Festival city relies on a wide variety of support, guest blog by Julie Hutchison, director of philanthropy and charities, LGT Wealth Management

It takes a huge base of support to make the Edinburgh Festivals happen, and as public finances continue to be squeezed, philanthropy will play an ever-more important role. We’re four years on from the becalmed summer when most things came to a sudden halt. It got me thinking about the support which underpins the creative arts; how creative work is developed, staged and presented within the context of the larger occasion of a festival, and the role of philanthropy in all phases of making work which is performed and seen by an audience.

Exactly how many summer festivals are there in Edinburgh? For some, it has become a six-week marathon of eight festivals encompassing Jazz and Blues, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Fringe, the Book, the Film, the Art and the Television Festivals as well as the Military Tattoo. Looking back, I’ve enjoyed shows across three of them, including Things We Will Miss (thought-provoking) Oedipus Rex (rawly immersive) and Club Life (simply joyous).

The summer festivals, with their focus on arts and culture, are all registered charities. Many of the shows are performed in venues which are themselves charities.  Some of the larger theatre companies and music ensembles giving those performances are also charities. When you reflect on it, you can be watching a charity perform in a charitable venue as part of a charitable festival. It’s a fragile eco-system which receives an element of government and council funding, and which relies hugely on other sources of support. It’s no surprise, therefore, that the role of donors is a vital part of that picture. Patrons, benefactors, membership and friends’ schemes all contribute. Funding comes from afar too: the Scottish diaspora contribute via specific US donor programmes. Beyond this, it’s possible to take a more holistic view of philanthropy which recognises other contributions. Volunteers give their time and skills; some may also lend support with network connections and introductions. These all underpin the staging of the festivals.

It can be seen as a privilege to be able to afford to experience a renewed sense of appreciation of life enriched by the creative arts but, increasingly, free or discounted tickets and practical assistance are being made available to positively support open access.  The compelling vision of the Fringe ‘to give anyone a stage and everyone a seat’ still needs financial support to help make it a reality, however.

The Charities Aid Foundation estimates that £13.9 billion was donated to charities in the UK last year.  However, only 3% of this was for the arts. The inflation of recent times has hit hard all round, including those in the creative arts sector. For some donors, this only reinforces their determination to do what they can to ensure venues can keep the lights on and shows can still be staged.

Reminded of the Greek roots of philanthropy as ‘love of humanity’, perhaps the simplest act of philanthropy is the generosity of sharing space with others who visit during the summer weeks, in pursuit of the joy of community. For that goal alone, the Edinburgh Festivals have arguably never been more needed.

Pressing the expansion button in APAC, guest blog by Novosound CEO and Co-founder Dave Hughes

Expanding into the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, particularly South Korea, is an exciting new chapter for Novosound. As a Scottish company focused on ultrasound technology, we’ve spent years working in North American markets. Now, entering APAC brings new challenges and opportunities that align well with our expertise.

South Korea is renowned as an innovation and tech powerhouse, where many of the leading tech groups in the world are headquartered, so much so that the nation is regularly ranked at the top of global indices with innovation strategies that are much heralded worldwide, including by Silicon Valley itself. 

South Korea is a natural fit for what we’re doing at Novosound. Our Ceilidh system, designed for monitoring corrosion, aligns perfectly with the needs of South Korea’s large number of refineries and petrochemical sites. Meanwhile, our Slanj platform, which enables the integration of ultrasound sensors into consumer devices like smartwatches and smart rings for blood pressure monitoring, sparked significant interest among several APAC leaders in consumer electronics devices.

Our journey started in Songdo, viewed by commentators as the world’s first truly smart city. Songdo is a great example of South Korea’s commitment to technology and innovation. As a smart city, it is filled with all kinds of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors enabling efficient traffic and waste management systems, set against a large amount of public modern art, making it a unique blend of tech and culture. Staying in Songdo set the stage for our visit and showed us how integrated technology can be part of everyday life.

What struck us most was how open South Korean businesses are to working with international companies. This eagerness reminded us of North America, where there’s a similar enthusiasm for innovation. The mix of Scottish ingenuity and South Korean willingness to collaborate creates a strong foundation for impactful partnerships.

Business in South Korea moves at a fast pace. Conversations are direct and efficient—if something isn’t a fit, they’ll tell you right away, which helps everyone move forward quickly. This approach suits us well, as it allows us to focus on meaningful projects and collaborations.

A big part of our success in South Korea was thanks to a local business consultancy. They helped us navigate the language barrier, set up meetings, and understand the local business culture. Their guidance, especially in social settings, was invaluable and helped us build strong relationships from the start.

A highlight of our trip were the many nights out enjoying Soju and Korean BBQ with some of our new business partners. It was a great way to connect on a personal level, share stories, and build trust—key ingredients for successful business relationships.

For Novosound, expanding into the APAC region isn’t just about growing our market—it’s about building lasting partnerships that connect different cultures and meet the needs of South Korean businesses. And with ongoing initiatives like Horizon Europe, which aims to foster international collaboration in research and innovation, we see even more potential for cross-border partnerships.

As we continue our journey in South Korea and the broader APAC region, we’re eager to see where these new opportunities take us. The relationships we are building have a lot of potential, and we’re looking forward to contributing to this vibrant and evolving market. This is just the start of what we hope will be a long and successful journey in the region.

Has Edinburgh's Princes Street finally turned a corner, by Jeremy Grant

Take a walk down Princes Street in Edinburgh – as tourists and locals are doing this weekend – and pretty soon you will be asking: what has happened to this place? 

At one end there is the Victorian splendour of Jenners, the former department store once dubbed “The Harrods of the North”, closed since 2021. A few blocks west we find a graffiti-strewn “American Candy” store, and the bargain-basement offerings of “Pound & Beyond”.

Other than London’s Oxford Street, there can be few thoroughfares in Britain where the fortunes of the high street are more starkly on display. But there is an added poignancy to Princes Street. It is an allegory of Scottish architectural decline, written in retail.

And yet, could this collection of 43 buildings along a strip that began in the late 18th century as a row of terraced houses for Edinburgh’s wealthy, finally be turning a corner? 

There are encouraging signs. In 2021, drinks group Diageo opened The Johnnie Walker Experience at an art deco former department store on the street’s western tip. In April this year, Japanese apparel retailer Uniqlo opened its first store in Scotland a few doors down from Jenners, signalling “an opportunity to bring life back to this iconic shopping street”.

Yet the future will not involve a full retail revival. “That ship has sailed for Princes Street,” says Murray Strang, Scotland managing partner at real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield (C&W). 

Blame a double-whammy of pandemic hollowing out and a shift by big brands to the St James Quarter shopping centre and Multrees Walk, a high-end retail cluster where Gucci will soon open its first store outside London. 

Instead, Princes Street looks set to be defined by what real estate jargon calls “mixed use”, involving hotels, restaurants, bars, offices and “destination” shops - such as Uniqlo and the big Apple store opposite the Balmoral Hotel. 

