, many young people who grew up in the Bute community left the island and headed for the bright lights of cities such as London or beyond - myself included. Ironically, a similar exodus is now happening in city centres where talented individuals are moving out to improve their quality of life.

Now, I firmly believe that the pandemic may turn rural Scotland’s supposed Achilles heel of solitude and isolation into a comparative advantage. Indeed, a recent report by Visit Scotland claimed that 53% of visitors to Scotland in 2020 were motivated by a desire to “get away from it all and have a change of environment.” Clearly, employees want more than a binary choice of work in an office versus working from home.  Might they value the opportunity to sometimes work from a different home?

Change is already underway. During recent trips back home, I’ll often hear a rich variety of accents in the local bars or find myself bumping into interesting artisans, talented artists or craftspeople who have chosen Bute as their base. A vibrant and integrated Syrian refugee community adds to the diversity. No wonder Bute’s property market is booming.  

As the future of work undergoes its metamorphosis, I believe young business professionals could be the next demographic to be drawn to the tranquil, natural beauty of the west coast of Scotland. And if UK based corporates want to attract and retain their expensive talent, the onus will fall on these big businesses to create working environments in which their people can be creative and productive. Right now, employees often feel disengaged and burnt out as the hidden pandemic of mental health creates a crisis of meaning and belonging in the workplace.

Crises can present opportunities as well as threats. As Glasgow hosts the global elite at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, the Craigberoch Business Decelerator a few miles “doon the watter” on Bute is hosting a variety of business professionals from across the world. They will be enjoying a Decelerator Lab—a series of immersive workshops––or prototyping a new model of hybrid working—residencies on Bute that we term “co-being.”  Participants can keep pace with the day job while choosing from a menu of activities—ranging from meditation and yoga through to guided nature walks. 

In the debate around work-life balance, the scales could tip in rural Scotland’s favour. We may find the bright lights of London, New York or Edinburgh become slightly dimmer for the next generation of young business professionals.  

An edited version of this blog ran in The Scotsman on Saturday 14th August 2021

The difficulty is learning people-facing soft skills in a virtual world, guest post by George Mackintosh, founder of global software business Eggplant and Director of Papple Steading in East Lothian

As someone who sold video conferencing systems in 1990 and set up a conference call service in 1992, I’m well qualified to talk about the inadequacies of virtual meetings! Even back then, I’d sketched out a “hierarchy of meetings” conceding that nothing betters a face to face. On reflection, maybe I shouldn’t have sold out of that business and instead waited to scoop the pandemic opportunity! But we all have to ask the question: how would you rather interact with people in business? I’d say person-to-person – physical always trumps virtual in my book.

Our experiences since March 2020 have changed the way we work and how business is done. In part that’s good: fewer commuter miles, less emissions, greater productivity, and improved wellbeing. But what’s being lost? How do you build team cohesiveness, brainstorm, agree strategy, solve problems and negotiate shared goals?

Our corporate big shots are having a tough time coming to terms with this virtual world. While some seem to be having an identity crisis – “this business is running without the power of my personal charisma” – others are deeply worried about productivity and togetherness. But woe betide the boss who tells ‘em to get back in the office 5 days a week - just think of the former head of KPMG. Given recent press reports, perhaps different though if you head-up masters of the universe Wall Street Firm, Goldman Sachs. For most post-Brexit managers, a certain delicate touch is required when handling precious and scarce human resources. So how do you (metaphorically) bang heads together?

Well, not in the office. Think about it. You’re in a team of 10 and you agree to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Others will work Thursday and Friday. Hey, they can't all come in now because we’ve downsized our office accommodation. So, no chats over the water cooler and no sitting by Nellie. Remember that old British colloquial phrase? Yes, learning the job by observing how an experienced worker does it. We’re not talking about blue collar industries. They have to go to a real workplace. We’re talking about the white collar lot: accountants, salespeople, HR managers. How will they learn their soft people-facing skills? I know many business chiefs are worried about this. IBM was a great promoter of home working as they slashed back on regional offices. A decade of declining revenues and a lower share price proves that hasn’t worked out well as was hoped.

