Spotlight on the West Midlands

0:04 – 0:28

So spotlight on the West Midlands. I would actually rename this, if we named it ourselves, as welcome to Team West Midlands. This is the name we fondly give ourselves as the powerhouse, the trailblazer that is the West Midlands region. So I’m really proud to be from the West Midlands myself one, but also to have these amazing panellists with me today. So my name is Ian Mansell.

0:28 – 0:46

I’m head of West Midlands Regional Engagement at Connected Places Catapult, and I will get my panelists to introduce themselves over to you. Sarah. Hello, everyone. I’m Sarah Windram. I am the Deputy Chair of the West Midlands Innovation Board and also the head of Cluster Development at Myra Tech Park.

0:47 – 1:04

And when Sam was calling out the different people in the room, he kind of neglected my category. I think. I’m a volunteer, not trying to from the private sector, but not trying to supply. So the public sector, I’m actually just really passionate about the innovation ecosystem. I think you’re more than a volunteer.

1:05 – 1:11

You’re a superhero. And you are actually a superhero, aren’t you? You have a book, don’t you? I do have a book, yeah. That’s a separate.

1:11 – 1:16

We’ll come on to that one. Come and talk about it in the networking break. Yanis. Yeah. So, hello, everyone.

1:16 – 1:53

I’m Yanis Maus. I’m the chief exec and founder of Tech West Midlands and Birmingham Tech Week, which is. Is the largest regional tech festival in the uk. Tech West Midlands exists to supercharge the tech ecosystem across the West Midlands and foster an environment of collaboration, but really kind of fundamental to everything we do is to inspire people from all walks of life to get into technology. We’re mandated by the West Midlands Combined Authority to grow the digital economy and we do that in a number of ways, which I’m sure we’ll get onto during this panel discussion.

1:53 – 1:57

Absolutely. Thank you, Yanis. Alex. Yep. Good afternoon, everyone.

1:57 – 2:15

I’m Alex Weed and I’m Executive Director for SME development and Academic engagement at Connected Places Catapult. That’s a very long title, but effectively all you need to worry about is, you know, it’s me and my team that look after the delivery of the West Midlands innovation accelerator programmes. Alex does all of the stuff should be simplified too. Absolutely. I do not.

2:15 – 2:23

The team do all of the stuff. I come up and sit up here and take the credit. And Sanjay. Good afternoon, everyone. It’s great to be here.

2:24 – 2:53

Our company’s based in the West Midlands, but my accent, as you can tell, I’m not from the West Midlands and There’s a reason why we picked that region specifically, which we’ll touch upon later. So I’m the co founder at Global Nano Network. The world’s looking at electrification as a way to solve climate crisis. However, the battery industry has a long way to go to actually make that a reality and actually be sustainable in their own approach. So the way we do this is we have a product that helps to make batteries more efficient but also expand their battery life, which means you lower the total cost of ownership of that device.

2:53 – 3:15

In addition to that, we have a manufacturing process that enables cell manufacturers to actually have a better process when they make the cells, reduce the amount of power that’s used toxic solvents, which overall reduces the cost of the cell, but also reduces the carbon emissions of the cell manufacturer. So that’s what we focused on. Proud to be a company based in the Midlands and look forward to our growth as well. So thank you. Thank you for joining us, Sanjay.

3:15 – 3:40

Appreciate it. And just for anyone with ocd, I apologize for not sitting in the row as advertised there, but I need to be able to see the lollipop lady over there who’s going to tell me off when I’m not keeping to time. Okay, let’s get stuck in. So, Sarah, you are the deputy chair of the West Midlands Innovation Board. You’re also head of cluster development at Hariba Myra, which is a big technology park in the West Midlands.

