<p>Edition 8, Q4 2017 Meet the tech companies taking the universe by storm LEAH VIATHAN THE QUEEN OF LIVE STREAMING p24 GORDON BURNS THE ART OF PRESENTATION p47 101 FEMALE FOUNDERS DRIVING GROWTH THROUGH TECH p9 CONTENT BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK // COLUMNS 23 Lawrence Jones on being first to market "One of the reasons I am so proud to call Manchester our home is its extraordinary history of technological firsts" 47 Gadget Gavin on Christmas gadgets "Amazon Key, Sphero, Magni-viewer, Beeline Smart Bike Compass, Smartphone Projector 2.0 and SNES Classic" 76 Graham Pearce on start-up funding "NorthInvest fills gap in Northern Powerhouse investment scene by making it easier to access funding and support" 81 Rachael Fish on Blow LTD "We went out feeling special I can't believe it's taken this long to make beauty simple" 06 28 09 73 CONTACT US Editor Chris Maguire: 0161 215 7144; chris.maguire@businesscloud.co.uk; @editor_maguire | Deputy editor Jonathan Symcox: 0161 215 7143; jonathan.symcox@businesscloud.co.uk; @jonathansymcox | Katherine Lofthouse, senior writer; katherine.lofthouse@businesscloud.co.uk | Mo Aldalou, multimedia journalist ; mo.aldalou@businesscloud.co.uk | Events: 0161 215 7142; andrea@businesscloud.co.uk | Advertise in BusinessCloud: 0161 215 3877; sponsor@businesscloud.co.uk | Subscriptions: subscriptions@businesscloud.co.uk | Contributors: Jenny Brookfield, Lowri Williams | Designers: Erica Cheung, Billy Evans | Website: www.businesscloud.co.uk | Twitter: @BCloudUK | Address: BusinessCloud, UKFast Campus, Birley Fields, Manchester M15 5QJ // FEATURES 04 Profile-building with Pixoneye 06 Michelle Mone: From bras to Bitcoins 09 101 Female Founders of Tech 24 Meet queen of stream Leah Viathan 28 51 Tech 1sts 34 There's a buzz about Birmingham 38 The 'Netflix of indie films' exclusive content to digital edition 42 Are you ready for GDPR? 46 Microchipping humans 48 What can we believe on social media? 49 Gordon Burns on art of presentation 61 Saving a life in 280 characters or less 62 Boost employee morale with tech 70 Synap: From medicine to taxis 71 All round protection with Cocoon 72 Daniel Bobroff: What's next for retail? 73 GoInStore puts a face to online shopping 75 Mark Pollock: Can tech cure paralysis? 78 Reason Digital and social enterprise exclusive content to digital edition 80 UX 'God' on empowering techies exclusive content to digital edition // EVENTS 50 Learn to present in 10 top tips 52 AI: Will machines put you out of a job? 55 Leadership: 5 Live, health and football 58 Video games: The $100bn question 63 24 Hours in South Wales 64 Future-proofing through tech 69 Why Leeds needs to shout more BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 4 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK PIXONEYE Take a quick scroll through the photo album on my iPhone and you'll discover I have two kids, play the occasional round of golf and recently took a trip to meet Mickey and Minnie in Paris. There are a few screenshots of wallpaper samples too, which may give you an idea that we recently did some decorating at home. Like many people, I would imagine, the most used feature on my phone is undoubtedly my camera a quick scenic snap for Instagram that I'll fi lter later or a group shot for the family album (well, the online one anyway). Photos by far take up the most storage on my handset, so much so that I often have to start deleting some before I can take anymore. That's a marketing manager's goldmine according to Pixoneye, the London and Israel-based start-up that believes it has come up with the most accurate way of personalising content to customers. YOUR LIFE THROUGH YOUR LENS Tech provider Pixoneye believes marketing could be done better by taking a look inside your mobile phone's photo album. Jenny Brookfi eld reports. The albums on our phones paint a detailed picture of who we are, what we're into and what's happening in our lives. Our social media posts are what we choose to share with the world often heavily fi ltered and edited whereas a phone is an untapped resource off ering a true image. What if brands could use that information to fi nd out more about their customers? That was Ofri Ben-Porat's goal when he set up Pixoneye after working as a marketing specialist with the Israeli government. His puzzle there was in marketing the country to the two very diff erent groups of tourists it drew in evangelical visitors who travelled to the country on pilgrimage and the LGBT community, drawn to Tel Aviv because of its liberal outlook. The challenge was to fi nd a pure data set to distinguish the most relevant information to market to each particular tourist. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE While chatting to a friend who had helped build the facial recognition algorithm for the Samsung Galaxy, he and co-founder Nadav Tal-Israel hit upon the idea of using imagery to understand the end user with the help of AI. "One thing we all have in common is that the smartphone is a portal to our lives and photos have become a social currency," says Pixoneye's chief commercial offi cer Richard Jones (pictured, opposite). "People who go to gigs tend to watch through their phones and if I was to send a message to my team I'd probably send a photo to go with it rather than just a text. We're creating an incredibly detailed trail of who we are as people on our phones." The result has been a software development kit (SDK), a program that operates in the background of a brand's own app, which gleans information about the customer or user via their photo album. The SDK analyses the images to come up with feature vectors, presented in the form of a graph. The software can reveal up to 150 detailed characteristics about a person, enabling brands to produce fi rst- party data that belongs to them rather BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 5 @BCLOUDUK PIXONEYE than having to buy in third-party data. They then choose how to use that data to shape the in-app experience. "The businesses using the SDK have a highly visual dashboard that breaks down all the different characteristics, so they know whether the customer is male or female, whether or not they have children and pets, their propensity to travel and where they live, for example," says Jones. A brand could then personalise content or adverts on the app: for example optimising a homepage or tailoring push notifications to the person. Building a detailed picture of its customer base could also generate more custom by targeting people from a similar demographic. "One of the most exciting features is not just about understanding who the customers are, it's about understanding their intent," Jones says. "I started to take images of furniture and floor plans and share them with my other half recently, a clear indication that we were about to move home. Knowing that such a significant life event is coming up gives an incredibly unique understanding of that end user. "We're creating characteristics based on client feedback, but also finding a lot of traction around the core characteristics we've identified. We're an evolving organisation and we can train our algorithms to look for different things." WIDER USES Clients in financial services, retail and the insurance sector are offering positive feedback and there is huge potential for utility businesses. "Within the utilities sector, 25 per cent of end users leave every year because it's a price-driven purchase," Jones says. "Using our technology, a utility business could be alerted to when a customer is about to move home so they can change their dialogue accordingly." Then there is the potential for credit companies to use the technology to help build a risk profile of a borrower a use Pixoneye anticipates in developing countries. "Some countries don't have the data trail over somebody's lifetime and that could mean the difference between them not getting their credit extended," Jones says. "This kind of personalisation could be a game-changer. You could find out whether somebody is married or has a job [for example]". Though some of the examples are speculative, there have been some proven results. Nestle wanted to target its pet food ads specifically to cat owners or dog owners and called on Pixoneye to help. The SDK was integrated into the Daily Mail app for one month and analysed the photo albums of 1,000 users to gain feature vectors. Using this information, Pixoneye was able to determine which users were cat owners and which were dog owners, and both groups received Nestle Purina ads specific to their pets. A test using standard marketing methods ran alongside this. The test with Pixoneye installed increased click-through to purchase by ten times, from four in 1,000 to 40 in 1,000, a huge increase in engagement and revenue. A similar study with Tesco's shopping app used the SDK to analyse the photo galleries of 10,000 shoppers over a month. Ninety per cent of the feature vectors were matched to the corresponding shopping carts of those customers. The remaining ten per cent were used to predict future shopping cart contents, with 92 per cent accuracy. PRIVACY It all sounds like good news for businesses, but what about customers? Could the thought of an app scanning your personal photographs while you use it be a step too far for some? "The user can opt out and we're very conscious about the importance of engaging effectively with them," says Jones. "We're in a time when privacy is a significant concern and people are learning more about how their data is used." To stop your album being used in such a way, you'd have to go into settings and prevent access to your photos by the app, although you have no way of knowing if that particular app uses Pixoneye. The other important thing to note, Jones says, is that your photos are not uploaded to the cloud as the SDK runs within the app. The feature vectors also wouldn't reveal exactly what was on your photos, but merely a 'profile'. Jones believes this can only be a positive for the customer. For now, Pixoneye is broadening its product, improving delivery of the results to the customer and gaining traction in a variety of markets. Research and development is carried out from Tel Aviv, while the commercial side is run from London. He admits they have "other innovative tech plans up our sleeves as well". "The key thing is improving the experience of an app and enriching users' lives with better content and products," he says. "From the perspective of the end user, it's very secure. "I liken it to having a true personalised shopper in your pocket, having the best shopping experience you can have." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 6 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK THE BIG INTERVIEW Bras to Bitcoins Michelle Mone made her name from underwear but the entrepreneur now known as Baroness Mone has swapped bras for Bitcoins. Lowri Williams spoke to the business mogul about her move into technology. Michelle Mone never ceases to surprise. The Scottish-born entrepreneur's rollercoaster life first saw her rise to fame after founding lingerie company Ultimo with her husband Michael. Her profile rose even further when she was appointed by the then Prime Minister David Cameron as a business tsar with special responsibility for start-ups and the girl born in the east end of Glasgow joined the House of Lords in 2015. A high profile marriage break-up saw her exit Ultimo but now the 46-year-old is back with a bang in both her professional and personal life with the launch of a 250 million Bitcoin-priced property development in Dubai. The new business venture follows her relationship with Scottish billionaire Doug Barrowman. Barrowman is the chairman of the Knox group of companies and the "The world has changed massively. People like to communicate and you can hear what your customers are thinking there and then. I've always, always been a lover of social media." MICHELLE MONE pair have been inseparable since meeting in 2016. The couple enjoy all the trappings of wealth and are regularly photographed on a superyacht, in one of their mansions or behind the wheel of one of their luxury cars. But for now their focus is on the first international luxury property development to be priced in cryptocurrency. They see Bitcoin as the future of currency, bringing it into the mainstream in a move that merges property development and the tech sector like never before. The world's online currency, Bitcoin, has soared in value and is now worth more than a nugget of gold. To give you an idea a single Bitcoin is currently valued at today's date at 4,351 while an ounce of gold is worth 968. The controversial currency has sparked debates due to its anonymity, as well as its lack of government control. However Mone and Barrowman are certain that it's the future. Dubbed the 'digital gold' for millennials, the business moguls are certain this unconventional and futuristic currency is changing our financial world as we know it. "Bitcoin has been around since 2009 and it's become established as the gold standard of cryptocurrency," Mone tells me. Barrowman is equally convinced by Bitcoin. "Half a billion transactions are going through every day with Bitcoin and it's grown to a valuation of 95 billion," he explains. "You've got institutions and major players investing in this sector now more than ever. The industry has moved beyond the five per cent of earlier adopters, the techies who had faith in it, to the serious businesspeople in the suits and ties eager to invest. "Obviously there is a multitude of cryptocurrency out there, but we see Bitcoin as the gold standard and what we wanted to do was give the crypto community world out there, many of them who have made significant gains out there in crypto land, the opportunity not just to diversify digital currency but diversify conventional assets. I can think of no other way than diversifying into bricks and mortar." Despite the growing success of Bitcoin there remains a fair degree of suspicion about the cryptocurrency. "Having the two of us at the helm of the business will hopefully bring that much- needed trust," Mone adds. "The business venture is very disruptive. It changes the way we think about things. The way we think about this is that if serious businesspeople and developers like ourselves are prepared to do it, then ultimately it's a massive investment into cryptocurrency and BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 7 @BCLOUDUK THE BIG INTERVIEW Pictured left: Michelle Mone and Doug Barrowman. Pictured below: Michelle Mone Dubai towers sketch. others should follow suit. "We're not daunted at the prospect of the new business. That's why we're entrepreneurs. Doug is a very successful businessman, and with myself in the House of Lords we bring that trust element. I can't think of anything better than what we're offering to this world." Barrowman says Bitcoin is part of the unstoppable move towards technology. "For young people, the internet is just a part of their everyday lives," he says. "Blockchain technology will soon become a part of their everyday life, too. Soon the world will be doing conveyancing contracts through Blockchain, we'll be looking at contracts, insurance contracts, medical