There are signs of investor confidence in this proposition, if the handful of hotel developments underway is anything to go by. Take “100 Princes Street”, a 30-room boutique hotel that opened four months ago in the former Royal Overseas League building, dating from 1879. It’s part of the Red Carnation collection started by the late South African hotelier Stanley Tollman. A double room with a view of Edinburgh Castle starts at £725 per night. 

C&W notes that Edinburgh’s hotel sector outperformed the UK national average in terms of revenue growth, rising by 22 per cent in the first quarter, compared with the same quarter a year earlier. 

The big driver is tourism. Two thirds of visitors to Edinburgh are from abroad, and the numbers are growing. Edinburgh Airport has seen a 110 per cent rise in international arrivals since 2019.  The turning point for Princes Street will probably have to wait for the re-opening of Jenners, owned since 2017 by Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen. The nine-storey building, dating from 1895, is to be transformed into a 100-room hotel, restaurant, bar and 7,000 square metres of retail space.  

“People’s perceptions of Princes Street need to change,” says Roddy Smith, head of Essential Edinburgh, a membership organisation of city centre businesses, “because it will never go back to the way it used to be.” 

Feelings run high in Aberdeen as energy transitions focuses minds, by Jeremy Grant

For a sense of how Scotland’s energy industry feels about policy emerging from the Labour government, the mood in Aberdeen is a good place to start.

Two announcements last week reveal existential tension in the Granite City as it charts the best path between the beginning of the end of fossil fuels and the growth of green energy. At stake, of course, is preserving livelihoods for people in the Northeast – managing a “just transition”.

First, the Treasury said that a “windfall tax” on oil and gas companies’ profits in the North Sea – known as the Energy Profits Levy and in place since 2022 – would not only be raised and extended by a year to 2030, but also that a key element of what the government described as “unjustifiably generous investment allowances” would be abolished.

This triggered a furious reaction from the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce (A&GCC), whose chief executive, Russell Borthwick, slammed the move as “reckless, wrong and economically ruinous for businesses operating in the North Sea”. 

The A&GCC is not alone in making the case that reducing incentives for continued oil and gas exploration will make it more likely that the region faces a cliff-edge of job losses as energy groups scale back or cease operations early. Consultants Wood Mackenzie warn that the EPL changes “could result in the premature slowdown of investment across the upstream sector which could lead to accelerated cessation of production”. 

By contrast, two days later the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero handed a boost to the offshore wind industry by doubling the budget for the annual auction that provides developers with initial subsidies to build clean energy projects.

Claire Mack, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, many of whose members are in Aberdeen, said the bigger budget “sends a positive signal to industry that the UK government is serious about achieving its clean power mission”. 

Aberdeen has long been known as the oil capital of Europe. Yet the growth of green industries there means it has justified ambitions to be the “net zero” capital of Europe too. That is why the AGCC has been campaigning for Aberdeen to be the location for the headquarters of Great British Energy, a new publicly owned company that will use £8.3bn in public funds to invest with the private sector in clean energy projects, including floating offshore wind farms in the ScotWind project off Aberdeenshire.

Politics aside, Aberdeen has cards to play, including a new South Harbour for offshore wind assembly at the port, and a green industries cluster emerging on an adjacent 40-hectare site known as the Energy Transition Zone (ETZ).

Yet so has Edinburgh. It has a well-established financial ecosystem with links to London’s capital markets and a growing legal and advisory scene in renewables. Most of the ScotWind projects’ operational headquarters are in the city. 

The Aberdeen campaign has not always struck the right tone, with the A&GCC recently warning Labour that locating GB Energy elsewhere “will just confirm that our new government is happy to throw our region onto the scrapheap to support areas that chose to vote them in to power”. Let’s see if this wins hearts and minds in London.

Sport and business are fired by the drive to succeed, guest blog by Legado Founder and CEO Josif Grace

Like everyone else, I’ve found myself glued to the TV watching some of the incredible sports this summer has had to offer. Alcaraz winning Wimbledon for the second successive year, a decisive Spanish victory in the Euro’s, Hamilton clinching his ninth Silverstone F1 win, Ireland claiming victory over South Africa in the rugby, and Bob McIntyre’s win at the Scottish Open. 

When we see these accomplishments it’s easy to take them at face value, but the level of grit, determination, adaptability, and teamwork needed to deliver these results cannot be underestimated. 

When I look at the work that underpinned the continued progress of Legado into one of Scotland’s fastest growing technology companies, I gain an ever-greater level of appreciation for what these top-level athletes give in order to compete. There are a lot of parallels between the relentless path to competing at the highest level of sports, and growing a small business into a scaling technology company.

The past six years have seen our team navigate innumerable challenges as we’ve gone from an initial idea that sparked during my time in Silicon Valley, to powering the interactions between some of the UK’s largest institutions and their millions of customers. That said, with global ambitions, even these achievements mean that we’re only just getting through the group stages right now (maybe next time for Scotland’s football team).

When I look back at those challenges, I wonder how Lewis Hamilton must feel as he’s racing around Silverstone. Anything can go wrong, at any moment, from any direction, and you won’t know what it is until it happens.  Rationalising our experience, I think how lucky we are to have such a talent-dense, diverse, and passionate team to navigate those challenges. It would be a mistake to think that Scotland doesn’t have the human capital to build world-class companies. I work with these people every day.

You see that talent manifest in how we've spent the last couple of years evolving our proposition, originally envisioned as a ‘digital vault’ for life planning back when I was working in Silicon Valley. Through new features, and the introduction of an interactive hub, we now help businesses to digitally optimise interactions and communications with customers in a truly modern and intuitive way.

It’s taken a lot of hard work to go through that evolution, but we’re fortunate to now get to lift some trophies as a result, with UK and global corporates making use of our tech. Continuously cheering us on from the stands have been major financial institutions and investors like FNZ and Souter Investments. Their support and strategic insights have been instrumental in enabling us to scale our operations and bring our product to market with some of the biggest financial services brands in the UK. That kind of hands-on investment and guidance is something that Scotland needs more of.

I’m excited about the future and the opportunities it holds for Scotland’s tech ecosystem, in which we are a constituent. We’ve got several more big brand names set to join our roster later this year, and a team that is constantly expanding with new talent, new perspectives, and new innovations. In the meantime, I’ll be cheering on Team GB in Paris, full of appreciation for their relentless pursuit.

New wave of investment in Scotland's wind sector is needed, by Jeremy Grant

After only a week with their hands on the levers of government, Labour has been moving at a “move fast and break things” kind of pace on energy policy.

We’ve seen the establishment of a £7.3 billion National Wealth Fund (NWF) to support clean energy investments, reversal of a ban on onshore wind as part of a target to double this form of power generation by 2030, and plans to invest £500 million in green hydrogen.