One possible solution? Spend more time on taking time to go off-site. Plan team meetings, executive summits, off-site partner meetings. And how can this be budgeted, if money was the only factor in making this decision? Easy: businesses will be spending less on office space and they’ve succeeded in offloading office incidental costs to their home working employees such as photocopier ink and staples. Find a place, plan a sensibly distant date and regularly bring your teams together. Embrace the countryside. Squeeze into the 2 or 3 or 4 days the sort of things that made office life fun. That’s spending time with colleagues, sharing and solving challenges, hearing things from the horse’s mouth, doing activities and breaking bread together. Make this something the team does more than once a year. They deserve it.

Watch this space, by Nick Freer

I had the pleasure of visiting IBM’s global internet of things (IoT) headquarters in Munich in 2016, during a trip to Bavaria organised by former Scottish trade representative to Germany and Austria, David Scrimgeour.  One of IBM’s senior guys showing us around that day was a Scot, who asked me what experience I had of working with IoT companies back in Scotland.  

At that time, I was advising former University of Edinburgh light technology spin-out PureLiFi, but it was the only company that immediately came to mind on the Scottish scene.  Fast forward five years, and the global IoT market is motoring, its value set to reach over $1 trillion by 2024.  It’s important that Scotland gets a spot at the table and grabs a decent portion, rather than only the crumbs.    

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been planning for two press announcements that should help stamp Scotland’s ticket to the IoT big dance.  This week, Glasgow-headquartered R3-IoT secured a £3.1 million investment led by New York-based venture capital firm Space Capital, which invested alongside Scottish National Investment Bank.  One small step for Scotland’s already fast-growing space sector, one giant leap for Allan Cannon and Kevin Quillien-founded R3-IoT.   

The company’s digital platform combines satellite, cellular, IoT and data analytics to provide organisations with data services from any location - important when you consider that 90 per cent of the planet lacks traditional communications infrastructure and many industries have operations in remote or challenging environments.  

Space Capital’s managing partner Chad Anderson sees Scotland as “the perfect testbed” for R3-IoT’s technology and “huge demand” for the company’s services in global markets.  We were pleased to see great take-up of the announcement, including in the US space press, which has got to be a cool industry to cover as a journalist.  And if you were a space hack, surely you would consider having “to infinity and beyond” on your business card. 

Next week, an initiative will be announced, one we are supporting on the media front, that aims to amp up the IoT sector here and deliver globally competitive IoT companies based in Scotland.  As they say, watch this space. 

Another homegrown Scottish IoT-enabled company we have been working with recently is Dave Hughes-founded Novosound, which celebrates its third anniversary this year and is now selling its Kelpie and Belenus non-destructive testing (NDT) products, named after mythical Scots legends, to large aerospace and energy companies worldwide.  Novosound completed its latest investment round towards the end of 2019, growing its team and honing its product development since then.  

On Scotland’s tech ecosystem, and its prospects to become an IoT powerhouse, Hughes remarks:

“Emerging from the coronavirus crisis, the IoT sector is in a far better place than most others due to the impact of Covid-19. This is accelerating the demand for increased safety and efficiency from remote monitoring, which is where IoT really shines. We’ve seen around 10 years of progress in the last 18 months.” 

“As a country that prides itself on innovation and is home to top universities and innovation centres, Scotland has the necessary foundations to establish itself as an innovative global leader in the IoT space.” 

An edited version of this blog ran in The Scotsman on Saturday 31st July 2021

Highland fling, by Nick Freer

My wife and I have been holidaying in Scotland regularly since before the kids, in fact when I think back Scottish vacations have been a fixture right through the years, so I’ve not really felt like I need to describe a summer holiday here as a ‘staycation’.

Heading up to Sutherland in north-west Scotland earlier this month felt like more of a Caledonian adventure than usual though, a part of the country I haven’t travelled to for over a decade.  Since then, the North Coast 500 has become a thing and the staycation factor was in evidence with the sheer number of camper vans on the roads as we left Inverness, drove over the Black Isle and made tracks through Ross and Cromarty before arriving in Assynt.  

South of Lochinver, the majesty of Stac Pollaidh and the surrounding peaks are breathtaking, but it was the beaches of Sutherland we fell in love with most - in particular, those dotted in the coves between Scourie and Kinlochbervie.  We felt fortunate to have good weather for most of our stay, but I would still recommend a wetsuit when taking a dip in the Atlantic.     

Of course, part of getting away from it all, wherever you go on holiday, is about, well, getting away from it all.  It was something I had a chat with a client about before we left, as he is big on the importance of mental health on the entrepreneurial journey.   