contracts; every aspect of their lives will be changed by Blockchain technology. The kids of today and tomorrow will grow up with it being an everyday part of their lives. Of which the financial application of Blockchain is Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general." The move into tech is certainly a relatively new experience for the former lingerie entrepreneur and financial investor. "I started off training as a chartered accountant in the mid-80s on a very retro machine," Barrowman reflects. "Then it was the fax machine, then I saw the advent of the internet and email. So, technology for me has been an evolution. "In the 90s I was backing a manufacturer company and then in the Noughties I started to buy and invest in tech companies. So tech has become increasingly a major part of my business life over recent years." The highly-anticipated selection of 1,133 studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments is due for completion in September 2019. Apartments offer floor-to-ceiling windows with unobstructed views of the Dubai Hills and the iconic city skyline. The studios start at $130,000, which amounts to 30 Bitcoins, a one-bedroom apartment is $240,000, or 50 Bitcoins, and a two- bedroom is $380,000, or 80 Bitcoins. Industry- leading Bitcoin payments platform BitPay will process the Bitcoin transactions, a company that already provides Bitcoin payment tools to companies such as Microsoft and Richard Branson's space venture Virgin Galactic. Not one to let a business opportunity pass her by, Mone is combining her separate business, Michelle Mone Interiors, into the build of the development. "It'll be right bang in the middle of the science park in a place called Dubai Hills known as the Beverly Hills of Dubai," she says. "When you buy an apartment in Dubai it tends to just come as a shell so we have taken on famous British architects. This is the first development in the world where you can buy your apartment in Bitcoin." A lot of Mone's profile comes from her social media presence and she has more than one million Twitter followers. "Social media is vital in any business," tells me. "The world has changed massively. People like to communicate and you can hear what your customers are thinking there and then. I've always, always been a lover of it. Sometimes it's been a nightmare, because you know, you hear things, and you shouldn't or don't want to. I've stopped doing that now when I've got a glass of wine in my hand. It's banned after alcohol. Every single company has to embrace it and take it forward. It makes such a difference to your business when you start connecting with people around the world." Despite their vast wealth Mone insists she and Barrowman will never get "too big for our boots". She says: "Our parents would absolutely wring our necks. Everything we've achieved has been worked really hard for. You've got to adopt a philosophy in life and in business: to remember on the way down how you treated people on the way up. My success is largely down to the thousands of people who have been a part of my business." More exclusive interviews at businesscloud.co.uk BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 9 @BCLOUDUK FEMALE FOUNDERS Female Founders OF TECH BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 11 @BCLOUDUK FEMALE FOUNDERS Bonner-Cooke, Leanne, Evolve-IT Consulting Having raised the funds to start her business in 2007, a decade later Leanne Bonner-Cooke's business Evolve has grown into a global multiple award- winning software solutions provider across many industries. Her awards cabinet includes Business Woman of the Year and Entrepreneur of the Year. Bretland, Julie, Our Mobile Health Julie Bretland has many accolades to her name, including winner of the Deloitte's Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Founders Award, and being a founding member of the GSM Association's 'Connected Women' programme. Her company Our Mobile Health assesses health apps so that organisations know which are the best for their patients. Brock, Vicky, Clear Returns Vicky Brock won Innovator of the Year at the 2014 FDM everywoman in Technology Awards and led Clear Returns to the spot of top Tech StartUp in Europe according to the European Commission. She has two non-tech businesses alongside Clear Returns, which uses data to help retailers to predict and prevent returns. Her latest business is called Get Market Fit. Brockwell, Holly, Gadgette Editor Holly Brockwell started non-profi t website Gadgette to be an inclusive site that believes technology is for everybody. Holly also works at journalism start-up WikiTribune where one of her roles is to increase the diversity of the audience and community through direct outreach. Brooke, Emily MBE, Blaze Emily Brooke is on a mission to make cycling safer for London through Blaze, a tech and design start-up which creates products for urban cyclists. She and her 12-strong team launched both items in Blaze's product range through crowdfunding investment and was awarded an MBE for services to the Economy and Transport. Adelman, Sophie, WhiteHat Sophie Adelman is supercharging the next generation of tech talent as a mentor and advisor, and co-founder and general manager of talent accelerator WhiteHat. The company helps young people launch their careers at the best possible companies through apprenticeships. Alys, Stephanie, MysteryVibe Sporting possibly the best job title ever, Stephanie Alys is co- founder and Chief Pleasure Offi cer (CPO) of award-winning smart tech pleasure brand MysteryVibe. She has also been featured in major publications such as the Times and WIRED and regularly appears as a keynote speaker on international stages. Aslam, Mevish, Terminal 3/Sprinters Ex-lawyer turned entrepreneur Mevish Aslam has spent over fi ve years developing start-up ecosystems around the world. Terminal 3 reinvents traditional learning and development while Sprinters is a women in tech social enterprise. Mevish is also a coach, strategist, talent advisor and business developer. Black, Dr Sue OBE, #techmums Tech royalty Dr Sue Black is an honorary professor, a Government Digital Service advisory board member, social entrepreneur, writer and acclaimed public speaker. Her company #techmums teaches mums the tech skills they need to get back into business and she set up the UK's fi rst online network for women in tech BCSWomen in 1998. Bumbra, Rav, Structur3dpeople Following a 20-year career in tech, working mum Rav Bumbra decided to move into recruitment to get a better work-life balance. It was there she realised how few women were getting into the tech industry and started tech recruitment and career development consultancy Structur3dpeople. Proving that tech is no longer 'male, pale and stale', BusinessCloud was inundated with nominations for its Female Founders of Tech list. Historically tech has been a male- dominated industry, which is why BusinessCloud launched a mission to fi nd examples of women who have used tech in some way and turned it into a fi rst-rate business. Publication of the list builds on the incredible reception BusinessCloud's 100 Female Role Models in Tech list enjoyed in 2016. The list received over 3 million impressions on Twitter and won widespread praise but we decided to tweak the criteria this year to focus on women who have been involved in founding a tech company. The judges wanted the 101 fi nalists which they ended up pushing to 104 due to three businesses being co-founded by a female team to be a celebration of the incredible women across the UK that are driving growth and innovation through tech. We think they more than achieve that. The age of entrants ranges from 17 to 83 and the list is in alphabetical order. If you want to comment on Twitter you can use the hashtag #FemaleFounders101. Join the discussion on #FemaleFounders101 BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 12 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK FEMALE FOUNDERS Butkovic, Marija, Women of Wearables/Kisha Smart Umbrella Marija Butkovic has many strings to her bow: a law degree, starting Kisha Smart Umbrella the world's smartest fashion tech umbrella and co-founding Women of Wearables, the UK and Europe's fi rst organisation supporting, connecting and mentoring women in wearable tech and more. She is a mentor, investor and STEM ambassador. Cabili, Karin, Dropit After founding her fi rst company at the age of 20, Karin Cabili started Dropit in 2014 after no one could deliver a pair of boots from the store to her hotel whilst on business trip in New York. This formed Dropit's strategy using technology to connect businesses and enhance the customer experience. Camisotti, Cristiana, Silicon Milkroundabout & SMR Scotland After fi ve years as co-founder and CCO at Silicon Milkroundabout and SMR Scotland, the UK's number one tech job fair, Cristiana Camisotti is now COO at EDITED. She is passionate about helping under-represented groups get into the tech industry. Carrell, Rachel, Koru Kids As the former CEO of DrThom.com, the world's largest online doctor service, Rachel Carrell grew the business to 1.3 million paying patients in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia. However it was when she had her fi rst baby and saw how diffi cult and expensive childcare was that she decided to found childcare platform Koru Kids. Cerrone, Emma, Freeformers Emma Cerrone is co-founder and partner of Freeformers, a workforce technology and transformation company. She is an award- winner who was previously named as the Duke of York New Entrepreneur of the Year at the National Business Awards as well as a 2016 NatWest Women in Tech to watch. Chakraverty, Julie, Rungway Julie Chakraverty is the founder of Rungway, a platform that helps employees give and seek advice on work and life challenges. She is also a non-executive director at Standard Life Aberdeen and a trustee for the Girls Day School Trust. She has been a board member of UBS Investment Bank, winning multiple industry awards for innovation. Chaletzos, Nena, Luxtripper Nena Chaletzos co-founded Luxtripper four years ago and has grown the company every year as CEO. She is also part of the Mayor of London's International Business Programme, and is also launching another business, Travel Genetics, this year. Clark, Elizabeth, Dream Agility Elizabeth Clark is the larger-than-life co-founder and CEO of Dream Agility, which matches retailer data to Google keyword searches without changing the site's wording. She is also a mentor, multiple award winner, an accomplished international speaker and author of Flirting for Dummies. Clegg, Judith, Takeout Innovation Agency Serial entrepreneur Judith Clegg is a Fortune 500 board-level strategy consultant and an angel investor. She is also the founder of boutique business solutions consultancy Takeout and The Glasshouse, which off ers support to tech entrepreneurs and investors. She co- created the #HANDSOFF campaign and is the founding director of Moonfruit. Cockerton, Claire, Plexal Claire Cockerton is the founder and CEO of Plexal, the 68,000-square foot innovation ecosystem for start-ups, scale-ups and enterprises. She also founded ENTIQ, an innovation advisory and delivery fi rm, and was founding director and CEO of Innovate Finance. Cook, Jodie, JC Social Media After founding JC Social Media Jodie Cook was determined to raise the standards of social media marketing and inspire others to start their careers in the sector. She developed Flaunt Report, which social media agencies now use for their reporting and wrote a series of books to develop enterprising skills in primary school children. Celestial-One, Saasha & Cook, Tessa, OLIO Tessa Cook is a farmer's daughter from North Yorkshire while Saasha Celestial-One was born to 'Iowa hippy entrepreneurs'. Saasha is ex-McKinsey and while on maternity leave in 2012 she opened her fi rst business in London. Tessa has worked at Dyson and Wonga UK, where she kick- started the turnaround of the business. The pair launched food-sharing app OLIO in 2015. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 13 @BCLOUDUK FEMALE FOUNDERS Cordwell, Lou, Magnetic North Instrumental in the North's digital scene, Lou Cordwell set up digital design agency magneticNorth 17 years ago in response to the changing digital landscape. Now she's also director of the North for female funding platform AllBright, a board member for the Manchester LEP and advisory board chair of Design Manchester. Coutu, Sherry CBE, Founders4Schools One of tech's most familiar faces, Sherry Coutu has been founding companies for over 20 years. Two of the most well- known are Founders4Schools, which helps students fi nd jobs at start-ups and scale-ups, and The Scaleup Institute. She is also an angel investor and philanthropist. Cummings, Susie, Nurole Susie Cummings used to be a top- tier headhunter and is now founder and CEO of one of Europe's most successful retained executive search fi rms, Nurole. She is also a patron of the Academy Ambassadors, a not- for-profi t programme funded by the Department for Education. de Tusch-Lec, Vivien, Bubele Vivien de Tusch-Lec started her career as a journalist for the Financial Times and Reuters, then in 2015 founded parenting start-up Bubele, where she is still CEO. Over 18 months the company built a network of 50 local editors across the UK generating content for its 150,000 subscribers. Its clients included Made. com, Ocado and Hello Fresh. Depledge, Alex MBE, BuildPath Alex Depledge is on a roll. After selling cleaning tech fi rm Hassle.com in 2015, she is now CEO of her second business BuildPath - an online architectural platform - which became profi table in four months. She also received an MBE for services to the Sharing Economy 2016 and is Chair of Coalition for the Digital Economy Board. Deschamps-Sonsino, Alexandra, Good Night Lamp Her Good Night Lamp IoT company helped Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino scoop top place in Postscapes' list of 100 Internet of Things Infl uencers in 2016 and her work has been exhibited at the V&A and galleries around the world. She is a start-up advisor and was also part of the Mozilla Leadership Network Advisory Group. To subscribe to BusinessCloud for free email subscriptions@businesscloud.co.uk Details of how to nominate can be found on the BusinessCloud website. For more details email Katherine.lofthouse@businesscloud.co.uk In the next edition of BusinessCloud we'll be publishing our inaugural list of 101 Pioneers of Health Tech. We'll be showcasing the individuals and companies who are using technology to improve patient care. The list is open to everyone including surgeons, GPs, NHS Trusts and private companies who are disrupting the health sector to improve patient care. Join the discussion on #FemaleFounders101 BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 14 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK FEMALE FOUNDERS Doyle-Morris, Dr. Suzanne, InclusIQ Institute Dr. Suzanne Doyle-Morris is an academic, author and built a self-funded company from the ground up. InclusIQ builds online games used in training groups to help people adopt inclusive leadership best practice. She is also one of the very few female entrepreneurs to have received SMART funding