3:41 – 4:12

When we talk about collaborative coalitions of public and private partners to drive growth, what does the West Midlands do that’s kind of unique or special in terms of industry engagement and governance structures? So I think it comes back to what I talked about with those private sector volunteers. We’ve got a very mature. I like your collaborative coalition. We’ve got a very mature way of working in that respect, I think stemming from the three LEP geography.

4:12 – 4:29

That was where, Ian, you and I first met well over a decade ago. And that kind of can do attitude in terms of forming these coalitions. I remember we formed the West Midlands Digital Partnership. Digital is a golden thread. It is the golden thread through the rest of the economy.

4:30 – 4:57

Coined by creato. Yes. But pre even Andy Street’s first election, we formed the Digital Partnership to really work across that three let geography. I mean, the West Midlands is a big region, three city region, you could argue in terms of Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton. So, yeah, that coalition coming together, but coming together with a very clear purpose.

4:57 – 5:41

And I think the industry part of that has always been really important in terms of what’s the direction of travel what’s the end goal? Usually it’s about growth, it’s about market, it’s about that opportunity. And I think we’ve always been very good at using the right resource in the right way in that respect across the West Midlands. So, as I said, kind of industry and the private sector sort of setting the direction of travel, but then the West Midlands combined Authority and colleagues, if you look at it like a ship, the private sector are kind of saying, right, this is where we’re headed. And I feel like the WMCA help us to kind of navigate the course.

5:41 – 6:15

And then if you’re carrying on with that analogy, I think the universities provide the maps, you know, they provide the kind of evidence and the research that helps us to get to where we want to go. So, yeah, I do think it’s that kind of a same maturity of those relationships. And obviously it was said, I noted it down earlier, but that generous collaboration, like nobody is trying to grab everything. We’re all very aware of kind of what our strengths are and what we can do and what we can contribute. But I think it comes back to what you said about Team West Midlands.

6:15 – 6:48

We’ve all got a passion for the area and a passion for what the area can, can do and can achieve together. So, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a great place to work, isn’t it? Certainly is a great place to work now that we’re biased. So, Sarah, you’ve obviously been party to the development of the Innovation Accelerator and the Innovation Board’s kind of strategic oversight and I guess friendly encouragement along the way to make sure that we’re meeting strategic objectives. But CPC landed us a relative newbie, I guess, in the West Midlands ecosystem.

6:49 – 7:23

So as we’ve been along this kind of two year journey, what are your main observations about how CPCs landed in the ecosystem and what its role it’s played in enabling growth? So I am genuinely not just saying this because I’m in this room, but the two programs that CPC ran are my two favorites. Clean Futures is the first. So Clean Futures is, I guess, personally my favorite because of my day job. So Hariba Mira is a vehicle development, a vehicle research and development technology center of excellence.

7:23 – 8:18

So obviously Clean Futures was all focused around the decarbonisation of transport and that transition. But I think the thing I really liked about Clean Futures, as well as bringing the connected places catapult into the region and working with partners, there was the focus on industry, so the focus on actually this innovation needs a customer at the end of It. So whether it was in automotive, which was obviously more of the world that I’m working in, or whether it was in rail, what CPC did, working through the partnerships we already had with industry is bring the right people into those rooms. So you had Coventry University and the BCIMO delivering the program, but that connection through CPC with the wider industry and the customer base was really important. And I think that was reflected in the private.

8:18 – 8:50

I mean, you’ll know the stats better than I do, but that will be reflected in the private investment. Certainly Clean Futures, of all the innovation accelerator projects, was the highest private investment secured, much investment secured. And I think that was because of that industry engagement. And then Diatomic, my second favorite, because it’s all about kind of digital infrastructure, digital twins. How can we make the region particularly focused on Birmingham?

8:50 – 9:11

How can we make that a kind of hotbed for innovation to come and develop? You need the infrastructure in order to be able to do that. But I think the thing I really liked about Diatomic was that global positioning. We forget sometimes. I think the UK is really quite small and, you know, you hear over and over the different regions saying, oh, we’re doing quantum, we’re doing AI, we’re doing.