Much of this had been in the party’s manifesto. But there have been some surprises too. Scottish climate and energy expert Chris Stark was – judging from one of his social media posts - blind-sided by being appointed to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. He heads a new unit that will bang heads together to ensure UK renewables policy is “supercharged”. Channelling Nasa vibes, it’s called “Mission Control”.

Clearly, having someone who was director of energy and climate change in the Scottish government will be helpful as work is done to accelerate grid upgrades, cut red tape and coordinate investment in port infrastructure for offshore wind. Especially in Scotland, where so much of the UK’s renewables story is playing out.

This work is urgent. As Wind Europe, an industry group for wind power, points out, five times more electricity infrastructure needs to be constructed by 2030 than in the past three decades to deliver a net zero grid. Some of this will come from ScotWind, one of the largest offshore wind projects in the world.   

Port infrastructure is key. You can’t build offshore wind farms at sea, so assembling the kit – turbine towers, blades, rotors and nacelles (which generate the electricity from the action of the rotor) must happen quayside. And this means acres of space, given that a blade can be longer than nine London double decker buses.

Ports are also where much of the supply chain manufacturing is most usefully located. Sumitomo Electric of Japan is building a £350m subsea cable factory at Port of Nigg at Cromarty Firth, while Vestas of Denmark is scoping Port of Leith for a turbine blade factory.

An innovative Scottish scheme called the Strategic Investment Model is busy trying to match prospective supply chain projects with ScotWind developers to kick-start more activity. Most of a list of 10 “priority” projects are port-related. Meetings between the two sides start in coming weeks to see if projects can attract the required investment commitments.

Labour has also allocated £1.8bn for port infrastructure, presumably part of the NWF’s £7.3bn. The idea is that this will “mobilise billions more in private investment” to allow more Scottish ports to accommodate the huge pipeline of offshore wind projects that’s coming.

This is where foreign direct investment (FDI) will come in. Scotland attracted more of this than anywhere in the UK outside London in 2023, according to a report by consultants EY. New projects secured increased by almost 29 per cent from the 2022 level.

Yet most of the increase came from one-off investments in ScotWind. Says Ally Scott, EY Scotland’s managing partner: “While welcoming the critical momentum Scotland has achieved in renewables FDI, we need to look beyond it to identify where the next wave of projects will come from.”

Scottish housing market: mid-year report, guest blog by John Boyle, Director of Research and Strategy, Rettie

As the housing market slips into mid-Summer and activity levels simmer down after the usually hectic Spring and early Summer phases, it seems a suitable time to take stock and assess how the market is performing. At Rettie’s, we are just writing our Summer Market Briefing, from which there are a few key takeaways.

The sales market has been resilient despite the backdrop of high mortgage rates and a stagnant economy. The latest official house price figures show a rise of 4.5% in Scotland in the year to April 2024 compared with the same period last year, and transactions are also up slightly in the most recent annual data (by 2.1%).

New listings are around 20% up year-on-year in both Edinburgh and Glasgow, which does seem to show some market confidence among sellers. Although conditions remain difficult, it is hoped that interest rate cuts from late Summer will stimulate market activity further.

The rental market has shown classic signs of a demand/supply imbalance for a couple of years, with rapidly rising rents between tenancies and falling supply (despite rising demand), principally due to political interventions. The Scottish Government’s new Housing Bill (as it stands) is doing little to encourage new investment into the sector, but it is hoped that it will go through a revision process during its passage through Parliament.

The Build to Rent (BTR) sector has essentially closed down new investment due to the uncertainty created by the politics, but there has been some positive news, with the emergence of the suburban family BTR sector in Glasgow at Casa by Moda’s scheme, Casa, Vista Park.

The new build market had a particularly difficult last couple of years due to falling demand caused by interest rate rises as well as such rises impacting on developers’ cost of finance. The inflationary environment since early 2022 has also fed through into build costs. As highlighted in the recent Homes for Scotland report on the SME housebuilding sector in Scotland, for which Rettie produced the sectoral data analysis, it is the smaller housebuilders that have been most affected by this downswing.

The public housing sector has also been significantly affected by a cut of around £200 million in its funding by the Scottish Government. Furthermore, there are concerns that the new planning framework (National Planning Framework 4) will constrain land availability for residential development. With the country and many local authority areas declaring a housing emergency, there needs to be a much more proactive government approach to getting this sector back on its feet or Scotland’s problems of a lack of available and affordable housing will worsen.

The new UK Parliament is unlikely to make much of a difference to these sectors. Housing in Scotland is devolved and within the remit of the Scottish Government, whereas market changes will probably be most affected over the rest of the year by decisions by the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee on interest rates.

Although the market remains resilient, it is still a tough one to operate in and these conditions look like being with us for the next six months at least.

Studying entrepreneurship – a comforting illusion of progress? Guest blog by Richard Lennox, scale-up executive who has held leadership roles at Skyscanner and Current Health

As business professor and author Dr Brené Brown writes in Dare to Lead, “Studying leadership is way easier than leading”.  It’s somewhat ironic that I start this piece with a quote from one of the endless supply of resources available to teach us how we should build, scale and lead a company. As a voracious reader and learner, I deeply appreciate that, when used appropriately, the acquired knowledge of the experience of others allows us to make better decisions and scale faster. This quote, however, has been getting under my skin recently.

It highlights a hard truth about our start-up and scale-up ecosystem. The ease of studying entrepreneurial success contrasts sharply with the challenges of actual execution. While the numerous learning experiences for “how to start a startup” and “how to scale” might seem inherently valuable to founders, we have to ask ourselves: Is our desire to act as educators a comforting illusion of progress rather than a catalyst for real achievement?

I do not dispute that there is a clear need to close the entrepreneurship knowledge gap left by the more traditional educational establishments in Scotland. Yet, as we are inundated with workshops, meet-ups, courses, and accelerators – how many inspire action that materially changes the trajectory of the business? Do we really know?

Building and scaling a business demands resilience, adaptability, and primarily the courage to act in the face of often overwhelming uncertainty. It is messy and unpredictable. We make decisions with incomplete information, pivot strategies to reflect market feedback, and endure significant setbacks, all of which are specific to our context. You cannot truly replicate that experience in a classroom, even those created by the deified of Silicon Valley. In my own experience of driving growth in two of Scotland’s most successful tech sector companies, success was driven by a pattern of matching problems to solutions in the critical moments and synthesising that expertise into action and delivery.

While education is valuable, it needs to better complement necessary action to unlock growth. Effective leaders will strike a balance between acquiring targeted knowledge and critically applying it. Fundamentally, both Skyscanner and Current Health were successfully built on an execution first mindset coupled with continuous learning. So, how can we better support and move towards a bias for action within our ecosystem?

One specific suggestion is maximising access to experienced operators, executives, and founders – those that have lived the journey – at the point and time of need. This goes beyond mentoring programs with prescribed approaches towards delivering direct support through experienced people with skin in the game. 