from Scottish Enterprise. Egorsheva, Olga, Lobster Olga Egorsheva's fi rst taste of entrepreneurship came via a family photography business which she founded with her father in 2005. Joining forces with her two co-founders in 2014 she became CEO of Lobster, a marketplace for creatives to search and license social media content directly from real people, and computer generated music. Eltz, Stephanie, Doctify Doctify co-founder Stephanie Eltz was an orthopaedic surgeon before she moved into entrepreneurship two-and- a-half years ago. She is currently head of growth and strategy for the start-up, which connects patients with doctors and has been described as the 'booking. com for the health industry'. She is also on the board of pharmaceutical start- up Hamoedica. Evans, Bec, Prolifi ko With over 15 years' experience in publishing and communications most of Bec Evans's career was traditional, in-house, senior management. Then she got the idea for Prolifi ko, a digital productivity coach which helps people start and stick at their writing projects. In July Bec and her co-founders pitched to Ignite and were accepted on their accelerator programme. Feldman, Hannah, Kidadl Ex-Linklaters lawyer and UBS banker Hannah Feldman worked for Dragons' Den's James Caan before founding Kidadl in 2016. The site is the place for families to dig out the best things to do in and around London and since launching in July 2017 has added 12,000 parents to its online community. Fenichell, Sofi a, Mrs Wordsmith Serial entrepreneur Sofi a Fenichell founded video app companies Rockpack and WonderPL and was a tech analyst at investment banks before starting Mrs Wordsmith. The company is illustrating the English language with the lead artists behind Madagascar and Hotel Transylvania, and creating products to accelerate vocabulary development and literacy. Fish, Helen, Beatstream Media After starting several businesses and spending six years living in Milan, Helen Fish moved back to Manchester to focus on her fi rst tech business, music start-up Beatstream. The company has developed a streaming app which lets viewers watch music from bars, clubs and music venues as it happens around the world. Follows, Tracey, Female Futures Bureau Female Futures Bureau is a not-for-profi t which connects female futurists with the press and events media to help create gender diversity in the media. Tracey is a professional futurist, regularly writes for the press, has spoken at the UN on the future of gender, and at events like TEDx. Freeman, Cherry, LoveCrafts Since co-founding popular online crafting hub LoveCrafts in 2012 Cherry Freeman has helped grow the business to 140 employees. She has also been a strategy director and software business unit director at Computacenter, done advisory work with Mimecast, New Voice Media and Symantec and been a non-executive governor of City University for nine years. Godfrey, Gemma, Moola Ex-quantum physicist Gemma Godfrey's Moola helps people achieve their money goals. Featured by The Times as a "route to the best fi nancial advice", Gemma was also advisor to Arnold Schwarzenegger on Celebrity Apprentice and is the money expert on the hit ITV show "Eat, Shop, Save". Gold, Sarah, Projects by IF Sarah Gold is a designer who is forming and creating our digital rights. Winning a Creative Conscience Gold prize, she also founded IF, a design studio that specialises in privacy and security. Sarah sits on the board for Tech for Good and is a practitioner for the Research Institute in the Science of Cyber Security. Griffi ths, Jenny, Snap Tech As the founder of Snap Tech, Jenny Griffi ths' fi rst product is Snap Fashion, which lets users take pictures of products to fi nd where it, or something similar, is sold. She incorporated Snap Fashion at just 23 and was awarded an MBE in 2015 for services to digital innovation in the fashion industry. Farrell, Alex & McAra, Rebecca, Gift Wink Gift Wink was co-founded by two women on a mission to start a gifting revolution. Alex Farrel and Rebecca McAra want to make gift giving easier with their online gift matching platform. Alex also previously launched one of the biggest tech careers platforms in Europe, The IT Job Board, and is an active angel investor. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 15 @BCLOUDUK FEMALE FOUNDERS Gross, Karoline, Smartzer After attending medical school Karoline Gross started an LA-based production company. She then launched Smartzer in 2014 and has built the video ecommerce and analytics platform into an award- winning start-up boasting clients like Puma and Adidas. Grover, Riya & Swanton, Lyz, Feedr Feedr CEO Riya Grover is the marketing, sales and product brain of the business. She launched her fi rst tech start-up whilst at Harvard Business School. The food tech start-up's COO Lyz Swanton is the operations and analytics brain of the business and has previously implemented mobile health technology in rural Africa. Guderley, Jacquelyn, Salom Jacquelyn Guderley has an impressive tech legacy as co-founder of Stemettes, which she left to start Salom, a literary magazine for emerging female writers. She is also in the steering committee and management group for Tech Talent Charter and a Tech London Advocate for Women in Tech. Hardwick, Liz, DigiEnable Liz Hardwick is co-founder of DigiEnable, a digital training & SEO services company. She designs and delivers tech-based and online marketing workshops, and regularly speaks at events across the UK. Liz is also chair of the UK Women's Equality Committee for BECTU and one of the organising team for Women in Tech North UK. Hodges, Jill, Fire Tech Camp Jill Hodges has inspired hundreds of children with technology through Fire Tech's courses. As the UK's largest provider of tech courses and camps for 9-17-year-olds, Jill's company is creating a collaborative community of innovators, creators and makers. Hubbard, Joanna, Electron Joanna Hubbard is the COO and co-founder of Electron: a digital energy start-up, building blockchain platforms and ecosystems for and with the energy industry. Before Electron she spent four years in renewable energy investment banking, worked in a cleantech VC and consulted on digital transformation at McKinsey. Hutcheon, Leah, Appointedd Leah Hutcheon is the founder and CEO of Appointedd. Following an eclectic career from theatre management to journalism, she is now an ambassador for Women's Enterprise Scotland, director of Future Leaders for Entrepreneurial Scotland and a #ScotEDGE Award winner who was featured in BBC documentary The Entrepreneurs. Imafi don, Anne-Marie, Stemettes After passing two GCSEs aged ten, Anne-Marie Imafi don was destined for great things. She is CEO, 'Head Stemette' & co-founder of Stemettes which has inspired over 14,000 girls & young women into STEM. She co-founded the world's fi rst tech incubator for teenage girls and at 27 was awarded an MBE for services to young women and STEM. Inglesby, Iona, Dot One Iona Inglesby has a background in textile and product design but a passion for genetics, making Dot One which creates personalised apparel based on your DNA her perfect match. Jessup, Beau, Special Name 17-year-old Beau Jessup helps Chinese parents pick British names for their babies based around characteristics they value. She started the company after a visit to China and realising parents were calling their children names like Gandalf because of a lack of access to Western culture. To date the company has named over 390,000 babies. Jones, Gail, UKFast Gail Jones co-founded managed hosting and cloud fi rm UKFast with her husband Lawrence in a back bedroom in 1999. She has been instrumental in the tech company reporting 16 continuous years of growth and was recently announced as one of the company's two MDs. Join the discussion on #FemaleFounders101 BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 17 @BCLOUDUK FEMALE FOUNDERS Jordan-Wrench, Harriet, Secret Sessions Harriet Jordan- Wrench helps brands connect with consumers through Secret Sessions a music platform dedicated to nurturing new and emerging artists with the help of brands who wish to contribute meaningfully to culture and the arts. She has worked with artists like Ed Sheeran and her content has gained over 20 million views. Karia, Bindi, Bindi Ventures 'Super connector' Bindi Karia started boutique technology advisory Bindi Ventures in 2016. She also sits on the advisory board of eight start-ups (seven of which were founded by women), one venture debt fund, the digital board of one corporate and is sitting on two high- profi le EU boards. Kenyon, Anastasia, Lifestyler 25-year-old Anastasia Kenyon is founder of Palette Offi cial (now Lifestyler) and Kandi Cosmetics. Over the last two years she has worked to develop Lifestyler, her social media and booking platform for beauty professionals and beauty lovers. She is currently working through the acquisition of her fi rst company and is soon to become the CEO of a 4m valued entity. Khan, Aneeqa, eporta Aneeqa Khan founded eporta.com in 2015, which has since grown to be the leading online interior sourcing platform. She started out as the youngest ever employee at top Private Equity fi rm CVC, before joining Zoopla as strategy director and leading the company's IPO for over 1 billion aged only 25. Kingston, Samantha, Virtual Umbrella Samantha Kingston is co-founder and client director at Virtual Umbrella, a marketing and PR agency specialising in virtual reality. At just 26 she is an advocate for women in tech and VR. In 2016 she also won the regional and national 'New Business' award at Venus Awards. Koby, Bethany, Tech Will Save Us Bethany Koby is the CEO and co- founder of learning toolkit start-up Tech Will Save Us. She has over 15 years of experience building brands and purpose-driven businesses like Skype and is one of Wired's Designers that Matter. Kohli, Nidhima, My Beauty Matches Former Miss Commonwealth Asia Pacifi c Nidhima Kohli attended professional dance school and worked in investment banking for seven years. She then started the world's fi rst intelligent beauty matching engine, My Beauty Matches, in 2013, working and sleeping in her living room whilst renting out her bedroom to earn some money. Kumar, Madhuban, Metafused Metafused CEO Madhuban Kumar has helped raise over $1m in VC and angel funding for her company, which makes AI-based predictions for fi nancial service and logistics. She has VC, entrepreneur and corporate experience in three continents and has worked with bleeding-edge technologies building innovative products, including the Barclays Oyster card. Lakhani, Priya, CENTURY Tech Priya Lakhani launched FMCG business Masala Masala in 2008 and CENTURY Tech, an AI learning platform for students and teachers, in 2015. She was also a founding entrepreneur of Gazelle Group Colleges and was awarded Business Entrepreneur of the Year by the Chancellor in 2009 and an OBE in 2014. Lindsay, Sandy MBE, Tangerine/The Juice Academy Manchester mainstay Sandy Lindsay was honoured in 2015 for services to business and young people. The same year also saw her named the IoD's NW Director of the Year (SME). Sandy chairs award-winning communications consultancy, Tangerine, the social media apprenticeship, The Juice Academy, and skills groups for the NW IoD and the NWBLT. Lloyd, Estelle, Azoomee Estelle Lloyd is co-founder of Azoomee, the safest entertainment service for kids. The app's online safety curriculum - Smart Safe Kind Online - has won Azoomee the support of the NSPCC, a BAFTA nomination and multiple industry awards. Estelle founded her fi rst start-up in 2006 which she sold to FTSE 250 Centaur Media plc in 2011. Join the discussion on #FemaleFounders101 FEMALE FOUNDERS BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 18 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK Lucca, Roberta, BOLDR Roberta Lucca's passion for women in games and technology shines through in her virtual life coach BOLDR, and previous video game business Bossa Studios. Roberta is now a non- executive member of the team and a member of the Bossa board, and CEO at BOLDR. She also has multiple honours and awards to her name. Ma, Angie, ASI Data Science Angie Ma is a physicist by training and is now founder and COO of ASI Data Science, which empowers its clients to use AI to solve business problems. She also started Data Science Lab, one of the biggest communities of data scientists in Europe, with over 2600 active members. Marenghi, Alexa, Codess Inspired by her role as global diversity manager at Microsoft, Alexa Marenghi's passion lies within gender diversity in the engineering industry. After experiencing the alienation of being the only female student in her Computer Science classes, Alexa decided to start Codess in March 2013 a community for female coders, sponsored by Microsoft. Margolis, Alexandra, Carwow After graduating Alexandra Margolis co-founded impartial car review site Carbuzz, before moving into the car buying space and rebranding as Carwow. The business has generated over 2 billion of new car sales and 48 million total investment from VCs. Morris, Melissa, Lantum Melissa Morris is a healthcare expert turned entrepreneur, having worked at McKinsey in their healthcare practice and also for NHS London. Lantum helps healthcare organisations organise their clinical staff and fi nd new ones to cover shifts. Melissa is also a mentor on NHS England's Clinical Entrepreneur Programme. Munro, Hannah, ITAS Solutions 30-year-old Hannah Munro founded Welsh business management solutions business ITAS in 2013 since then it has grown to a team of 18. ITAS is also one of the few tech fi rms to achieve over 50 per cent women in technical roles with no positive discrimination involved. Murarka, Neha, smoogs.io Software developer Neha Murarka is CEO and co-founder of smoggs. io, which is creating a 'taximeter for online streaming' letting people pay in cryptocurrency to watch online content. Neha won a Digital Catapult pitch-off for smoogs.io and the company was selected in the BBC Worldwide Labs accelerator cohort for 2016. Murria, Vin, Advanced Computer Software Group One from BusinessCloud's Rich List, Vin Murria's career has included a combination of investment and operational experience. As founder and CEO of software and IT services company ACS she grew the company from zero to 220m revenue in seven years, making it the third largest UK-based software company at the time. Nicci, Melinda, Baby2Body Baby2Body is the go-to lifestyle platform for all things pregnancy, with an algorithm that personalises information to be sent to users. Its founder and CEO, ex-sports psychologist and fi tness trainer Melinda Nicci, regularly appears on TV, conference panels and as a writer for top publications. Noble, Suzanne, Frugl Stretching from Warner Bros to Universal via Sony, Suzanne Noble's PR career includes a collaboration with the White House for Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move' campaign. She co-founded Frugl, an aggregator of daily deals and low cost events and co-founded online magazine The Advantages of Age to challenge the media narrative around getting older. McVittie, Sarah & North, Donna, Dressipi Having both previously founded other companies Sarah McVittie and Donna North took on fashion