9:11 – 9:25

We’re all doing that, right? Like, how can we work better as the UK to position ourselves globally? Because that’s where the competition is. It’s not between Liverpool and Birmingham or Wolverhampton, it’s. It’s, you know, it’s what’s happening in the rest of the world.

9:26 – 9:56

And I think Diatomic got that and they got that point about positioning us globally and actually shifted our perceptions a little bit. And I’m sure Yanis will talk about the work that Tech WM did through that program, but particularly for me, us putting ourselves forward for the European Innovation Capital of the Year Awards. When we first started on this journey, we would have never done that. We weren’t people that sung about the great things that we did. So I think that change in perception to really go, do you know what?

9:56 – 10:11

We’ve got something really powerful here that we can showcase on a global stage. I think that’s made all the difference. And those things are really hard to capture in the evaluations, aren’t they? That’s the challenge. But, yeah, that’s why that’s my second favourite project.

10:11 – 10:24

We’ll pop you the £20 on the way. Thank you. And we’ll come back around to some group discussion in a minute. But moving over to Yanis. So, Yanis, you have been a driving force in growing the West Midlands digital economy.

10:25 – 10:56

When we’re talking about kind of global propositions and the West Midlands is open, how are you selling us to the world? Yeah, so I think kind of there’s a cultural shift happening in the West Midlands right now. We have been self deprecating in the past and very kind of humble and we don’t want to lose that. But I think it’s our time to shine, our time to kind of stick our chest out to the world and say, hey, we’re here, open the business. And we’re collaborating as part of Team UK.

10:57 – 11:29

My background’s the private sector, so I spent 10 years working at a kind of startup come scale up that sold to a US firm back in 2017. And so I’ve kind of taken that kind of private mindset into kind of this kind of public, private, academic kind of partnership. And one of the things I was kind of adamant about is we need a strong narrative to take to the world. So we spent a lot of time developing this kind of narrative, which was a true collaborative project. Over 100 partners across the tech ecosystem contributed to that.

11:29 – 12:00

So all the universities, private sectors, organizations like IBM, Goldman Sachs, Accenture and also the public sector. And we landed on this message of making tech succeed in the most human of places. And that really kind of resonated with both locally, nationally and internationally, with the youngest, most diverse region in the whole of Europe. And we want to use that to our advantage. And so we’ve started to take that message on the road, really.

12:00 – 12:50

And so through Diatomic, I signed an MOU with Allsam in South Korea as part of Birmingham Tech Week, where they brought over tech 10 South Korean businesses to look at market expansion opportunities into the West Midlands and uk. Subsequently, in February, we went over and also took six businesses over with us, looking at opportunities to enter the South Korean market. And lots of things have happened for both businesses from South Korea, but also businesses from the West Midlands as part of that. So new investment opportunities, new corporate partnerships, new opportunities to enter those international markets. And we’ve also been a part of trade missions to Lisbon as part of Web Summit where we’re up for European Capital innovation.

12:50 – 13:21

Sarah’s absolutely right. We would have never dreamt of being shortlisted for that award. But not only did we apply, we did get shortlisted and finished third. And then I’ve just got back from South Africa by Southwest, where again, as part of UK House, we’ve started to send that message to the world that we are the fastest growing tech sector in the uk. We’ve Got a really strong tech and cultural offering and yeah, there’s lots of opportunities on the horizon.

13:21 – 13:55

There sure are, absolutely. So if we’re talking about that making tech succeed in the most human apparent, and we loop that tech together with the kind of strategy of the Innovation Board and the thematic areas that our innovation accelerator represents in terms of clean tech and health tech, and you kind of brew that out to. Everything we do in the West Midlands around innovation is for the people and for the planet. We go to the European Capital of Innovation Awards and we kind of spin that yarn around humanicity in the same vein and come third place. Absolutely.