We need to better help scale-up leadership teams to discard the notion of boards and advisor panels made up of institutionalised investors; and to create cross-functional ‘mastermind groups’ that contribute at the right time. These mastermind groups would regularly support and advise but also lean into the business as needed, taking the time to go deeper into challenges presented. 

Engagements with this group are highly execution focused and accelerative for the business, while at the same time helping the leadership teams grow and learn. When you move from the start-up phase towards having product-market fit and the scaling phase of the business, this option would be inherently more valuable than the latest, best selling “How to scale” lessons.

The myth of lacking global ambition, guest blog by Paul Wilson, CEO of the Smart Things Accelerator Centre

For decades, Scotland has been a global leader in educating, developing, and exporting competitive talent, particularly in the electronics device industry. Scottish professionals have made significant contributions to renowned international brands such as IBM, Apple, Dyson, BlackBerry, and Motorola.. This success demonstrates that, given the right opportunities, Scots can rise to any challenge and build impressive international careers. So, why is there a persistent narrative around Scotland’s so-called "ambition crisis"?

After spending 11 years in Canada, I returned to Scotland with a fresh perspective. In Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, I witnessed a remarkable transformation. The region transitioned from being dominated by BlackBerry to becoming a powerhouse of startup innovation, producing numerous internationally competitive startups. Inspired by this, Gregor Aikman, Paul Winstanley and I founded STAC to replicate this success in Scotland, focusing on the “Things” sector, including wearables, sensors, advanced robots, and drones.

Starting STAC in Scotland was driven by a desire to build competitive startups similar to those in Ontario—a region recognised as a world-class tech hub and an exemplar of entrepreneurship. As I started, I was frequently asked, “Do they have more confidence?” “Do they take more risks?” “Are Canadians more ambitious?” The truth is, Canadians have similar levels of self-doubt and risk appetite. Their ambitions are fuelled by visible examples of large-scale success. The key difference is that they have created a system that fosters repeated success, and being close to such success breeds belief.

At STAC we reject the narrative of a lack of ambition, and focus instead on building a system that nurtures realisable ambition. In just over 2 years, we have made significant progress in laying the groundwork for international competitiveness. Our mentorship program delivered by industry experts provides 18 months of comprehensive support to startups, ensuring they are ready, well-rounded, and sustainable.

We mobilised an industry-led effort and a cluster of 20 corporates who support building world-class startups with their products, services, market intelligence, and valuable networks. This industry-led effort is unique in Scotland and vital to STAC’s model.

Scotland does not suffer from a lack of ambition. What we need is a robust system that continuously cultivates success, encouraging more Scots to realise their potential. At STAC, we are dedicated to building this system and demonstrating that Scotland’s entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well.

Last year we launched a talent acquisition platform and next month we will open one of Europe’s biggest co-working spaces for creators and makers of “Things”, a 250-desk capacity, fully equipped space called The Beyond in Finnieston, Glasgow. To fuel the startups with the needed capital, STAC Syndicate is launching in September this year, combining Scottish investors with international capital from Asia.

Next, we connect our startups to global markets. Last week we announced our partnership with Volvo Cars, which will unlock our innovation to benefit a world leader in sustainable and safe transportation. Volvo’s innovative and progressive mindset towards mobility matches the thinking of our real problem-solving entrepreneurs. STAC provides the support that gets our startups ready for the scale needed in such collaborations.

As Johanna Arvidsson, Director at Volvo Cars, put it in our news release: “STAC has demonstrated great potential and excellence in smart products and deep tech, enabling technologies such as AI, advanced materials, and battery-powered solutions. They are led by highly qualified industry executives who can develop innovation to scale, and this is one of the main reasons why we have chosen to invest in STAC. We are excited about the future and the collaborations with the best of the UK's innovative start-ups.”

We are on a great trajectory at STAC, unleashing innovation powered by a powerful industry cluster. There is no lack of ambition here - only an absolute focus on method and how to succeed on the global stage.

What Scotland needs is smart global capital, guest blog by Ross Hamilton, managing director of Sustainable Alpha and chair of the New York GlobalScot Advisory Board

What drives the world's leading tech ecosystems?

Exceptional university research with the potential for commercial spin-outs, well-structured incubators and accelerators, talented individuals, a culture of innovation and commercialisation, progressive policies, tax incentives, and - crucially - smart investment.

Scotland possesses most of these components in abundance, yet some integral elements are still missing.

Mark Logan’s Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review, published in 2020, outlined the steps necessary to foster a more entrepreneurial ecosystem that is supportive of innovation. A significant focus of the report was on nurturing talent by integrating STEM and business entrepreneurship into earlier stages of higher education.

Logan, now chief entrepreneurial adviser to the Scottish Government, also emphasised the critical need for increased international investment. I passionately support both of these points.

The question is how do we make this a reality and drive our ecosystem forward?

Last year, I proposed to Scottish Development International the idea of inviting global investors to Scotland to witness firsthand our dynamic sectors. Our approach was to curate sector-specific sessions that presented real investable opportunities to investors in high-potential startups across biotech and life sciences, climate and space.

We gained invaluable insights into what investors are seeking. When polled, many were interested in investing directly, yet 72% preferred channeling their investments through local funds aligned with specific sectors.

We heard comments from the investors such as 'beautiful valuations', which is investor speak for 'this is really cheap'. Investors used the term 'intellectual humility', acknowledging our brilliance technically, but subtly suggesting we need to improve the way we tell our unique stories. To be fair, I think it is a Scottish trait to undersell ourselves.

These key insights suggest we need to embrace new ways of working. Not just what we need to do, but how we do it.

First, we must present Scotland's narrative from an external, 'outside-in' and forward-looking perspective. We need to pivot towards a proposition of growth on the world stage, explaining how we solve global problems. We need to demonstrate how we partner with private investors, and are not dependent on public funding.

Risk-taking is a second area where we can improve.

On the investment side we need more emerging venture funds who can be the new and upcoming allocators of capital and who take more risk. On the founder side, we need to foster a culture and environment of more risk-taking that celebrates and supports those that take those risks and venture beyond the conventional. And we need to drive more ambition to generate bigger outcomes and outsized returns.

Third, our entrepreneurs need to be better educated about venture capital and the dynamics of globally competitive valuations.

As a GlobalScot for the past 20 years, I have observed many Scottish companies struggle to raise adequate capital, often receiving smaller-than-needed investments, or facing excessive equity demands from local investors, making it harder to raise further rounds of investment.

Fourth, to compete globally, Scotland needs 'smarter capital' - investors who not only bring their cheque books but also their extensive networks and expertise. We want their experience around the dynamics of global markets, and how 'go to market' strategies need to factor in cultural nuances in local markets.

Finally, enhancing the commercialisation of research from our amazing public universities is crucial. We need professional accelerators, like smart things specialist Filament STAC in Glasgow, to demonstrate best practices. Changes are needed in equity, licensing, and intellectual rights to remove the barriers for both founders and investors.