with their personalisation software for fashion retailers, Dressipi a company which has doubled its revenue every year since it was founded in 2010. FEMALE FOUNDERS BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 19 @BCLOUDUK Osman Britton, Anisah, 23 Code Street Anisah Osman Britton started a company at 19, learnt how to code and then became operations director of a corporate accelerator. Seeing the impact that diverse teams had on tech she started coding school for women 23 Code Street. For every paying student in the UK the company teaches digital skills to a woman from the slums of Mumbai. Paredes, Diana, Suade Diana Paredes is CEO and co-founder of Suade, a software platform that lets fi nancial institutions understand and deliver their regulatory requirements. Before founding Suade, which became profi table a year after launch, she worked in investment banking and believes that a data-driven approach to regulation is the key to preventing the next fi nancial crisis. Parsons, Kathryn, Decoded Kathryn Parsons is bringing coding to the masses as co-founder and co-CEO of Decoded, which teaches people to code in a day. She's also co-founder and ex-co-CEO of advertising agency the Scarlett Mark. Payne, Samantha, Open Bionics Open Bionics COO Samantha Payne co-founded her company, which creates bionic arms for amputees, at just 23. She is also an entrepreneur, digital marketer and journalist. She was recently named as one of the top 25 women in robotics you need to know about by Robohub. Petgrave, Paris, We Love Work Ex-headhunter Paris Petgrave is CEO of We Love Work, an award-winning people analytics platform that helps companies grow faster by using data to predict performance and fi t. She is also the founder and investor in tech investment fi rm Rare Seed Capital and in 2013 launched start-up accelerator, Kaleidoscope Enterprise. Philbin, Maggie, TeenTech Tech legend Maggie Philbin has received multiple awards during her career, including an OBE for her work to promote careers in STEM and the Creative Industries. She co-founded TeenTech, which helps young people get the tech skills they need, in 2008 and is president of the Institute of Engineering Designers. Older readers will remember her best as a presenter on Tomorrow's World. Ramachandran, Anjali, Ada's List Anjali Ramachandran is co-founder of Ada's List, a global network for women in technology which boasts over 4,000 members. She is also an editor at content studio Storythings and a member of the advisory board of Angel Academe, a pro-women angel investment group. Russell, Heather, Biscuit Labs Heather Russell started her fi rst business at 19 selling Japanese animation artwork. At 24 she moved to Japan and built her second company Rinkya.com - a global eCommerce and logistics company. After fi ve years in London as a start-up advisor and mentor she co-founded Biscuit Labs, which brings AI to energy management. Sassow, Sandra, SEaB Energy Making the world a cleaner place, Sandra Sassow is CEO and co- founder of SEaB Energy, which creates energy from organic waste. She also mentors and is director of the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership, as well as a member of WeConnect and the Chartered Institute of Waste Managers. Savova, Romi, PensionBee Following frustration trying to combine her pension schemes, ex-Goldman Sachs Romi Savova now wants her start-up PensionBee to make pensions cool. Having gained major press coverage Romi's long-term ambition is to help 300,000 Brits control their retirement savings. Shah, Sheeza, UpEff ect Sheeza Shah is founder and CEO of UpEff ect, a crowdfunding and support platform for companies dedicated to improving lives and the planet. Its enterprise-solution approach and campaign-consultant model has driven the company's 100 per cent success rate at securing funding for their campaigns. Sherry, Rosie, Ministry of Testing Once a software tester who wasn't satisfi ed with the available resources, Rosie Sherry decided to do something about it. The result is the bootstrapped, self-funded Ministry of Testing, a global community and online learning platform with conferences across Europe and the US. Join the discussion on #FemaleFounders101 FEMALE FOUNDERS BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 20 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK Shirley, Dame Stephanie, Freelance Programmers At 83 Dame Stephanie Shirley has been making waves in tech for decades. Freelance Programmers, founded in 1962, has over 8,500 employees and specialises in tailor- made commercial software and business management. She is no longer involved in the company but her work as an entrepreneur, philanthropist and speaker is extensive. Sinel, Elena, Acorn Aspirations Before building her businesses, Elena Sinel worked as an international development consultant and co- founded Business Without Borders. Teenator, which is at concept stage, connects teens to tech mentors. Acorn Aspirations inspires teens through tech and is about to launch a nationwide VR hackathon. Slater, Chelsea, Liverpool Girl Geeks Chelsea Slater's experiences of inequality in the tech sector inspired her to start Liverpool Girl Geeks, which empowers women in tech through events, workshops and courses. About to launch her second business, she plans to support teenage girls through a nationwide tech programme. Smith-Nunes, Genevieve, ReadySaltedCode Having a spinal implant has been a driver for Genevieve Smith-Nunes in her work and has helped her engage and educate people of all ages. In 2013 she set up ReadySaltedCode CIC, a not-for- profi t which provides STEAM-focused education, plus workshops, training and large-scale tech-enhanced classical ballet performances. Sohoni, Reshma, Seedcamp Reshma Sohoni is co-founder of Seedcamp, which invests early in world-class founders to enable change through tech. It has invested in 250 start-ups since launching a decade ago. Reshma is also an adviser and public speaker. Sollberger, Alessandra, Evermore Health Alessandra Sollberger set up her fi rst business at 11 and has invested in start-ups since then. She also set up a non-profi t teaching IT and programming skills to children in disadvantaged areas. Since launching lifestyle brand Evermore, which uses AI and personalisation tech, she also mentors and speaks publicly on technology. Stinton, Felicity, Dead Right Felicity Stinton's Dead Right aims to disrupt the funeral market. By making people better informed they're less likely to pay over the odds at a time when money considerations are not a priority. Felicity had a successful career in advertising and is on the board and a shareholder at top ad agency BBH. Sudbury, Hayley, WERKIN WERKIN founder and CEO Hayley Sudbury is an LGBT+ leader, on the steering committee for LB Women and a Stemettes mentor. She is a regular tech and diversity speaker, and is a featured speaker for TEDx Shoreditch later this year. WERKIN is a mobile-fi rst technology platform that supports mentoring and sponsorship programmes. Teles, Ines, dwyl Ines Teles is co-founder and CEO of dwyl short for 'do what you love' a digital agency specialising in building tech for good apps. She is also a director of Founders & Coders, the UK's only free coding bootcamp, and runs Ladies of Code London which has over 2,800 members. Trachet, Claire, wOndary Claire Trachet believes that the right mind- set can make the world a better place, one traveller at a time which is why after six years at Deutsche Bank she started advising start- ups and software fi rms. Claire then created wOndary, which helps empower people to travel through easy planning. Uggla, Julie-Anne, Cities Talking Former model turned serial entrepreneur Julie-Anne Uggla launched Cities Talking in 2012, a mobile app which provides audio- guided city walks. The tours combine interesting content with engaging narration and can be accessed offl ine so users don't have to pay roaming charges while abroad. Vallely, Vanessa, WeAreTheCity At the height of her 25 year career in fi nancial services tech, Vanessa Vallely launched the award-winning WeAreTheCity.com to help corporate women connect and grow. The site has over 100,000 members and receives over 8 million hits a month. Vanessa is currently also an advisor for Government Digital Services. Walters, Julie, Raremark Raremark, Julie Walters' third business, is an online community for families aff ected by rare disease something which aff ects 350 million people globally. She launched the platform in 2016 and in the last year has built the world's fi rst patient-led search engine in rare disease with over 2,000 subscribers. Wong, Colleen, Techsixtyfour There's nothing quite like the feeling of losing track of your child. Colleen Wong, an investment banker turned entrepreneur, founded Techsixtyfour in 2015 to help prevent that feeling. The company provides wearable mobile phones and trackers for kids, and sales for its Gator watch have soared since its launch at John Lewis in March 2017. Yu, Angela, London App Brewery Angela Yu is a self-taught programmer and iOS/WatchOS developer. She worked as a doctor for several years until she realised her passion has always been with teaching and coding, which led to starting the London App Brewery an in-person programming and design bootcamp. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 21 @BCLOUDUK DIVERSITY Now she owns one of the few independent agencies left in Manchester, and is putting people fi rst in her company too. "We're people designing for people," she says. "Tech is just a means to an end which is why we talk about being a design-led organisation. Great design understands the problem or opportunity and creates solutions for that. Technology might just be the right way to get to that it could be voice tech or an app or a screen you can swipe but it's about understanding people and sometimes people forget that. "One of our core brand values is curiosity and we tend to hire on that basis you have to enjoy it. As soon as the Alexas arrived here everyone jumped on them. It terrifi es some companies but we love it, so you need to be really clear on the space you operate really well in. Those that are doing well will be the very adaptable. It makes non-functional skills really important like the ability to work as a team, to collaborate, to problem solve." As a board member of Manchester LEP and advisory board member of Design Manchester Cordwell has become instrumental in the city's digital scene, but in her new role at AllBright she's also creating change on a wider scale. "There's a moral argument that as a human being I want to see other humans do well but there's a very straight economic argument too," she says. "Companies with greater diversity perform better. As a city the economic argument is that if we're going to create opportunities we want to get the 30-40 per cent who are struggling and failed by the education system and bring them up with us. "We're in the business of making products and services and if we only have one perspective we don't get the all- rounded challenge to the design process that we do when we bring diff erent people to the table." As part of her work with AllBright Cordwell wants to shift the business culture while off ering role models for women, so it might come as surprise that many of her favourite mentors have been men. "It doesn't have to be a woman mentoring you because you're a woman," she says. "Some of the strongest people who've mentored me have been down-to-earth very Northern men. I like the pragmatic, honest view. Find someone you have a real connection with and who has experience relevant to you but when it doesn't work for you say now I need someone with a diff erent experience. Get one that works for you rather than ticking a box and going 'I've got a mentor now, everything's going to be fi ne'." Designing a brighter future Lou Cordwell is the new director of the North at AllBright. She tells Katherine Lofthouse why diversity is crucial to business success. As the founder and CEO of magneticNorth for more than 17 years, Lou Cordwell has been at the heart of Manchester's digital and tech community for a generation. Well connected and well liked, Cordwell is a passionate supporter of women in the industry and she's just been appointed director of the North for AllBright, a new funding and support platform designed with female entrepreneurs in mind. Refl ecting on her new role and her career she says there's room in business to be nice and successful. "There's a real sense of ambition in Manchester to grow with humanity but that doesn't mean not being successful economically," says Cordwell. "That's more sustainable than the explosion model you see in places like Silicon Valley with extreme poverty at one end and extraordinary wealth at the other. Look under the bonnet of some of those businesses and see the behaviours and human cost of that billion dollar valuation. "Young people are coming through and saying 'actually I fi nd that unacceptable and that's not a corporation I want to buy from'. The only point of success is about creating happiness. As a person I'm only happy if I feel like I'm moving forward and if I feel a sense of pride about what I'm delivering along the way." Cordwell left a successful career in advertising in 2000 to start digital design agency magneticNorth after noticing the direction the industry was going. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 7, Q3 2017 23 @BCLOUDUK COLUMN: TECH DOCTOR MANCHESTER IS LEADING THE WAY IN TECHNOLOGY Lawrence Jones is the co-founder and CEO of managed hosting and cloud firm UKFast. In his latest column he looks at Manchester's history of technological innovation. When you think about technology and the front-runners leading the way, I would bet that the majority of people immediately think of Silicon Valley and the big American, multi-national players. But, actually, many of the tech advancements in the modern world actually come from our own shores here in the UK. One of the reasons I am so proud to call Manchester our home is its extraordinary history of technological firsts. The Industrial Revolution began here. John Kay's Fly Shuttle, all the way back in 1733, transformed cotton weaving. The world's first passenger and goods railway was first introduced here in the 1800s; the first military submarine was reportedly devised by a Moss Side vicar. And of course back in the late 1940s Baby was born; the world's first computer. Weighing more than a tonne and with less compute power than one of today's calculators, Baby set the foundations for the digital world we now rely on so heavily. Manchester is still leading the way, most recently with the development of graphene, a 'miracle material' 200 times stronger than steel, flexible, durable and semi-transparent. It is set to revolutionise electronics and the way energy is stored. Research into how to use it is ongoing at a 61m National Graphene Institute at the University of Manchester right on UKFast's doorstep. Each of these tech firsts has been carefully nurtured. I believe that it is our responsibility as entrepreneurs and business leaders to look after the research, the startups and the innovators that are often behind the real technological advancements. That's why I am backing a new initiative called Tech Manchester, providing advice and support for startups across the city and eventually the UK. Despite only being up and running for a matter of months, the initiative already has 60 mentors on its books, supplying real-world support and advice for growing businesses. Through this we found a business called Reconfigure.io. These guys are absolute geniuses when it comes to the technology within the chips that power our devices. Whilst, over the years we've seen chips increase in speed, we've added more cores and we've virtualised to make the most of more compute power. These guys are developing a new way to maximise the power within these chips to harness the opportunities of AI and machine learning. Reconfigure.io work with FPGAs to make them easily accessible to more people. They're an incredible group and I recently invested in their business, lending business support too. Whilst these are all incredible examples of technological firsts, it is also worth noting that being first to market isn't always an advantage. We talk often about 'first-mover advantage', a phrase that is very regularly linked with Apple, but the company isn't always the first to market with a concept. When the iPod was first launched, around 50 mp3 players were already on the US market. When the first iPhone was launched, there were already apps and smartphones on the market. What Apple did was to take an existing concept and hone it, finesse the marketing and UX, and bring the technology over to the mass market. Now there is no denying Apple's impact on the smartphone and personal computing world. I remember hearing a story about car rental firm, Avis. Founder Warren Avis once said that he was confident that his company would always be great because whilst Hertz is the number one car-rental firm, Avis is number two and will always have someone to compete with, and something to aim for. He said that they have to work harder because they are number two. Whilst being first to market is an incredible achievement, it brings with it a target on your back. I am fascinated to read the feature in this issue of BusinessCloud examining Tech 1sts. We are in an age where some extraordinarily innovative businesses are taking the stage you only need to look at the likes of BooHoo, WeBuyAnyCar, AutoTrader and AO.com to see how innovation and left-field thinking is driving success. www.lawrencejones.co.uk/ /LawrenceJonesCEOUKFast LJUKFAST lawrencejonesmbe @lawrence_jones #FollowLJ BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 24 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK GAMING Leah Viathan is part of the new generation of entrepreneurs earning money from tech. Jenny Brookfi eld talks to the professional live streamer. Most nights, hundreds of people tune in to watch Leah Viathan destroy alien threats or fi ght as a world war soldier. As a professional live streamer, the 24-year-old tackles some of the most popular video games on the market watched by an audience of people she has never met. She has built up such a loyal following that within months of launching her stream, she was able to give up her day job thanks to the healthy income it was bringing in. Meet the new generation of entrepreneurs earning money from tech. "It started as a hobby, and I didn't realise you could monetise it until people started asking me to put up a link for 'tips' about a week after I started," says Leah, who put out her fi rst live stream in March 2015. "It was in the thousands in that fi rst month. I thought there was no way people would keep giving money like that, but it just kept happening." Meet the queen of stream Two months in, she became 'partnered' by streaming platform Twitch, a gaming community that attracts 10 million daily visitors. This is the pinnacle for streamers, Leah says, and is unheard of so early on in a user's Twitch 'career'. This means that, in addition to the tips, she can earn money through gaining a share of the revenue generated by broadcasts and through subscriptions to her channel. RETRO GAMER Leah currently has 1,000 subscribers who pay monthly for ad-free viewing, access to custom badges and subscriber-only chat groups, and unrestricted access to her broadcast archives. Tips, which are separate to subscriptions, are set at a minimum of 2, although viewers can simply watch for free if they prefer. It's a far cry from Hampshire-based Leah's gaming upbringing, when she honed her talents on her dad's retro consoles and, when it came out, the Nintendo 64. "We didn't have tons of money and my mum was into retro, so she would buy me old games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario," Leah says. At 16, she was bought an Xbox 360 and started playing multi-player games like Call of Duty and Halo. "Because I had old consoles that didn't have any memory on them, I never really got into story games, like Legend of Zelda, because I never fi nished them," Leah says. "I played multi- player games because I could just play them over and over again." Always modest, she says she never considered herself 'good' at gaming, and even now only sees herself as "slightly above average". "I found myself getting into weird situations when I played and talking to myself, so I thought why not let everybody hear it?" she says. At the time, she only had a MacBook Pro and a poor internet connection, so she saved up and convinced a few people around her to help her out. A friend's dad allowed her to use a desk at his offi ce, and she would turn up after employees had gone home. Although she has built up to hundreds of followers, getting that fi rst one was the most diffi cult, she says. "There are hundreds of thousands of people streaming on Twitch who have zero viewers, which places them at the bottom of the directory people use to fi nd a stream," Leah says. "To have three viewers already pushes you up past these people, so getting the fi rst viewers can be make or break." Her other hobby was cosplay, and she BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 25 @BCLOUDUK GAMING decided to wear a new costume she had made during her fi rst stream. A fellow costume maker shared a picture of Leah's outfi t on Twitter, driving more people to her channel, and her fi rst night attracted 20 viewers. "Wearing the costume for a stream wasn't something people did at that time and that, with the attention I got from social media, pushed me up in the directory," she says. For the fi rst year-and-a-half, Leah solely played Destiny, an online-only fi rst-person shooter game where players take on the role of a guardian to protect Earth's last safe city. She later began to play other games to appeal to more users and protect herself if the game lost popularity. FORMING HABITS Generally, she attracts 300-400 viewers between 7pm-11pm, seven days a week. Some stay for the duration and others dip in and out. Consistency is important for would-be streamers. "If people know where and when to fi nd you, they'll develop a habit of watching your stream," she says. Collaboration with another stream that's a similar size to yours can also be useful, as well as streaming in a variety of ways. "Sometimes I stream as I'm making my cosplay so people see me in a diff erent directory, come to my stream and stick around," she says. For the entire four hours, Leah will commentate on what she's doing in the game as well as answering questions from viewers who type them into a chat feed. What has become apparent is the need to keep a balance between games talk and sharing elements of her personal life. "The most important thing is to keep people interested in you as a person as well as the game because you have something you can transport to other platforms," she says. "One of the rules in my community is that we're respectful and we do talk a lot about mental health because that's a huge part of people's lives on Twitch." Leah herself has battled with depression and anxiety and says playing games helped her escape from her problems, as it does for many of her viewers. "It's quite a serious conversation and can be tricky to navigate but I do enjoy the fact that I have a platform to talk about these issues," she says. "My subs (subscribers) aren't just customers: they all have such distinct personalities that adds fl avour to the stream. I spend a lot of time talking to them because it's important that they see the real me. "I was going through an awful time with my mental health when I started streaming and I started watching a gaming video on YouTube, which made me laugh every time. It was important that I could put it on and it would be comfortable and familiar. It was the thread that kept me hanging and, for a lot of people, that's what my stream does for them it gives them a sense of calm." While gaming can provide an escape from mental health problems, Leah accepts that the opposite can happen too. With lots of factors aff ecting whether viewers tune in or not, professional streamers can often work 12 hours-plus every day. "It's a self-employed business so if you take a day off you're losing income," she says. "If you take a week off people might go to another stream then not come back. There are people who feel like they can't take a day off , which is really unhealthy because then they risk mental health problems. If you're playing the same game over and over again for hours a day you can start to feel burned out. I try to combat that by taking a day off or doing creative streams and other things." For Leah, that means attending events and networking, giving her a chance to meet fellow streamers and those in the gaming industry. In June, Xbox sent her to check out its new games at E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) in LA and she will attend TwitchCon in California in Leah in action during a live stream of indie smash hit Cuphead. " It was in the thousands in that fi rst month. I thought there was no way people would keep giving money like that, but it just kept happening." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 26 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK GAMING October. Though she is not paid for these appearances, the games developers cover her expenses. "Games companies are coming around to the idea of subtle rather than overt promotion, where you give a streamer a game and allow them to experience it then share that with their community," Leah says. CHARITY Then there is the chance to give something back by raising money for charity. She was part of a week-long charity event where streamers took a four-hour block each and streamed to raise money for St Jude's Children's Hospital in Tennessee. Leah raised $13,000 in her block and a total of $1.2m was raised during the week. "I've done charity events for cancer research, cancer hospitals, mental health facilities, disability services and more in the past and it's nice being able to use the platform for good," she says. "The community rallies around a cause and they usually astound me with their generosity." Perhaps surprisingly, when you consider that she virtually invites hundreds of people into her home on a nightly basis, Leah reveals that she's more reserved than some of her counterparts. "There is a disconnect," she agrees. "Sometimes I look around while streaming and see my chat moving fast while all these people are watching me sitting in my room on my own, and I think 'this is so weird'. In real life, people listen to you because they want to say something, but on the stream people listen because they want to know." Those virtual interactions have turned into real life ones, however. Leah says she has made fi rm friends through Twitch and even met her boyfriend through her stream. "I did an advert for PlayStation on Twitch and my boyfriend didn't have an ad blocker so he kept seeing it," she says. "One day he clicked on my stream and we got together." While it's mostly positive, there is a dark side to putting yourself out there: it leaves you open to all sorts of abuse. Leah says she has been called "every name under the sun" and is hesitant to talk about it at fi rst as she says this can often lead to another surge of trolling. For this reason, she does not reveal her surname, going only by her username Leah Viathan a play on the word leviathan, or sea monster, and a nod towards her use of squids in her online persona. She hopes talking about the trolling she has endured will show other victims that they are not alone. "It eventually washes over you because you know that it's not true," she says. "You know yourself better than the trolls know you and they're usually picking the low-hanging fruit to hit you with. It's important for people who fi nd themselves in this position to know that they're not alone and that everybody gets this kind of abuse." Abuse aside, Leah is enjoying everything else life throws at her as a live streamer, although she accepts it probably won't be a career with a long lifespan. Outside of her streaming hours, she is developing other skills, such as graphic design and costume-making, and she has been off ered opportunities in esports hosting and TV work in the past. Prior to this, she was a freelance videographer covering extreme sports and fashion, including travelling the world following the world motocross championships. "Streaming is still not something I like to consider a career because it's so random and weird," she says, adding that there are often misconceptions that she doesn't pay tax, for example. As there is no precedent for this new industry, it can often be a case of fi nding your own way. She is choosy about the many products she is asked to promote for fear of diluting her brand and will only agree to those she would use herself. Asus provides all her hardware but she is happy to point people in their direction because of the quality of the product, she says. "To play video games and make money is very volatile," Leah says. "I could probably eke it out for a few more years but there will be a point when I have to grab what I've got and move onto the next thing. "In fi ve years' time I might be doing something that doesn't exist yet, because fi ve years ago I wouldn't have thought I'd be doing this now." " The most important thing is to keep people interested in you as a person as well as the game because you have something you can transport to other platforms." LEAH VIATHAN Read more stories in the digital edition of BusinessCloud magazine at businesscloud.co.uk BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 28 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK TECH 1STS From the fi rst computer to the fi rst smartphone, tech has been at the coalface of innovation for decades. BusinessCloud joined forces with Havas PR to fi nd the next generation of those that dare digitally the pioneers and technological boundary pushers from across the UK. We were inundated with nominations but in the end our judges settled on our 51 Tech 1sts. The products could be game- changing or just a bit of fun but part of it had to have had an element of being fi rst. Several of the companies that made the list are due to pitch at a special BusinessCloud event on November 28th, with the best one winning a ticket, or cash equivalent, to CES 2018 in Las Vegas. Products