13:55 – 14:20

So proud of that. But, you know, that’s external facing stuff and we’ve got this amazing narrative, but what impact has that had in the ecosystem, in the community within the West Midlands? I think, you know, we’ve seen it from kind of the startups, so I think there’s a, there’s again a cultural element to this, the startup. So we’re startup capital of the uk. We create more startups in the West Midlands than any other place in the uk.

14:20 – 14:52

Uk. And that’s actually kind of led by Wolverhampton, not Birmingham belief, but Birmingham and Coventry combined with Wolverhampton create some fantastic innovative startups. What we’ve seen, I think, through the last couple of years is a sea change in the ambition of those businesses. There’s almost now kind of an aspiration to become kind of truly fledged scale ups and international businesses. And we’re starting to see that now kind of the number of scale ups in the West Midlands is growing.

14:53 – 15:18

Investment going into startups and scale ups again is on the rise. Could we do better? Absolutely. But again, I think what we’re now seeing is kind of the big corporate tech brands lean in and go. We want to be part of the ecosystem, we want to support, we want to work with great universities and like, I’ve got colleagues from VCU in the room to really kind of support that mission.

15:19 – 15:55

And I think kind of there’s so many new opportunities now emerging, one through kind of the work we did with jlr. So we worked with JLR and Plug and Play, the largest VC in the world, to start to kind of solve some of their innovation sustainability challenges using the startups present in the West Midlands. So it’s about unlocking those opportunities for both startups and scale ups. So talking about opportunities, we’ve got a new strategy. So if anyone’s been kind of sitting outside having coffee, they’re plunked strategically around for you to have a look at.

15:56 – 16:25

One thing I’m really, really excited about is digital and data has been brought more to the front and centre in terms of that new strategy. So, in terms of CPC enabling the West Midlands along that kind of mission and journey, where do you see us kind of injecting some of our love, caring attention in the future? So for me, it’s facilitating those strategic partnerships. So, you know, we talked about collaboration. Sarah, you mentioned it.

16:25 – 17:02

I think we coined a phrase last year which was ruthless collaboration. It’s going kind of above and below, beyond, and it’s turning it from kind of collaboration to strategic partnerships. And I think kind of connected places, catapult have really helped us kind of form those strategic partnerships both in the UK and across the world. And that’s really important because that convening power unlocks opportunities for the institutions and the businesses present in the ecosystem. So it’s been very welcome and I know there’s lots of new projects on the horizon where we can kind of do more and almost supercharge the work that we’ve started on.

17:03 – 17:13

Brilliant. Thank you. I’m very excited to be part of that journey with you as we move forward. I don’t know if that sounds a bit sinister. Are we kind of an innovation mafia, this ruthless collaboration?

17:13 – 17:22

We are friendly. Do please come and network with us. The generous, generous collaboration. Generous collaboration, yeah, we’ll go with that one. So thank you, Yanis.

17:22 – 17:39

Moving over to Alex. So, Alex, you have been party to the inception all the way through to the successful delivery of these huge, bold, ambitious innovation accelerator projects. CPC leads. What has been your proudest moment? Proudest moment, I think.

17:39 – 18:50

Well, I mean, I could spend the whole session talking about all of the different moments that have made me proud through the process and the delivery of the program. But actually, I think the thing that I’ve been proudest of and I think CPC are proudest of, actually, is the opportunity that we’ve had to really embed ourselves in what is frankly a really vibrant and exciting innovation ecosystem in the West Midlands. You know, the university, if you think about innovation as a supply chain, all the way from the universities to the entrepreneurs, the one man bands, the one person bands out there creating wealth and growth, some of them don’t think of themselves as innovators in the traditional sense, that we might think of innovation, but those sorts of, that sort of groundswell, if you like, of innovation and then all of the different component parts of the ecosystem that are available, the support, all the way up to the support that the combined authority have provided. I think that to Me is the proudest thing. It’s really enabled us to be able to be part of that ecosystem.