As a proud Scot who has spent nearly three decades in the US, I am hopeful about Scotland's potential to continue shaping the modern world. But we need to be clear and honest with what’s happening around the world, and to understand how other emerging economies are accelerating and gaining momentum.

We also need to be cognisant of global market dynamics and cultures, and how we want our innovative Scottish companies to show up on the world stage,

However, hope is not a strategy; we need strategic national actions, such as those proposed by Logan, while we also must integrate fresh outside-in perspectives.

I would encourage Scottish investors to engage with the global investment community, and for the entire ecosystem to lean into a positive mindset of risk-taking and increased collaboration for the greater good.

After all, a rising tide floats all boats. Let’s show our young talent and future entrepreneurs what can be done.

Space is Scotland, by Scottish Space Network founder Andy Campbell

Where is space?  Is it above the clouds, beyond Earth’s atmosphere? Between the sun and planets? Or is it in the vast cosmic realm?

What about the space industry? Is it just rockets, astronauts and ‘Houston we have a problem’?  The reality is space is closer than you think and the growing commercial space sector is right here, right now.

Over the last decade, the sector has rapidly transformed. It has evolved beyond the ‘rockets and astronauts’ stage to become a platform enabling many other sectors - from farming to fintech, life sciences, energy transition and environmental monitoring.

Space is in your hand when you use your smartphone. Space powers every online service you use. It gets you to your destination and even helps farmers track livestock and optimise crop yields putting better food on your plate. In times of crisis, space safeguards our land, sea, and air.

Earlier this week, I attended the “Ignite Space” conference in Leeds, organised by the UK Space Agency. The event celebrated the sector's growth in the UK, showcasing an industry worth over £17.5bn to the economy. It also showcased entrepreneurial leaders building the next generation of space companies.

A key theme was funding and investment. The sector is full of opportunity, driven by sharp entrepreneurial innovation. The challenges of Earth and space call for visionary businesses to produce novel solutions. New methodologies, inventions and business models are being created daily. The growth opportunities are vast and the payoff to those brave businesses who take a ‘giant leap’ are considerable.

This environment is intriguing for investors, but much work is needed to ready companies for investment and attract the right angels and VCs.

It may come as a surprise to some, but Scotland is at the heart of the UK’s space economy. Shetland hosts Europe’s first and only licensed rocket launch facility, capable of taking payloads into orbit. Glasgow is second only to California in satellite manufacturing. Edinburgh is home to a growing number of world-class downstream space data companies.

The Scottish sector is poised for continued growth over the next decade, expected to create 12,000 new roles, growing its market share of the multi-trillion dollar industry to £4bn annually. However, the sector needs critical business support and growth capital from both public and private sectors to maintain its position in the new space race.

Scotland has the skills and intellectual prowess but we must adopt a pioneering economic strategy to deliver public funding, enabling innovation and attracting abundant inward investment to drive commercialisation and market share. We must empower organisations like Space Scotland and Scottish Space Network (SSN) to champion the sector.

SSN has already taken steps to develop Scotland's investment landscape through its partnership with New York-based Sustainable Alpha. The partnership aims to position Scotland as a global leader in space innovation and funding, offering comprehensive investment solutions. It focuses on developing global investment opportunities for early-stage and growing space tech businesses and investors, aiming to unlock alliances and new markets, ensuring Scotland offers a full end-to-end service in the space sector.

Space has the power to transform our businesses, society and planet for the good of humankind and Scotland is ready to lead the way!

Geopolitics means the UK must decide on Chinese plan for Scottish wind hub, by Jeremy Grant

If Ed Miliband ends up heading the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in a few weeks a priority will be GB Energy, the publicly-owned clean energy company that Labour claims will “position Britain as a leader in technologies such as floating offshore wind”.

Offshore wind is central to the UK’s ability to transition from fossils fuels as we tackle climate change. And Britain has more capacity for offshore wind power generation than any other country apart from China. Most of this is in the North Sea centred on the vast ScotWind wind farms project. 

Yet it is China that should be at the top of the ministerial in-tray (even as a decision on where in Scotland GB Energy is to be headquartered is keenly awaited). Specifically: plans by China’s largest offshore floating wind turbine company, Mingyang Smart Energy, to build its first manufacturing plant outside China, right here in Scotland.

Mingyang has impressive form. Last year it installed more offshore wind turbines globally than nearest rival Siemens-Gamesa of Germany, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. It also offers some of the keenest pricing, as Siemens-Gamesa, Vestas of Denmark and GE Vernova of the US know to their cost.

This has commercial appeal for ScotWind developers faced with inflationary cost pressure, worsening shortages in the offshore wind supply chain, and the need to be able to bid competitively in government offtake price auctions.

Mingyang’s Scottish hub would provide local content for the supply chain and create green jobs. That’s why the company is one of 10 projects designated “priority” under an industry initiative to kick-start an offshore wind supply chain known as the Strategic Investment Model. 

Yet commercial priorities cannot be the only consideration. Geopolitics is part of the calculus too.

Geopolitical instability and conflict were the risks most cited by executives for the second quarter in a row in McKinsey’s latest global survey of economic conditions, published in March. For some, geopolitics may seem a remote concern. Others may argue that there is nothing to see here because China has been involved in Scotland’s offshore oil industry since the 1990s. 

Yet this fails to recognise that the world’s a very different place today. The lesson from Europe weaning itself off reliance on Russian gas is that energy independence matters. By extension, it also matters who you allow to be strategically involved in your energy infrastructure. Ultimate control of wind turbines resides with the manufacturer through its control of the software embedded in them. 

At a time when Brussels is probing Chinese wind turbine companies for allegedly benefiting from unfair subsidies and as the Biden administration ratchets up tariffs on Chinese green industries, the UK is taking a different path.

What message would it send to the UK’s G7 allies if London was prepared to see a Chinese wind turbine manufacturer set up a European beachhead in Scotland without having first done appropriate due diligence, and explain its reasoning? 

The dilemma is that China’s global heft in renewables means it is essential to our collective ability to reach net zero. Yet how to reconcile this with national energy security policy isn’t being addressed. Over to you, Mr Miliband.

Show Her The Money, by Nick Freer

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Edinburgh this week, an invitation from SIS Ventures to the Dominion cinema in Morningside for the showing of award-winning film “Show Her The Money” was a nice interlude during the working week. 

In partnership with Pathways Forward, SIS Ventures hosted the film’s producer Catherine Gray as part of a 100-city global tour.  Essentially, the main theme of an excellent and insightful movie is around how women entrepreneurs aren’t getting their share of venture capital. 

While star power is provided by American “Cagney & Lacey” actress Sharon Gless, herself a pioneer in the television industry, the real stars of the show are the pioneering entrepreneurs and investors featured in the film.    