had to be less than fi ve years old and entrants had to provide evidence of the entry being a fi rst to market. Katherine Lofthouse reports. MDH Hologram, Middlesex Deliver speeches and attend meetings from the comfort of your living room. MDH's Musion eyeliner holographic technology turns you into a realistic hologram that can appear onstage and interact with audiences from anywhere. It was famously used to bring the late rapper Tupac to life again for Coachella festival. inamo Restaurants, London Have fun while you wait for your food at inamo's London restaurants. Its patented overhead projector systems lets users play games, doodle and order on their table- tops as they dine perfect for keeping the kids busy or a fun date. TECH 1STS VST Enterprises, Manchester Link, inform and secure anything with VCode, a symbol similar to a QR code. The tech is being used in an incredible range of situations from bank notes so shops can check for counterfeits, to the corner of a pizza ad letting users scan, order and pay in seconds. VeriLet, Manchester VeriLet is the 'property dating app' revolutionising the lettings market by helping people do their eligibility checks for free. The world's fi rst tenant eligibility market, it pairs prospective tenants with the best properties for them, saving them time and money on failed checks. Smarter, London Never return home to fi nd yourself without milk again. The Smarter FridgeCam is the fi rst wireless fridge camera to let you see what's in your fridge from wherever you are. It also adds items to your shopping list automatically, tracks expiry dates and suggests recipes based on what you have left. SPONSORED BY BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 29 @BCLOUDUK TECH 1STS RazorSecure, Basingstoke RazorSecure uses machine learning to keep us safe as we travel. It works out 'normal' behaviour for transport systems and if anything unusual is detected begins a defence mechanism to protect itself and reports the breach even working when there's no data connection. Kisha Smart Umbrella, London Never lose an umbrella again with Kisha's fashionable smart umbrellas. A world-first pairing your phone to your brolly via Bluetooth technology, the app warns you of bad weather and alerts you if you leave the umbrella in a place you haven't marked as 'safe'. HiyaCar, London Billed as 'Airbnb for cars', HiyaCar's QuickStart technology lets you access your rental car without having to collect keys from the owner. It lets car hirers open the car with their phone as soon as their booking starts and can revoke access at any time, adding reassurance for owners. Emma.ai, Guildford Never rush for a meeting again with Emma. ai as your personal travel assistant. She connects to your calendar to provide transport suggestions and scheduling information. Funded by Innovate UK, Emma also learns how you like to travel so you get more tailored suggestions over time. Nebula Labs, Newcastle Parking in cities is always a nightmare. Enter Nebula Labs' The Parking Fairy, a free app that helps drivers fi nd the nearest available parking space in city centres using smart parking tech. Beatstream Media, Manchester Never miss a gig again with Beatstream, no matter where in the world your favourite band is playing. The start-up lets venues stream live events to music lovers anywhere in the world and is the only live music platform that works with the artist and the venue, proving that location shouldn't determine ticket sales. Paperplanes, London The only post anyone receives nowadays is bills which is why businesses using Paperplanes' trademarked Programmatic Direct Mail will get the attention of potential customers. The tool triggers personalised post that is delivered to website visitors within 48 hours. Join the discussion on #Tech1sts BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 30 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK TECH 1STS Scattr, Derry Relive your youth and make ads fun with Scattr's 'virtual Pass the Parcel'. It lets businesses send out 'parcels' to users' phones with the chance to win a prize if users watch a 10 second ad. If you lose you can still pass the 'parcel' onto friends. Everledger, London Diamonds are one of the biggest purchases most people make but certifi cates are often forged. Everledger is putting paid to those fears as the fi rst company to track diamonds throughout the supply chain using blockchain technology. By giving them a digital thumbprint it ensures they are authentic and ethically traded. Hopper HQ, Birmingham Never stay up until 2am to post to your company's Instagram account again. Hopper HQ is the fi rst fully automated scheduling tool for Instagram that doesn't break the platform's terms and conditions, meaning brands can connect with their global audience no matter what time it is. Air, Birmingham After a stint on BBC's The Apprentice, Nick Holzherr set up Air, making HR easy with its 'Hub & Spoke' model. Air's platform lets companies start with basic software functions and then opt into the features they want, giving them advanced features plus simplicity on the go. ORCHA, Liverpool They say there's an app for everything, and when it comes to your health there may actually be thousands but how do you know which are safe and eff ective? ORCHA's Health and Care app store is the fi rst to let doctors prescribe apps to patients. JEETLY, London Described as 'Tinder for fashion', petite clothing brand JEETLY lets customers vote items IN or OUT of the next collection but what sets it apart is that it also off ers them credit for engaging. JimJam, Gateshead If you're fed up of waiting to get your neck pain or back injury looked at JimJam can help. The majority of physiotherapy consultations are as eff ective online as in person, so it connects users to physiotherapists via video call, off ering rehabilitation in a fast, simple and aff ordable way. SoulTek, Edinburgh Finding top tech talent in a digital skills gap is tough. SoulTek's 'little black box' of talent matches contractors and clients better than a human recruiter. It uses unique algorithms and machine learning, helping companies engage with tech-focused millennials. Footy Addicts, London Want a kickabout but don't know any fellow footy fans? Starting life as a Meetup group in 2009 and now with over 40,000 players, Footy Addicts is the fi rst open social platform to connect football addicts in the same city. Premier Punt, Aberdeen Until now, the millions of Fantasy Football fans out there have struggled to play for real cash. Premier Punt is the fi rst platform to combine Daily Fantasy Sports and betting, letting you place bets on teams without having to download any other apps. brightLET, Birmingham Moving house is hard enough, but brightLET cuts out the middleman that often complicates the lettings process. It connects landlords with their tenants and tradespeople off ering a fully automated, accessible and easy-to- use service. OLIO, London The average household throws out about 60-worth of food a month. OLIO is the only local community food sharing app that connects neighbours with each other, and with local shops and cafes, so that surplus food can be shared not thrown away. 31 @BCLOUDUK TECH 1STS PensionBee, London Pensions are both complicated and usually off er a very delayed payoff . PensionBee makes the whole process simple as the only online pension manager that brings old pensions into one plan on any device. PensionBee also wants to demystify pensions for a younger audience, with 65 per cent of its customers coming from Instagram and Facebook. Love the Sales, London Most retail sites have thousands of products on their site. Love the Sales has millions. To make sure customers can easily fi nd the products they need, the site's AI Retail Merchandising tool learns about the products then classifi es them to 99.9 per cent accuracy, doing work which would take humans years. Mimica, London How often do you end up binning out of date food? Planned to launch in early 2018, Mimica is developing Mimica Touch, a food expiry label made out of food by-products, to stop food waste. When the label is smooth the food is fresh, when it's bumpy it's not. Playrcart, London Watch a video and then buy the products in it with Playrcart's embeddable video player. For example, watch a fi lm trailer and immediately buy the cinema tickets directly within the trailer itself. Tamoco, London The Tamoco global proximity network connects the offl ine and online worlds, using the Internet of Things to off er location-based targeting to brands and advertisers. This means that brands can connect with their audience even when they're offl ine. PowerMarket, Oxford PowerMarket is on a mission to tackle climate change by letting everyone access sustainable energy. Its global solar map uses artifi cial intelligence and satellite data to let buyers assess whether anything from their roof, car park or farm is suitable for solar power in a few clicks. PubGuard, London Cracking down on 'adfraud', PubGuard identifi es advertising content which is either inappropriate or ineff ective to improve both the quality and impact of ads. It's the fi rst mobile-specifi c solution of its kind. Gnatta, Bury Really get to know your customer with Gnatta, the fi rst technology dedicated to engaging customers at the point of contact in an effi cient, cost-eff ective way. By analysing customer messages in real-time, it can also determine whether queries should be answered by a human operator, AI, or its own automated workfl ow system. The Language Pod, Harrogate Learn a language online without having to download any software. The Language Pod's live online language lessons let clients register for free via the website, choose a teacher, pay for and book a lesson at a time to suit them. Limitless Travel, Solihull For anyone who has a disability, or travels with someone who does, Limitless Travel's world-fi rst disability-aware online booking system opens up a whole world of holidays. It uses a smart questionnaire and machine learning to match people with holiday destinations suitable for their needs. Opun, Gatwick Opun is on a mission to untangle the complicated world of home improvements with the sector's fi rst end-to-end platform. It helps customers fi nd local contractors and manages projects from start to fi nish using its own certifi ed trade partners. Omnate, Birmingham Have several charities you care about but don't know which to choose? Non-profi t Omnate helps you donate to multiple causes at the same time. Tick the global causes you care about on the platform and enter a monthly budget to split between them it picks the best charity in the world for that cause. Join the discussion on #Tech1sts BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 33 @BCLOUDUK TECH 1STS Movem, Brighton The average time to reference a prospective tenant in the UK is one to two weeks Movem Passport is the world's fi rst instant tenant reference platform and costs 10, compared to the industry standard of 30-100. MYPINPAD, Cardiff Never worry about putting your PIN into an unknown device again with MYPINPAD's Merchant Trust Solutions & Consumer Trust Solutions. The tech is the fi rst to off er multi-factor authentication for unsecured devices. It cloaks your PIN as you enter it so it's not saved on, or seen by, the device as you shop on your mobile. The Debate App, Manchester A place where you can debate Brexit without the abuse or the pictures of cats The Debate App off ers a place for people to discuss the issues of the day. Users can upload opinions via text or video, and you can track the debate plus break down vital stats on what particular demographics think about key topics. yourfeed, London Dubbed 'LinkedIn for millennials', yourfeed wants to connect two million young people to job opportunities by 2020. With a full launch in November 2017, it allows them to showcase their skills and personality better than a traditional CV. DriverNet, St Helens Deliveries often take longer than they should thanks to things like incorrect information, unreliable GPS and blocked access. DriverNet brings logistics into the 21st century and reduces emissions by fast-tracking deliveries through pinpoint navigation and live customer alerts. Hello Soda, Manchester People get turned down for fi nancial services all the time when relying on information from traditional routes like credit reference agencies. Hello Soda's software thoroughly analyses all data to give more accurate scores, allowing for informed decisions in areas like credit risk. Cyber Coach, Bolton Learn two subjects in one with Emile Education's online games. Aimed at children between six and nine years old the games teach maths at the same time as a language, meaning kids learn the language in context. IntroStream, Manchester IntroStream's platform matches businesses to innovative tech services. It also lets companies post a 'challenge', asking for ideas from the community on how technology can help them. PROWLER.io, Cambridge Do you worry about putting your life or fortune in the hands of artifi cial intelligence? PROWLER is the fi rst principled AI decision-making platform, using mathematical principles to help companies' AI systems make smarter choices. It has recently received 10m investment. SEaB Energy, Southampton Make money from your waste products with SEaB Energy, which helps sites transform organic waste into electricity, heat, water and fertiliser with its easy-to- use, cost-eff ective FLEXIBUSTER. Cognitiv+, London With Brexit on the horizon many businesses are wondering how legislative changes will aff ect their business. Cognitiv+, an artifi cial intelligence platform that's demystifying legal documents, can help. It aims to allow businesses and law fi rms to gain better insights from their legal data minimising risks of mistakes or confusion. Now Healthcare Group, Manchester With the NHS overstretched, seeing a doctor can take weeks. Now Healthcare Group's app is the fi rst to off er video consultations with an NHS doctor and then deliver medicines to patients' doors with its integrated pharmacy solution. from beyond life, Manchester from beyond life gives you a chance to say goodbye to the ones you love after you die. Its platform lets users upload and store pictures and videos that loved ones can log in to watch after they pass away. Wonderful, Manchester Many people don't realise that when they raise money for charity a cut goes to the fundraising platform. Non-profi t Wonderful. org is the fi rst event fundraising website to ensure that charities receive 100 per cent of donations, thanks to corporate sponsors. GoInStore, London GoInStore's live video streaming app gives you the in-store shopping experience from the comfort of your home. It matches customers browsing online to the best sales assistant on the shop fl oor. The sales assistant can then demonstrate a product and talk the customer through their purchase. Join the discussion on #Tech1sts BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 34 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK REGIONS The buzz about BIRMINGHAM Katherine Lofthouse spent a day in the Midlands metropolis to fi nd out what the city's tech scene has to off er. First up on the Birmingham tour is