18:50 – 19:11

And I wouldn’t say it’s always been easy, right. But being part of that ecosystem and being able to actually add value into that ecosystem as well. And it’s really lovely to hear what you’ve said so far, Sarah and Yanis, about your experiences of working with us. And that’s exactly what we want to get to. We want that good, you know, good feeling vibe.

19:11 – 19:34

But also, you know, we have ways of making you collaborate, ruthless collaboration approach, talking about kind of positive impact. Can you give us a bit of a flavor about the kind of impact from. From Clean Futures? Sure. Now, as Sarah said, you know, these are two very different programs.

19:34 – 20:22

The ones that we’ve been working on, Clean Futures and Diatomic Clean Futures is very much focused around sectors in the area, in the region, obviously, really sectors where there are real strengths in the region. And we’ve been focused on delivering to as many really innovative quality SMEs a bespoke program of activity that enables them to scale and grow in the region and beyond. And so if you look at Clean Futures, that’s what the results have shown. You know, we talked about, I think it’s £115 million worth of CO investment, the SMEs. We’ve had 39 SMEs on that program, really intensive program.

20:22 – 21:01

Almost each One of those SMEs has had their own bespoke journey through the program, working with BCIMO and with Coventry University to support the development of their technology, their ideas. But actually fundamentally what we’ve seen from that is that they’ve been able to raise about 17.5 million pounds worth of investment at the last count collectively. But more importantly, actually over £50 million worth of opportunity, business opportunities, pumpkin pipeline if you like. Because that’s really the trick of this is that the investment comes when you can show that there’s commercial traction. And that’s what this program has really done.

21:01 – 21:13

I think that’s the big impact. I can’t Remember. It’s about 100 odd jobs created as well over that period of time as well. So that’s nothing to absolutely fantastic. And I think that’s really where kind of CPC can come in.

21:13 – 21:47

We talk about connecting places. You know, we didn’t do this just to cpc, we’ve done it as a kind of collaboration and a coalition with regional partners. But we’ve been able to bring in CPC’s expertise to be able to win those types of Opportunities and ultimately, you know, the front end enabled over £16 million worth of new innovation funding to come into the West Midlands to be able to deliver in a way that the West Midlands chooses that’s right for them. And, you know, I’m really proud that CPC have been able to do that. So you talk about Clean Futures impact, but diatomic, let’s get on to that.

21:47 – 22:59

So diatomic, very different program, much more about the breadth of the, of the innovation ecosystem trying to develop. And we had a number of. I mean, now I’m thinking about it, I can’t believe what we attempted to achieve with the diatomic program and what we have been able to actually see out of the diatomic program. So, you know, all the way from creating a digital platform to enable digital twins and the sharing of data, creating use cases around that, through to supporting the creation of an inclusive innovation network to drive participation and diversity in our innovation ecosystem. The international work which we’ve touched on, which had so many different streams to it, I mean, the connections with, creating and supporting the development of the international strategy for the West Midlands, combined authority with the global growth company, working with partners like Yanis to take delegations out to Korea and build strong relationships with the Ulsan innovation ecosystem that really then drives that kind of platform to deliver activity.

23:00 – 23:34

And off the back of that, I think £500,000 worth of R and D opportunities have been realized out of that through the academic connections alone. That’s a really strong part of the sustainability of the program as well. That’s going to continue regardless of what happens next in terms of diatomic, and that will continue to build strength. What else have we got in there? So obviously we ran our own UK accelerator program, which was a really powerful process program designed to help SMEs get into local government, in particular Birmingham City Council.

23:35 – 24:12

And within that, we helped a smaller number of SMEs than we did with Clean Futures. But we help them get contracts with local authorities, we help them find ways of raising funding, both R and D and investment, and we’ve also helped them to create jobs. And then of course, there was the program where we took seven SMEs out to India to do a really kind of focused mission and give those organizations in the West Midlands an opportunity to export and to grow beyond the West Midlands borders. So if I missed anything there, Ian, I can’t think. I think I’ve got everything there.

