The East of England is leading the charge towards equipping the UK and
beyond with the cutting edge technology that will soon be demanded by a
new era of unprecedented digital media requirements.
Five of the East of England’s leading economic development organisations have come together to help firms meet the demands of this brave New Media world through the Wireless (East) Gateway Project, an initiative which will initially focus on delivering digital content to major international sporting events such as the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
This high grade collaboration between Screen East and Cambridge Wireless seeks in particular to engage East of England entrepreneurs operating at the cutting edge of innovation, offering the pick of the best technology ideas in the UK and enabling them to get the support necessary to take ideas from the ‘drawing board’ into production.
It is a natural progression for Cambridge Wireless chairman and serial entrepreneur, David Cleevely, who has been pushing the proactive need to meet the impending infrastructure demands of the communications industry for well over a year.
Commenting on his plans last year, Cleevely said: “There is no question that the Olympics are going to be extremely communications intensive. What has been less clear up to now is how these bandwidth issues are going to be addressed.
“Cambridge has a whole raft of companies that have worked on and solved these kind of problems. This opportunity is worth hundreds of millions of pounds and I believe that Cambridge companies alone could walk away with tens of millions of pounds worth of business.”
Wireless Gateway organised a series of workshops and networking opportunities to assist businesses to identify priorities, gain an understanding of the procurement processes and develop ideas for the industry as well as to showcase the region’s leading wireless and hi-tech entrepreneurs.
Following a year of these, which helped some of the best wireless technology companies and content creators in the UK refine their ideas, the Wireless Gateway has filtered through a range of propositions with the help of a select panel of industry specialists and chosen the six very best.
These ideas will be presented in the middle of May by the 19 companies collaborating behind them and judged by the panel, which includes representatives from the BBC, BT, C2Ventures, AMF Ventures, GE, Great Eastern Investment Forum (GEIF), Lloyds TSB and Pera.
The event will give interested parties the opportunity to listen to the six presentations and ask specific questions about how the companies can help realise the vital media strategy for key international sporting events.
Screen East and Cambridge Wireless have now been instrumental in setting up two key digital cluster projects ‘Games Eden’ and ‘Wireless Gateway’ and the two organisations will present a progress report on both projects on June 9 in Paris at Eurodigimeet, organised by the Enterprise Europe partner for Paris in partnership with Cap Digital – one of Europe’s key digital clusters.
Supported by a five way partnership involving Screen East, Cambridge Wireless, Enterprise Europe – East of England, East of England International and East of England Multi Media Alliance, this will also provide an opportunity for the region to be well represented at a major industry event.
The event is split into two days: a cluster management day about sharing best practice and a practical day for businesses from the Digital industries to meet prospective partners from across Europe.
“The East of England is well known for its innovation in the digital industries and we feel this is an excellent opportunity for key agencies to work together, play to our strengths and make an impact on a European stage,” said Screen East’s chief executive, Laurie Hayward.
Wireless Project has been jointly funded by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), Screen East, Greater Cambridge Partnership and Cambridge Wireless.
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