the famous Custard Factory to meet Melissa Snover (pictured), a fast-talking American with infectious enthusiasm. Her innovative 3D-printing company Magic Candy Factory makes bespoke sweets to order but she's well known in the North West after selling her gelatine- free sweets business Goody Good Stuff to Cloetta when she was known as Melissa Burton. "When I set up this business I did loads of research about governmental programmes and the support available Nestled between London and the Northern Powerhouse, Birmingham is a city with a tech scene that's quietly on the rise. Shrugging off its reputation as the UK's automotive hub to focus on emerging tech, the area has serious potential with big banks to professional services firms and a whopping 18 universities calling the region home. MELISSA SNOVER Founder and head magician, Katjes Magic Candy Factory around the world to choose the best place to set up because the company involves so many important things like patents, R&D and specialist 3D-printing stuff ," says Snover. "I chose Birmingham for those reasons. The UK government has the best support programmes for R&D-based businesses in the world." Snover loves both the Custard Factory and the fact that the city has three universities with 3D printing degree programmes. This, she says, is a rarity anywhere in the world. "The whole feeling, ethos, energy of this area in particular is awesome," she says. "The cost of living is very low in comparison to London, and even Manchester, and the level of talent is insane. Birmingham is the Silicon Valley of the UK or at least it will be. All the start- ups are here, there are meetups every few days, there are cool networking events downstairs. All the businesses work together on projects I've never seen anything like it anywhere else." Snover believes the city is growing in the right direction, saying it reminds her of Brooklyn 'before it got expensive'. "You want to be in Brooklyn fi rst. London has Hoxton and Shoreditch but now it's not hipster anymore and it's crazy expensive," she says. "The only thing the city could do with is it doesn't have many co-working spaces. Sometimes you meet people in them that you end up working with so drop-in co- working spaces with a great coff ee place would be great. I think and hope Custard Factory will do something similar." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 35 @BCLOUDUK REGIONS Round the corner from Custard Factory and part of the Digbeth family is Fazeley Studios, home of Backface Studios a 3D design and scanning start- up that holds the Guinness World Record for the largest 3D-printed human. Founder Tim Milward (pictured above) was also TIM MILWARD Founder and 3D designer, Backface Studios One person who has grown up with the Birmingham tech scene is 23-year-old Jordan Beer, who started his digital marketing agency in the city at age 18. Basing his four-strong team in the Jewellery Quarter on the other side of town is a sign that this area is also up-and-coming. "A lot of people think of London as big but quite a lot of headquarters and large corporations are here and a load of small to medium businesses," he says. "There's loads of office space and the renovations are coming in. Birmingham is up-and- coming. There are lots of residential blocks being built so we're expecting a boom in population and because there are more people here and more money going through there's more to be had for businesses too." Innovation is at the heart of the city's future, says Beer, as well as the quality of life which could draw investment away from other cities. "Outside of London we're probably an innovation hub for tech," he says. JORDAN BEER Founder and managing director, SEO Silly "We've got cheaper costs, the same sort of internet speed there isn't the same backing as London but we've had US businesses come here and say 'we'd go to London but we want to come to Birmingham because you get more bang for your buck'. That's the big selling point for the city. And we like to think we're at least on par with London in terms of skills compared to cost and delivery." This allows the city to be the best of both worlds, says Beer. "We don't have to worry about being 'London fancy' or as straight talking as the North we get to be ourselves," he says. What the city needs now is more 'screaming and shouting', believes Beer. "We could do with big tech events happening here," he says. "We've got the NEC and a few bits and bobs here but never a big conference. Google opened the Digital Garage which is helping investment but why can't we have big Birmingham awards or a conference where tech businesses can go? If the government can make some money from a big exhibition it would help. It's the only thing missing because there are big players here." DAVID HARDMAN MBE CEO, Innovation Birmingham If Jordan Beer believes innovation is key to the city's future, David Hardman and his team at Innovation Birmingham a campus over the other side of the city in Faraday Wharf could be the answer he's waiting for. The hub is full to the rafters and only accepts innovative start-ups with digital at their core. "We've created a different community from the Custard Factory, which has been very successful but is for creatives and those that want to be in a cool space," says Hardman. "Our community is different and a city like Birmingham needs both." Next the city needs to pick a specialism to carve out an identity separate from the big cities that sandwich it from above and below. "Manchester has digital media, London's FinTech but Birmingham's never really had that ability to focus," says Hardman. "People don't come together anywhere. Over the next few years as digital starts to impact everything the real opportunity for Birmingham is that because it has a very broad base, especially in the engineering and manufacturing space, then digital engineering can come from it. If we can connect digital entrepreneurs with the legacy disciplines of the region it could be very exciting." Part of this is joining up the established businesses within the region to the start- ups to create change. Another is getting the combined authority area together. "I want to start looking at the Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton public sector structure and the opportunities there," he says. "There are five science parks within the region so I want to create a web of interaction between everything. The core cities outside London need to stop looking to London and look to each other for collaboration opportunities." drawn to the area and has found the collaboration it offers to be key. "Being in Fazeley Studios has been great," says Milward. "I was conscious when we started that I wanted to be around here because there's an abundance of start-ups and a community of people in the same boat doing different things. You can pop to reception and ask for a logo and someone will hook you up. There's a lot of collaboration and a lot of back scratching. It's a nice part of the tech world." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 37 @BCLOUDUK PITCH@PALACE Meet 14-year-old entrepreneurs who wooed royals Siena Jackson-Wolfe and India Garret-Cox's IoT fridge app, a food waste solution, started life as a school project in Bristol. A school tech project has royal approval after a pair of 14-year- old girls won the Duke of York's prestigious Pitch@Palace 8.0 competition with their Internet of Things fridge app. Bristol schoolgirls Siena Jackson-Wolfe and India Garret-Cox took top spot at St James' Palace after 11 tech start- ups pitched to a room full of influencers including CEOs, investors and mentors. Their Eat Me App connects a person's phone to their fridge, sending an alert when food goes off, and aims to tackle food waste. "Our app is an IOT solution to transform the relationship between the consumer and the amount of food they waste in their homes," Jackson-Wolfe told BusinessCloud before the successful pitch. Garret-Cox continued: "The app is connected to a scanner, which is secured inside your fridge. The scanner is portable it can be moved to the bread bin or a cupboard. You scan the product and the data is sent to the app and will alert you when it's about to go off. "It can also suggest recipes by looking at the contents of your fridge to make sure the carrots at the back of your fridge get used." The Eat Me App journey began in 2015, a year after the girls first met at Redland Green School. "We did it as part of National Science Week in school and we had a project at the beginning of year 8 where we had to design a solution to an environmental problem: we chose food waste as it's a problem affecting everyone," said Garret-Cox. "It's something we're really passionate about. "We then went to the Big Bang Fair, which is a competition where schoolchildren from around the UK pitch to judges. We won the UK junior engineers of the year award there. "To get to the competition in Birmingham we'd had to get support from local companies in Bristol WebStart, Engine Shed and Watershed. Our school didn't have the money to get us there." The eighth Pitch@Palace competition was themed 'the future of mobility and materials' and featured businesses exploring the impact that tech in the mobility and connectivity sectors can have on our everyday lives. "It was kind of spur of the moment to enter," said Jackson-Wolfe. "We weren't sure up to the last minute if we should enter or not: we didn't know whether our ages would be a problem. "We then arrived at the Pitch@Palace Bootcamp in T-shirts and jeans and everyone else was in suits. We were terrified but we had to try and sell our idea and show that our age shouldn't affect how they saw us." Garret-Cox added: "We arrived here in a taxi and got out at the palace that's insane! "But we're now looking to get food industry partners and investment to help make prototypes." Second place in the competition went to By Miles, a real-time pay-per-mile car insurer. Zap and Go, which is looking to improve charge time and battery life in the electric vehicle market, was third. The People's Choice Award, voted for by the public from the 43 finalists that took part in the Pitch@Palace bootcamp, went to QuitGenius, an app which uses cognitive behavioural therapy to help smokers quit. Entries for Pitch@Palace 9.0 themed on 'data, intelligence, and the future of security' are now open, with the pitching competition set to take place in April 2018. Boot Camp for entrepreneurs who get through the regional finals in Pitch@Palace 9.0 will be held at Manchester University on 13th March. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 42 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK GDPR The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect on May 25, 2018 but recent statistics suggest that the majority of organisations are still not prepared. Is it too late for your business? Mo Aldalou reports. Could your business cope with irreparable reputational damage and being fined 20m or 4 per cent of its worldwide annual turnover? If the answer is 'no' then you face a race against time to get ready for GDPR. The General Data Protection Regulation has been described as the most significant overhaul in data protection in a generation and in six months' time it becomes law. It is meant to hand control over personal data squarely back to private users - but the flip side is it places greater onus on businesses to ensure data security. Any company that holds or handles the personal data of EU citizens will be required to seek consent to store information and offer users additional rights, including Are you ready for GDPR? access and the 'right to be forgotten'. They will also be required to have a clear plan for managing data breaches and may even have to report the breach within 72 hours of discovering it. Some experts say it takes 18 months to become GDPR compliant so, with May 25 on the horizon, is it too late to get ready? KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON Nicola Frost, head of legal and company secretary at Manchester-based cloud hosting firm UKFast, believes most firms won't be compliant in time. "Yes, ideally you could have started six months ago but GDPR is more about a culture shift within your business when it comes to data protection," she says. "I'd guess that only 25 per cent of businesses will be truly compliant by May. "At the end of the day, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is going to look much more favourably on a business that's tried to put safeguards in place than ones that have done absolutely nothing." Kim Smouter-Umans, head of public affairs and professional standards at ESOMAR, the global association for insights and data, echoes that sentiment. "Not panicking is a really important first step," he says. "Data protection authorities have repeatedly said they don't intend to begin with enforcement action from May 25 and that they're planning to give some leeway as long as businesses can demonstrate that they're working towards a compliance programme which is effective and which meets all the requirements. "It's also important to understand that there's no expectation for an SME to have in place the same data protection measures as Microsoft or Apple would Breakfast event, Tuesday 12th December GDPR - are you ready? BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 43 @BCLOUDUK GDPR have. It's not a one size fi ts all and there's going to be a bit of judgement that needs to be made by each organisation to see what works and what doesn't work." Edward Whittingham (pictured top), managing director of the Business Fraud Prevention Partnership (BFPP), says companies shouldn't be panicked by "scaremongering" tactics. "GDPR shouldn't be feared, but embraced yes, it does need our immediate attention and no, it isn't going to be plain sailing but it is important and needn't be overly complicated." KNOW YOUR DATA A crucial step in preparing your business for GDPR is conducting a data audit i.e. understanding what information is coming into your organisation, what's leaving, who has access to it and for what purpose. Kate Lewis (pictured middle), head of privacy and data compliance at Chester- based identity data intelligence fi rm GBG, says it boils down to knowing your data. "All businesses need to be aware of the data they're collecting, where it comes from, what it's being used for, when it was last updated, where, how and why it's being stored and for how long, who has access to it and whether or not it's being passed on to any third parties," she says. Rob Sheldon, partner at law fi rm Fieldfi sher, says personal data isn't limited to names, addresses and marketing databases, but also covers cookies, IP addresses or IMEI numbers on devices. "Start to map your data: what do you collect, what do you use it for, who do you share it with and where does it go in the world? Once you've done that you can start to form a gap analysis. Then, get a project team up and running. This is not just a legal or compliance issue, or a case of giving it to in-house legal or external legal advisors." Emma Ball, senior associate at law fi rm Squire Patton Boggs, says data mapping' is a critical step for compliance. "Only when you understand what data you hold and