24:13 – 25:06

We could be here all day, basically blown away by all of that. We had one additional actually, which was kind of unexpected, I guess, which was from the relationship we built with Ulsani in South Korea. One of their big venture capitalist firms is really interesting in setting up in the West Midlands because they see the potential of the emerging sectors and businesses present. And one of our objectives as a organization outside of Diatomic is to kind of stimulate the ecosystem with better opportunities around inclusive investment. So I think kind of there’s serendipity in all of this and above and beyond kind of diatomic or the work of connected places catapult, actually it’s that integration into everything else that’s going on across the ecosystem that’s really, I think where kind of CPC play such a fundamental and important role across that it’s good.

25:06 – 25:44

Somebody write that down. Absolutely. Thank you, Alex. So, you know, we can talk this talk till we’re blue in the face, but the ultimate ambition and the reason why funding streams and catapults and you know, cluster bodies, etc, all exist is ultimately to grow businesses, for businesses to have some kind of growth trajectory, some, you know, be able to start a business, being able to grow a business, being able to, able to kind of exploit our activities and bring in new businesses, etc. So, you know, let’s not step away from the fact that that is the aim of the game.

25:44 – 26:26

So to bring this to life a bit, I’m really pleased that Sanjay from Global Nano Networks joined us because, you know, ultimately if there’s no business benefit, then we’re just talking in an echo chamber to ourselves really, and wasting time. So bring it to life a bit for us, tell us a bit about your innovation and give us a bit of a flavor for how your business has kind of developed over the last 12 months with support. So I was going to spend a few minutes talking about all the various activities that we have managed to have access to. But I think my fellow panelists here have actually shared a lot of detail exactly what has been delivered. And I think the other thing is, as I mentioned at the start, I’m not from the West Midlands, a lot of the team are not from the West Midlands.

26:26 – 27:06

But strategically we did position ourselves there because there’s that ecosystem and everything we’ve heard so far is exactly the reasons why we actually set up our organization there. And we continue to get that level of support. So if I look at what’s happened over the last 12 months, we’ve been part of the Clean Futures program as well as the Indian kind of joint accelerator program that we had with Diatomic and to Sarah’s point, what we got from Clean Futures is exactly as she mentioned. And I think it’s all about how do you bring the various players and collaborate? And I think one of the things that I think is not only unique about the West Midlands, but about the UK in general.

27:06 – 28:05

I’m talking from a business point of view, is that having done a lot of activity around the world and being part of a number of trade missions, every time I come back to the UK and come to the West Midlands, what I see clearly is that there’s great collaboration between government and government agencies, academia and industry. And actually it takes those three things together to actually really drive innovation and push it forward. In other parts of the world, you might get two of those, or you might get just everybody working in silos. And it’s amazing how where, when things don’t, you know, when things are not coordinated, it’s hard to then actually make funding that’s available to businesses, actually deliver the results you’re looking for. And I think, you know, if I look at the diatomic program specifically, you know, I’ve been on a number of trade missions, and not because I’m sitting on this panel and we’re talking about the West Midlands, but after having kind of looked at a number of these different initiatives, I understand that there’s a lot of work done by the organizers of these programs.

28:05 – 28:48

You know, whether it’s cpc, whether it’s other parts of the UK government and other agencies, the only way for a business like ours to extract value from that is putting as much effort into it. Right. And I think, you know, if there are other businesses out there looking at growth and looking at where they’re looking to actually expand their business, whether it is within the UK or go global, it’s very important to figure out and do your own due diligence to see what these programs deliver and are they fit for your business. And the reason I say that is, you know, certain programs have got, you know, maybe 39, 40, 50 companies, whereas we were seven companies went out to India. Despite being such a small group or such a small cohort, you can’t expect as a business that the organizations like CPC to be able to deliver something for everybody.