Dawn Lafreeda, who owns more restaurants in the US than any other woman and also invests in early stage ventures, is an absolute powerhouse.  Possibly even more impressive is Pocket Sun, who co-founded a female-led VC fund, SoGal Ventures, which has already helped power a number of billion dollar startups, so-called unicorns, in less than a decade. 

Since Ana Stewart published the Scottish Government-commissioned Women in Entrepreneurship review, co-authored by Mark Logan, last year the whole subject of gender imbalance in business has come increasingly under the microscope.  Some of the stats around the gap between male and female founders are alarming, including that women-founded startups received a paltry 2 per cent of venture capital funding in Europe and the United States in 2023.   

Entrepreneurs showcased in the film include Diipa Bulle-Khosla, founder of Inde Wild, a startup that develops skincare products targeted at South Asian women, Dapper Boi’s Vicky Pasche, on a mission to grow the gender-neutral segment of the fashion industry; Marian Leitner of canned wine producer Archer Roose; and Jasmine Jones, founder of online post-mastectomy clothes line Myya.  

After the screening of the movie, my esteemed colleague Ness Collingridge chaired a panel alongside the LA-based producer Gray, Scottish EDGE CEO Evelyn McDonald, and Pathways Forward founder Ana Stewart, a partner with impact investment firm Eos and a successful entrepreneur in her own right. 

My takeaways are that there is an acute need to increase women’s participation in venture capital, improve financial literacy from an early age, and more collective action is needed to support and invest in diverse, underrepresented groups.  As expressed by one of the panelists on the day, the further away you are from white middle-aged males, the bigger the barriers are to entrepreneurship.  

I guess that is one of the nuances here, in that we can become overly focused on gender imbalance, which can be to the detriment of other marginalised demographics. 

A report released this week by Dechomai, a social enterprise on a mission to empower ethnic minority individuals, unveils some of the barriers preventing ethnic minority entrepreneurs from accessing investment. 

The report’s findings don’t make easy reading, with the vast majority of investment firms not having targets around engaging and investing in the space.  Dechomai’s CEO and founder Bayile Adeoti says, “There isn’t a silver bullet, this requires a system-wide approach, and unless everyone in the ecosystem is involved, it will only be seen as an ethnic minority issue.” 

The great and the good (of Scottish tech), by Nick Freer

Due to the quality of guest contributors of late - including former Financial Times reporter Jeremy Grant writing on renewable energy infrastructure, Pathways Forward’s Ana Stewart considering women in entrepreneurship, and Stellar Omada CEO Colin Frame sharing his thoughts on digital education - it’s a while since I’ve penned this column and I feel a little out of practice.

So, like Bridgerton’s Lady Whistledown after a Netflix mid-season series break, perhaps a notable society event is a good place to restart putting ink on the page - in which case, Contini’s recent 20th anniversary celebration deserves a special mention.

Italian and Scottish inspired restaurant Contini’s is surely an Edinburgh institution as much as it is an eaterie, where the city’s great and the good, including from the business world, meet up for coffee and treats, or to eat great food and drink fine wine in the former banking hall immaculately styled on a Florentine palazzo.

Over a decade ago, when we launched our agency, Contini’s was our office before we had an office.  More than that, when contacts, clients or friends from out of town came to Edinburgh, Centotre at 103 George Street was always my first port of call.  A decade later, in spite of the addition of so many shiny new restaurants around town, Victor and Carina’s place remains my number one.

A week or so ago, my latest meetup was with Glasgow-born GlobalScot Ross Hamilton, a New York-based businessman who is on a mission to bring international investors to Scotland to experience what he describes as “the country’s dynamic sectors” firsthand, helping to take our entrepreneurial ecosystem to the next level.  Watch this space, as I hope Ross will write for this column in the near future.

On the subject of moving the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the right direction, it was encouraging to see the Scottish Government’s commitment earlier this week to extra funding for some of the main initiatives in place to support our most promising startups, through organisations like Scottish EDGE and Pathways Forward.

As a longtime adviser to Scottish tech brands like Skyscanner and CodeBase, and many startups and tech ecosystem players along the way, I have written extensively on the trajectory of the nation’s technology sector down the years, and it feels like the retooled Scottish cabinet has a better understanding of all things tech.

While former Skyscanner COO Mark Logan has been front and centre of the so-called ecosystem building process since he published the Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review in 2020, another Skyscanner chief has engaged himself in the tech narrative and debate in more recent times.  Shane Corstorphine, the online travel site’s former CFO, has published a series of LinkedIn posts around what he describes as “Building a world-class scale-up ecosystem” which have caught the eye of the tech scene.

Referencing a piece on Forbes, Shane agrees that scale-ups must have achieved a high degree of product-market fit, while demonstrating sustainable annual growth of more than 20 per cent over three years.  However, to be defined as truly world-class, startups must jump a higher bar.  Having walked the talk, small wonder that guys like Mark and Shane are now among the leading voices in Scottish tech.

China role in Scotland’s offshore wind supply chain poses tricky dilemma, by Jeremy Grant

It’s been a big week for renewable energy in Scotland. 

First, a £100 million loan from Scottish and UK development banks was given to develop a port at Ardesier in the Highlands for assembly of offshore wind farms. Then ground was broken at Port of Nigg for a subsea cable factory. Plans were also unveiled for green hydrogen production at Grangemouth.

What do these have in common? Foreign investment. Ardesier is backed by Texas-based private equity firm Quantum Capital Group, the Nigg factory involves £350m from Sumitomo Electric of Japan, while German energy group RWE is behind the hydrogen project.

Contrary to some of the economically illiterate analysis I’ve read recently, foreign investment is good for the build-out of renewables and creates jobs.

This new investment comes at a time of wars in Europe and the Middle East, which are fracturing geopolitical alignments that have been in place for decades. The world has suddenly become a more dangerous place. It therefore matters which foreign investors are involved in your critical energy infrastructure. 

This is why a question was recently raised in the House of Commons about whether plans by China’s Mingyang Smart Energy, the world’s largest maker of offshore wind turbines, to build a factory in Scotland should be reviewed on security grounds. 

At issue is that fact that electronics and data in a turbine are ultimately controlled by the company that made them, not the wind farm developer (like those involved in the ScotWind projects in the North Sea). There are also concerns about alleged unfair subsidising by China of its renewables sector, undermining European turbine manufacturers Vestas and Siemens-Gamesa.

Yet the issue of Chinese involvement in the UK’s offshore wind supply chain is more nuanced. There are two unavoidable truths here. 

One is that China’s wind turbine manufacturers are deeply embedded in the global supply chain – one undergoing its own version of globalisation due to the huge amount of activity involved. 

The other is that inflationary pressures mean developers have no choice but to consider cost. Mingyang not only has an industry recognised track record as a manufacturer but is also highly competitive, including offering generous financing. The prospect of a new wind turbine factory creating jobs in Scotland will have natural appeal to policymakers on “just transition” grounds, even as it may alarm Vestas and Siemens-Gamesa.