My holiday moment of really getting away from it all came on a day when the the sea fog came in and obscured the coastal mountains.  I plotted a trail run from Kylescu, along Loch Gleann Dubh and into Glean Dubh, the ‘Black Glen’.  As I entered a world of lung-busting pain up a path that rose steeply from the loch, I passed a sandstone boulder the size of a small house and yearned to go further into the dark glen.  

It was then that I felt the call of the hills, but my ageing knees disagreed, so I turned to retreat and struggled back to camp.  On a rocky trail with sweat in my eyes, I couldn’t take in the scenery to any great extent, but the heather was a purple blaze to my right as the deep loch stirred on the left.  It was then that I felt a moment of what I think might have been serenity, unless of course it was simply down to a low blood sugar level.    

Later that day, over an ale at Newton Lodge above Loch Beag, I met a retired hotelier who had driven the 26 long miles (you could only guess at the amount of passing places) from his home on the tip of the peninsula “just for a pint”.  Like many of the locals we met in Sutherland, he was not a fan of the North Coast 500, mainly because of the lack of infrastructure spend invested to handle the increasing hordes.  

However, as we found out during our stay, Sutherland’s land mass alone means it’s never too hard to get away from the madding crowd. 

An edited version of this post appeared in The Scotsman on Saturday 24th July 2021

Protecting your mental health on the entrepreneurial journey, guest post by Rich Wilson, CEO and co-founder of Gigged.AI

As a child I always planned on being an entrepreneur, not sure where this goal came from. However, if you had said to me 3 years ago that I would be writing this article as a founder of an exciting tech start-up I don’t think I would have believed you.

After graduating from Bell College with a BA in Business (after much help from my mother when I was asked to leave for poor attendance) I moved to Germany to sell cars on a military airbase in 2005. This was a great experience, mainly as it made me realise that building an inclusive and supportive culture is so important especially as the focus on that team was solely to compete with your teammates at any cost. While visiting family back in Scotland I was asked to meet a recruitment company in Leith. After a 3-hour grilling, I walked away knowing that this was the company for me. I knew nothing about recruitment but had a good feeling about the people I met even though my dad seemed less impressed on the drive home with my lack of understanding of my new career.

So, in January 2007 I joined Allegis Group as a Technical Recruiter. I didn’t realise I was joining a $14b company which is the largest privately owned staffing company in the world. This turned out to be a pivotal move for me where I learnt about the contingent staffing industry working with amazing people who taught me so much. I won EMEA Recruiter of the year at the end of 2007 mainly due to my relentless work ethic on calls and meetings as this was before LinkedIn or recruiting software was prevalent. In 2008 I was promoted into my first leadership role as Allegis Group and TEKsystems grew exponentially in Europe. Over the course of 12 years I was lucky to lead some of the best recruiters and sales people learning so much about leadership and culture along the way. Our teams excelled and we won new clients and created new products. In 2014 I was given the opportunity to lead a new office from scratch in Glasgow and build a new team. This was the hardest thing I have ever done but also the most fun I had working with a driven team of people. The support of my amazing wife was pivotal to this success. 

However, in 2018 I suffered from serious burnout which derailed me. This was a result of chronic stress caused by my relentless work ethic (I even had Relentless on large letters in the office). At this stage I was physically and mentally at my lowest point and had to make serious changes. I decided to take some time out which involved learning MMA, meditation, ice baths and a life changing trip to Japan. I started writing about my mental health story and was lucky to join This Is Me Scotland to raise awareness of workplace mental health. At this stage I decided I needed to learn more skills and was lucky enough to join the skills advisory board of The Data Lab and also join Gartner. These opportunities allowed me to meet fantastic people and learn so much about more about building high performance teams, digital products and data strategies.

Over the last 15 years I have realised I am passionate about connecting people to opportunities and this is where the idea for Gigged.AI came from. Myself and my co-founder Craig had a vision during the pandemic to use Artificial Intelligence to make contingent hiring easier for companies and talent. This involved late nights and weekends during lockdown to take this from an idea in a notebook to an exciting start up. These experiences have made me realise the importance of wellness, delegation and hiring a passionate and diverse team who you trust to do great things. These traits will be at the heart of the Gigged.AI culture. It’s been a long road to being an entrepreneur but I am proud to now realise my childhood dream of starting a business from scratch!

An edited version of this post appeared in The Scotsman on Saturday 17th July 2021