28:49 – 29:06

So it’s a very big ask. And I think what we see and the way we see CPC doing a great job for this is actually, number one, trying to make sure that there’s some tailored aspect. Right. I think Alex mentioned about having a lot of companies, but then you tailor the activities for each of the companies. So that actually output is what you’re looking for.

29:06 – 30:06

And I think the other thing is, and I’m again being very candid with the diatomic program, it’s the only one I’ve actually been part of, where there were two stages. We went out to India once and then we actually went back again a few months ago, a few weeks ago, actually. What it allowed us to do was, number one, land, understand the market, develop some contacts, take advantage of, you know, the UK flag, take advantage of the West Midlands to actually open some of those doors, but then come back to base, spend a few weeks, a couple of months, actually part of that program, working with the CPC team to actually develop those conversations further, to then go back again to open up new conversations and actually exploit the previous conversation we had to take us forward. So, you know, one of the things I wanted to say is that if I look at 12 months being part of these programs and what it is from our perspective, actually, just visiting these markets is great, just being part of these programs is great. But actually the reality is what has it delivered and what it has delivered for us is we’re now talking to new partners that we wouldn’t have had access to if it wasn’t for these programs.

30:06 – 30:26

And we continue to have further conversations which we hope will slowly show that there is, you know, more light at the end of the tunnel. Excellent. Thank you. And I’m so pleased that you’ve been able to get some benefits out of the hard work of the team. So just to kind of summarise that before we go out to questions from you lovely lot in the audience.

30:27 – 30:42

So the West Midlands is. It stands for. It’s a city of a thousand trades. It kind of comes from a dirty industry heritage of manufacturing. And if you were kind of.

30:42 – 31:01

To look back in history, you might think that we’re probably 99% responsible for half of the carbon emissions going on across the world. We’re a new generation of people working in this now. There’s a new narrative. You don’t want to grow up in the. The West Midlands thinking your only option is to work in a car factory, in those kind of industries.

31:01 – 31:50

But the future of a car factory is digital. It’s innovative, you know, so that transferring that. That kind of narrative from, you know, very rich manufacturing kind of heritage into, you know, changing that into clean tech and the health and life sciences expertise that we’ve got in the region, and being able to change that narrative from dirty industries to everything we do is for the people and for the Planet and to win accolades for that and to be proud to be part of that is such an exciting place and time to be in at the moment, isn’t it? So, yeah, I think what, what the kind of culmination of that is, is, you know, the West Midlands is really proud, but the West Midlands is open. The West Midlands wants to work with other regions like Liverpool, like Belfast, like Manchester, like wherever.

31:50 – 32:05

We are super friendly. And if you came in here, not Team West Midlands, we hope that you leave Team West Midlands. That’s the kind of key takeaway. So anyway, enough of me. I want to pass over to any questions from the audience.

32:05 – 32:14

We’ve got what we got five minutes, I think, exactly. Anyone for anyone? Patrick? And someone’s coming around with a microphone.

32:17 – 32:33

Thanks, everyone. I’m Patrick from Birmingham City University. I just wanted to ask a question to one of Yannis’s points around how we as an ecosystem can better support startups to turn into scale ups. Yeah, so it’s a very good question and one. Patrick.

32:34 – 32:54

Well, I think, you know, I obsess about all the time. There’s a lot of challenges. Right. So kind of if you look at, you know, the investment going into West Midlands tech businesses, even though we create more startups than anywhere else in the uk, we’re pretty low. We’re one of the worst regions for getting investment into those startups.

32:55 – 33:38

I think that what we now need, and I think the previous panel talked about this, is we need that North Star. We need almost this kind of aspirational position for a kind of startup come scale up to want to be a part of. And I think that’s a really kind of high quality business support investment vehicle and possibly a physical space. So it’s what I like to describe as a semi closed ecosystem in the vast, you know, ecosystem that occurs around it, which is messy, it is organic and it is beautiful because of that. So I think kind of we need to inject that quality.