Jonathan Cole, chief executive of offshore wind developer Corio Generation, told a renewables conference in Glasgow: “If you look at the amount of deployment needed in renewable energy to hit energy transition targets and the current capability of the supply chain, by about 2026/27 every region of the world except China has a shortage of critical components. So, if we extract China from the supply chain what we’re actually going to do is delay the energy transition and make it more expensive. And that’s not in our national interest.” 

There are no easy answers. But whether to allow a deepening of China’s role in Scotland’s energy transition is turning into a significant policy dilemma facing the Scottish and UK governments. 

Gulf interest in Wood Group highlights Scotland’s renewables promise, by Jeremy Grant

Here we go again. Last week, Wood Group rejected a takeover offer from Sidara, a private engineering and consulting group with roots in the Middle East. The offer for the London-listed company, founded in 1982 by Sir Ian Wood, came a year after it rejected four successive offers from Apollo Global, a US private equity firm. 

The Aberdeen-based company is emblematic of Scotland’s heft in the oil and gas sector, forged in the 1970s when the North Sea was emerging as one of the world’s most promising prospects. It provides the services and technology needed to oil the cogs of the energy business such as pipeline maintenance and equipment overhaul.   

Yet Wood has been navigating choppy waters. Two years into a three-year restructuring it has made progress transitioning from oil and gas clients to those in renewables (hydrogen, wind, and carbon capture). But its shares had fallen by about a third since the collapse of the Apollo approach and before the Sidara offer. 

The challenge lies not in the health of its business (pre-tax earnings and margins were up in the first quarter) nor in whether its transition makes sense (it does, because tackling climate change is urgent). It lies instead in the difficulty a publicly listed company has persuading myriad shareholders to keep the faith with a process that has no precedent. 

That process involves riding two horses at once. As Barclays analysts put it: “The energy narrative … no longer is renewables instead of fossil fuels in transition, rather it is improved fossil fuel utilisation complementing renewables adoption.”

The public markets are a schizophrenic lot, impatient for jam today even as they may feel inclined to reward a compelling renewables transition story at some point. 

Executives in a recent annual survey by consultants Bain revealed that they think it’s getting harder to generate adequate return on investment on energy transition-oriented projects. Yet it’s a transition that holds out genuine promise. Recent deals in Scotland point to why Sidara - founded in 1965 in Dubai by four engineering professors and now a sprawling operation in 60 countries – might be interested in Wood. 

Scotland is home to many companies that made their name in oil and gas servicing but which are pivoting towards renewables because they know there’s no long-term future in hydrocarbons and future cashflow lies in net zero. 

That’s attracted the attention of buyers. “There is significant interest globally in businesses that have developed deep technical skills in offshore engineering and construction as a result of servicing the oil and gas industry for years and which are now channelling these skills into new energy technologies,” says Jon Shelley, head of deals at PwC Scotland. Last year, Japan’s Mitsui bought STATS, a 26-year-old Aberdeen pipeline repair company that’s now working on hydrogen pipelines.

The question is whether Wood is better off riding both horses as a publicly-listed company, constantly under the glare of shareholders to perform, or whether its ability to win more renewables work and make the transition is more likely to come good under the ownership of private – and patient - capital. 

Do we need to view the business events sector through a different lens? Guest blog by Professor Gary Hutchison, Edinburgh Napier University

As a senior academic, the value of attending business events and conferences over the last 20 years has been essential in learning my trade and is a significant part of any academic’s career. So why now should we revisit this topic, and what is the significance to those that work outside of academia and events management?

To frame this, it is important to understand the policy landscape and the frameworks created by the Scottish Government. Universities must respond and adapt to a plethora of reports, reviews, and recommendations. One key focus of government is how the knowledge generated in Scotland’s universities can be released to support economic growth and innovation in both the public and private sectors. So, how does this impact business events?

It is important to highlight two documents that detail the expectations of the sector over the next 10 years, namely Scotland’s National Innovation Strategy, and The Entrepreneurial Campus, both seen as vehicles to help deliver the National Strategy for Economic Transformation. These set a direction of travel for universities to align and interact with organisations in regional ecosystems to accelerate entrepreneurial thinking through social and impact-led activities in areas of strength for Scotland - Energy Transition, Health and Life Sciences, Data and Digital Technologies and Advanced Manufacturing.

Knowledge exchange (KE) from universities is not a new concept. What has changed is the motivation, recognition, and assessment of this activity.  Universities have developed ways to incentivise staff, from inclusion of KE activities in promotion criteria, specific career pathways and financial incentives to work with businesses, to help realise beneficial economic impact from research expertise.

Edinburgh Napier University’s success with the Mountain Bike Centre for Scotland has delivered 367,000 public engagement opportunities, engaged 317 individual companies and aided product development to a value of £16 million. Looking to the future, the innovation and academia connection with the Lost Shore surf resort project in Ratho demonstrates future financial and societal impact to the city.

If universities have been doing this for a long time, then why the re-emphasis?  After attending this week’s Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce and Convention Edinburgh business breakfast, it crystalised that we may all believe we are doing this, but we are all speaking a slightly different language with slightly different motivations. To address this, we must ensure business events become more interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral to progress a shared understanding and focus.

Post pandemic, people are returning to in-person meetings. For me this is key to achieving deep collaboration and understanding. Online has a role to play, but in a world seeking a reduced carbon footprint we need to recognise the value of activity and the carbon we expend as delegates and event organisers.

So how can business events support economic growth in a city and help universities deliver on the KE agenda? Well, the EICC, NHS and four universities in Edinburgh have created a UK first, named the Exchange Initiative (EI). The EI’s remit is to provide strategic thinking on how to attract business events to Edinburgh, that supports translation of innovation, with a focus on the needs of Edinburgh city and its priorities. It is a different approach and perhaps it will provide the glue and common language that will allow everyone in a city see the value, impact, and legacy of knowledge exchange.

Scotland’s offshore wind ambitions at a crossroads amid global competition, by Jeremy Grant

Next month, a blue plaque commemorating James Blyth will be unveiled in a village set in the rolling fields of Aberdeenshire.

Blyth was an electrical engineer who developed the first turbine capable of producing electricity from wind power, and his home in Marykirk became the first building to be powered by wind-generated electricity in 1887.

Scottish Renewables, the industry body organising the event, says this marked the “very start of Scotland's renewable energy journey”. Over a century later, where is Scotland with offshore wind?

Answering this question may seem tricky given the mixed signals sent by the dumping of the Scottish government’s 2030 net zero target and a series of announcements by offshore wind developers of progress with their North Sea projects. The latest came last week from Green Volt, jointly owned by Tepco, a Japanese utility, Italian energy group Eni, and Norway-based private equity investors, that it had received offshore planning consent for a wind farm in the North Sea.  