33:39 – 34:02

It comes back to what was said earlier about we can talk about kind of getting investment into these businesses and a lot of businesses turn around to us and say there’s not investment available. And I’m like, well, that’s. And I won’t swear, but not right. We live in a global economy. You can get investment from anywhere around the world if you’ve got a commercially viable product and service.

34:03 – 34:20

And I think that’s the kind of mindset we need to now kind of instill within our businesses to ensure that we can unlock that true potential. Ian, you mentioned like a City of a Thousand Trades. I’d like to kind of flip that and say the West Midlands is now a city of a thousand opportunities.

34:22 – 34:40

Can I just follow. I mean, I think you agree with everything that Yannis said. I think the money is out there. If you’re talking about my world in terms of vehicle development or vehicle technologies, that takes a lot of cash to get a product to market. That can’t be done by public money.

34:40 – 35:07

That’s got to be private money. Our tenants we looked at. Since 2012, our tenants have raised $22 billion in VC investment, but most of that has come from overseas and we haven’t shown the region that, if you see what I mean. So we’ve got a role as Myra Technology park to say, okay, big VC fund. You’ve come and invested in a couple of companies on our tech park.

35:07 – 35:26

Look at what else we’ve got in this space across the region. And I think once we do more of that, we’ll get exactly, as Denis said, that kind of critical mass of investment and companies and funds realizing that there is lots of opportunity in the West Midlands. Who’s the next one?

35:33 – 35:54

Andrew Ross from Global Garden about the money. Is anyone in the West Midlands putting any pressure on HM treasury to allow, under English treasure, devolution, fiscal devolution that enables you to raise a green bond for the region?

35:56 – 36:08

That’s a difficult question. So I know we look at putting lots of pressure on HM treasury, certainly from an innovation perspective yet. So for. For the money. So, you know, if you’re talking about.

36:08 – 36:35

We’ve been in an innovation accelerator, pilots that the whole point of a pilot is you. You try some stuff, you take some risks, you learn from it, you. You move that to the next phase. So certainly from an Innovation Board perspective, we are working very closely with D.C. to put pressure on HM treasury to say, well, what does that look like? We’ve proven to you that we can do this successfully and we can form the consortia and the projects and we can move the dial.

36:36 – 37:07

We want, you know, a greater pot of money to do that with, and we want a greater pot of money for a longer period of time, you know, two years to get all these projects, all the paperwork done, everything, you know, and all the outputs that Alex has said, that was really, really difficult for everybody. But we have done it. We played by the rules that they set, that government set. Now we want to do move that to the next phase. I don’t know if that’s specifically about green bonds, though, so I’ll have to take that away.

37:11 – 37:16

Is that specifically money going from government into startups and scale ups, private capital.

37:19 – 37:37

Oh, pension. Yeah. So we have. So we have got the West Midlands Co Investment Fund, which is the West Midlands Pension Fund with combined authority money, which is directly making investments, investments into some exciting startups in health, tech and sustainability.

37:40 – 37:59

So that is the kind of pension funds. But I think with the Mansion House reforms, there is an opportunity here to lobby government and HM treasury to say we want more of that. 100%. I agree. We haven’t had an answer of yet, but kind of alongside Sarah and other colleagues, we are lobbying government hard on that issue.

38:00 – 38:16

Thank you. Just for the sake of time. We’re standing between the audience and their lunch break at the moment, so I appreciate there are some other hands held up. I absolutely love to answer some more questions. So we are at the diatomic stand this afternoon.

38:16 – 38:25

A few of us will be around, which is out in the networking space, so do please come and grab us and we’d love to have a chat with you, so. But can I have a big round of applause for my panelists? We.