So, are the wind turbines half full of wind, or half empty? The answer is that Scotland, and the vast ScotWind project that’s at the core of its offshore wind ambitions, is at a crossroads. 

There is still insufficient port infrastructure to cope with all the planned wind farm assembly that happens quayside before turbines are shipped out to sea, while the national grid is in urgent need of upgrading.

Some progress is being made on kick-starting the supply chain required, notably as a result of work by an offshore wind industry body called the Strategic Investment Initiative working group, in which the Scottish government has observer status. 

But the world has changed in the two years since ScotWind first came to public attention through the award to 20 consortia of subsea options to build wind farms in the North Sea.  This is pressuring the project timelines set by the companies in the consortia, including SSE Renewables, BP, Orsted and Marubeni of Japan.  

Two years ago, the UK was almost the only offshore wind game in town. It may still have the second largest amount of installed offshore wind capacity in the world after China, but many more countries are in the game now. 

The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) says there was a 50 per cent increase in offshore wind installations in 2023, compared with 2022. And 54 countries across all continents built new wind power, including Japan, which last week inaugurated the country’s largest commercial offshore wind farm.

 All of these projects are scouring the globe for increasingly scarce kit like turbine towers and blades, anchors, electrical systems and cables. That means one thing: competition. 

Dealing with this in the right way matters because Scotland accounts for 52 per cent of the UK’s future pipeline of wind farms.  

RenewableUK, an industry body, this month published an “Industrial Growth Plan”, setting out how to triple offshore wind manufacturing capacity over the next decade. It identifies strategic manufacturing capabilities that it recommends the UK build up to protect against supply chain risks.

As the report says: “As global competition for renewable energy supply chains intensifies, countries with a long-term, strategic approach will be the most successful in attracting investment in new industry”.  James Blyth is watching. 

Earth Day 2024 is a time to look at local solutions, guest blog by Julie Hutchison, Director for Charities at LGT Wealth Management

The environment and human health and wellbeing are in focus at present, with Earth Day taking place worldwide on 22nd April shining a spotlight on positive actions which can be made locally to safeguard the planet.

One thing we can all do to help the cause is find a way to repair, recycle or re-use old tech, and this is exactly the raison d’être for award-winning social enterprise The Edinburgh Remakery.

Colleagues from LGT Wealth Management in Edinburgh recently spent time helping the Edinburgh Remakery to segregate e-waste, and to prepare materials for the charity’s forthcoming textile workshops. It was also a chance to hand in a range of electronic equipment no longer in use, including old routers, cameras, and mobile phone chargers.

Following this visit, LGT Wealth Management will be hosting one of Edinburgh  Remakery’s tech donation boxes at our Edinburgh offices as a way to pass on other colleagues’s old electronic devices.

If you are struggling to know what to do with old cameras, mobiles, laptops, and tablets you are not alone. Electronic waste is a growing consequence of generations of obsolete tech, which often ends up in a box in a cupboard or, worse still, thrown away as refuse.  Clearly, this is not waste which should be thrown into landfill as electronics contain toxic substances detrimental to human health, water, and soil. If electronic waste is dumped or incorrectly recycled, hazardous materials such as lead and mercury present a real risk.

From its new premises at the foot of Leith Walk, the Edinburgh Remakery diverted almost 45 tonnes of electronic waste from landfill in 2023, of which around three quarters was repaired and around a quarter was responsibly recycled. Edinburgh Remakery doesn’t just focus on recycling, its positive social impact also tackles digital exclusion, making refurbished devices available for sale at more accessible prices.

Over 9,000 tech items have been refurbished and sold to date, raising money which is then put to good use by the charity when delivering its programme of activities.  Beyond this, its tech gifting programme distributes devices for use in the local community, enabling more people to get online.

The Edinburgh Remakery also runs a Repair Café, as part of a global network of thousands of centres that stretch across Europe to Asia, offering support with repairs in order to pass on the skills which many of us have never learned.  Its weekly session on a Friday between 11am-1pm invites people along to visit if they need help with tech repairs. This includes laptops, monitors, and games consoles. Repair Cafés are a further step towards a circular economy, extending the life of products and moving away from the linear economy where resources are extracted, turned into goods, then thrown away.

This Earth Day, if you have a box with old chargers and devices, don’t throw it away.  Take it along to Edinburgh Remakery if you live nearby, or donate your tech waste by placing it in one of their tech donation boxes; a map with their locations around Edinburgh can be found on the charity’s website.

And it goes without saying that charities like Edinburgh Remakery are always looking for more support and volunteers.  They should also be celebrated as we look ahead to Earth Day.

Scotland must invest in digital education, guest blog by Stellar Omada founder and CEO Colin Frame

People are important to every business, they help us to innovate and grow, and to drive future and long term success. 

We also recognise that the talent pipeline in Scotland is not working as efficiently as it could be, and we are well short of the skills we need.  This is a problem because you can only grow a business if you have the right people in place to enable this.   

I share the view of many that we need to fix the problem at the very root, at the grassroots level in schools across the country, taking a bottom-up approach to how tech skills become embedded in individuals.  

Along these lines, we have spent the last few years supporting the provision of digital skills to young people in partnership with Heart of Midlothian F.C. and its pioneering Innovation Centre, alongside other corporates like Baillie Gifford and Dell Technologies.  We think it’s an important template from which others can learn, but we know we can only make so much difference, and it will take others in government and industry to really move the dial.  

When we look beyond our borders, we see examples of countries who outperform us in no small part because of the ongoing investment they make into digital education.  When we talk about the Future of Work, it is nations like Germany and Switzerland who are walking the talk by really investing in digital skills.  

At Stellar Omada, the company I founded five years ago, we recently launched a digital education programme aimed at securing jobs for people with little or not experience in the tech sector.  Following a pilot earlier this year where the seven candidates went on to gain full-time employment, Stellar Elevate commences this month with up to twelve people on a seven-week software testing course that will prepare them for a career in tech. 

As one of Scotland’s fastest-growing technology companies, we have never been short of ambition and we want to have as many as one thousand people come through this programme over the next five years.  Some may see this as overly ambitious, but when you want to make transformative change you have to dream big.  

We are starting off with software testing because that is our bread and butter at Stellar, but we see Elevate evolving over time to cover a host of other tech disciplines.  And yes, while we will want to employ some of our graduates, our initiative is also about addressing the wider digital skills gap for Scotland as a whole.  

As a leader of a Scottish scaleup, we see firsthand how a shortfall in tech skills can hold back the pace of growth, and ultimately top-line economic growth in this country.  We saw CodeClan fold last year, where we lost the main provider of digital skills education at a stroke, and that’s a concern when you’re trying to build a tech group that can compete on a UK-wide level and internationally. 

We want to bring other industry players into the fold as our Elevate programme progresses, and would love to speak to other tech and business leaders over the weeks and months ahead.  If we can truly collaborate, perhaps we can really move that dial.