what you do with it can you even begin to assess where you sit in terms of GDPR compliance and where you need to focus your eff orts between now and next May," she says. Whittingham says data can include everything from a CRM system, HR, fi nances, third-party SaaS platforms, emails, CCTV and marketing. ASSEMBLE A TEAM Building a multi-disciplinary team to be ready for GDPR isn't just the job of data scientists, according to Smouter-Umans. "It's also an issue for the HR department, the front desk, customer services it impacts diff erent roles within a company and accordingly the team that you build needs to refl ect that," he says. Chris Hunter, director at systems integrator and telecommunications specialist HM Network, agrees. "GDPR is not owned by one department like IT, HR or marketing - it is everyone's responsibility; one person dropping the ball could have consequences for the entire organisation," he explains. TRAIN YOUR TROOPS Christian Mancier is a corporate and commercial partner, as well as the data protection offi cer (DPO), at Stockport- based Gorvins Solicitors. He says the key for any organisation is staff training. By training employees and "hammering home the basics" from locking computer screens when away from your desk, encrypting data when taking it out of the offi ce on a portable storage device or creating unique passwords to log onto systems Mancier says a business can signifi cantly reduce the risk of those human error breaches. "Employees are often an organisation's most valuable asset; however, they also constitute one of its biggest risks as a signifi cant proportion of all data breaches are caused by simple human error, whether intentional or innocent," he says. "Any organisation can have the best written policies in the world; however, unless staff understand the implications of GDPR on the business (both fi nancial and reputational) and how that impacts on them in their day-to-day roles, organisations will always run the risk of falling foul of GDPR by simple human error." Kathy Fleming (pictured bottom), compliance manager at The Lead Agency, in Liverpool, says: "If an organisation is unlucky enough to have a data breach, one of the fi rst things that the regulator will want to know is if staff are trained." SPEAK TO YOUR CUSTOMERS Vibe Tickets, which is an open ticket marketplace where fans can buy and sell tickets, has worked hard to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to data protection. Founder and managing director Luke Massie tells BusinessCloud: "We are not in the business of ticketing; we are in the business of data." Lancashire-headquartered Vibe Tickets has just opened an offi ce in London and is currently reviewing every aspect of its business to ensure that it is in line with new legislations. According to CRM manager Doug Taylor, Vibe is UKFast Campus, Manchester M15 5QJ BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 44 GDPR BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK concentrating on three key areas: how historic data is handled, how it can help new users understand what data it asks for and why, and how it maintains that relationship with customers over time. "For any data that Vibe currently holds, we'll be reaching out to our users to clarify what we have and why/how it is used, and asking for permission to continue doing so," he says. "We believe our users will understand why we process the data that we do, but any user who doesn't want their data held and processed by Vibe should be able to easily request its removal. "For guiding new users through understanding what they're sharing with us, we're looking to develop our sign-up process to make it as clear as possible exactly what it means when a user presses the 'I agree' button. We're also planning on regularly reminding our users about what they're sharing with us." GET THE PROFESSIONALS IN Hunter (pictured) of HM Networksays nothing beats bringing in professional help. "We didn't think that GDPR would aff ect us that much as we're primarily a B2B business that doesn't deal directly with the public. How wrong we were," he says. "After spending a couple of months trawling the information available on the ICO site, we did what we could in-house but bit the bullet and sought professional help in a number of areas. Having a professional asking you questions helps you get a clearer picture of your own organisation." Following a visit by a data protection practitioner who interviewed key staff at the business, a 45-page risk assessment was produced. "It's really helped us prepare for our own readiness journey and prioritise what needs doing fi rst," Hunter says. COLLABORATE WITH CLIENTS AND PARTNERS James Sinclair is co-founder of EnterpriseJungle, which works with some of the biggest companies in the world including SAP, Lufthansa and HSBC. The company's HR solution helps large businesses manage alumni and retirees to increase talent pools and reduce internal costs. Sinclair says the fi rm was able to rely on the vast expertise of its customers and use their guidelines to build its own policies. "Given that GDPR leaves much to interpretation, and says that companies must provide 'reasonable' levels of protection for personal data, we were able to work with the in-house team of some of our large customers to defi ne what we collectively believed to be 'reasonable' when building our policies," he says. Hunter adds: "We've actually ended up terminating some agreements with businesses we work with who can't demonstrate that they're at least on the right road to compliance or that they've got any regard for it." Lewis of GBG says that true compliance can only be achieved through a collaborative and transparent approach with suppliers and customers. "The key to achieving GDPR is accountability, which requires training, awareness, clear processes and then ongoing monitoring to ensure we are doing the right thing. "In my view, it's only when the last third party you engage with achieves GDPR compliance that you can legitimately claim your business is GDPR compliant." REMEMBER, IT'S A JOURNEY Whittingham of the BFPP is urging businesses to look at GDPR as a journey and encourages them to adopt a step-by- step programme to help them achieve and maintain compliance. "There is no one piece of software, nor a one-off consultancy piece, that can assure compliance; instead GDPR requires work in all areas of a business whether that be reviewing current privacy policies and standards, identifying the diff erent types of data held and processed within the business, or even within your own marketing initiatives or supplier contracts," he says. "It is really important that businesses recognise there is no silver bullet for GDPR compliance, rather it requires ongoing attention and engagement to ensure you are meeting your requirements." Emma Ball of Squire Patton Boggs agrees. "It will require a reasonable amount of resource to identify the gaps in compliance and fi nd a solution in time for next May," she says. "Many of our clients have set up an internal working group to collate current procedures and practices and sign-off on any required changes to systems, procedures and processes." FACTFILE On December 12, 2017, BusinessCloud is holding a free event in Manchester entitled: "GDPR are you ready?" A panel of experts will be off ering advice on how you can become GDPR compliant. Details of how to register can be found on Eventbrite or the BusinessCloud website. UKFast has produced a free pocket guide to GDPR. The exclusive toolkit contains valuable resources and guides from industry experts to help support business in preparing for the GDPR. Details of how to order one can be found on UKFast's website and page 39. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 46 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK BIOHACKING Although most of us are more than comfortable with microchipping our pets, we're a bit more squeamish about inserting chips into our own bodies. Yet with a reported 10,000 Brits having been 'biohacked' to date, it is a trend to take note of. Steven Northam (pictured right) is founder of BioTeq, which carries out human tech implants. He has also been microchipped himself. The 33-year-old's background is in start-up investment, but he got the idea for BioTeq after hearing about the procedure in the press and realising there was a gap in the market. "I thought it was quirky and that there were interesting things you could do with the tech," he says. "Then I found a large market for assistive technology for disabled people and medical uses things we're keen to develop." Northam had his chip which is about the size of a grain of rice and fi ts between the thumb and forefi nger injected around a year ago and uses it to get into his house and start his car. He has no Would you get microchipped? With human microchip implants on the rise Steven Northam, founder of microchipping company BioTeq, put his money where his mouth is and got chipped himself. Katherine Lofthouse reports. regrets, saying the painless procedure took about 30 seconds. "I wouldn't say it's massively improved my life. I'm able-bodied so it's not a massive issue to carry a key but it's easier to get into the offi ce and house now," he says. "[But] imagine a person without hands or arms and the massive impact it has on their life." Northam's wife apparently thinks he's "barking mad" and instead carries the chip on a fob on her keyring. To date the company has implanted 34 clients. "Early next year the BBC's One Show is going to fi lm Alex Lewis, who lost both legs and arms, as we fi t a chip in his shoulder. This means things like his front door will open as he approaches. That's the real use of the tech." The company will also be looking at dementia so the elderly can carry all their information around with them without fear of losing it although Northam admits this does open up some ethical debates around consent. "We're looking at dementia care homes but the main market will be people getting to an age where they think losing their memory could be an issue," he says. "If they go wandering, we can work out who they are." As for other potential markets: "Imagine turning up to A&E unconscious and they scan your hand to get your medical record. Contactless payments are also getting a lot of interest." For anyone reading this and freaking out, Northam says that the chip is passive it doesn't transmit data and can be password protected and encrypted so only authorised people can access it. Another common fear is would-be burglars chopping off users' hands to get to their accounts. "To remove someone's hand is quite a task and if someone wants to break into my house or steal my car it's probably less eff ort to go through the window," says Northam. "Some of our market is high-net-worth individuals who want ultimate security: they don't want to carry keys that can be stolen. People don't know you've got the implant there's no way to tell." The company recently attempted a crowdfunding round which didn't hit its target. Part of the reason for missing the mark could be down to the older generation thinking it's too risky, says Northam. "It mostly comes down to demographics," he says. "Youngsters think it's awesome and would happily have it and older people think it's Big Brother watching you. "Give it 10-15 years and no one will blink an eyelid." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 47 @BCLOUDUK XXXXXX XXXX Christmas naturally has quite a climactic feel to it. If, like me, you've got young children, you'll know that the bubbling excitement of the impending arrival of you-know-who is infectious. But it's not just the kids who should get to enjoy it. I see this time of the year as the crescendo of all the exciting gadgets that have been released into the market. So, for all the big kids among us, here are my top picks for the gadget lover in your house. Amazon Key: eCommerce has changed the Christmas shopping experience for the better, but the one remaining flaw in the plan is when the package arrives and you're not home (and neither are your neighbours). So you have to go out and get it anyway. Step forward Amazon Key. Utilizing their Cloud Cam along with a new app, Amazon Key allows a courier to get into your house and leave your delivery nice and safe, while notifying you that it has happened and recording the whole thing for your security. Maybe in the future Father Christmas will retire the chimney routine for this new way. Sphero: These small robotic spheres look like a lot of fun and will no doubt attract a lot of attention, especially with their resemblance to (and upcoming range of merchandise of) Star Wars' BB8. Sphero can be controlled with your phone, tablet and even the movement of your face. But what excites me the most is that you can programme your Sphero with javascript. No doubt the developers at Purple will have an army of them running COLUMN: GADGET GAVIN PUTTING THE GADGET INTO CHRISTMAS riot in the office before long. Magni-viewer: I'm constantly on the lookout for tech that lightens the load when I'm travelling. And as my kids grow up and need more entertaining, I think this one is going to come in very handy. The Magni-viewer is designed to magnify the screen on your smartphone to make it twice the size, perfect for watching films or TV on the move. Beeline Smart Bike Compass: Sat Nav and Google Maps have worked wonders in helping out the habitually lost and getting them to the right place. But what do you do if you haven't got a window to stick it to or a hand to hold it in? Working with your smartphone, where you can enter your destination, this gadget gives you everything you'd expect from a sat nav, while sitting on your handlebars and using a simply styled arrow to point you in the right direction. VR headsets: Virtual reality has come a long way since the Lawnmower Man gave us a glimpse into the future (or at least we thought it did at the time), and along with another personal favourite, augmented reality, looks set to continue to grow in popularity. Whether it's in conjunction with your game console, your phone or even one of the lower spec children's games, the headsets are becoming increasingly pervasive. Smartphone Projector 2.0: We've already looked at something that doubles the size of your smartphone screen, but what do you do if you want to go that little bit bigger? It has retro stylings and is made out of cardboard, but it can project your smartphone and magnify to eight times the size to give you a cinematic experience at a fraction of the price of high end projectors. SNES Classic Mini: This might not represent the bleeding edge of technological advancement these days, but having sold over two million in the first month, Nintendo seem to have timed the release perfectly (having done something similar with the NES Classic Mini last year). It's smaller than it used to be (and not just because we've all grown a fair bit since we last had one), and you don't need to use cartridges as the games (20 in all) are built into the system, including Zelda, Super Mario World and Final Fantasy. All of which will sweep you back to the early 90s when the original Super Nintendo was released. With Christmas shopping in full swing, self-confessed geek Gavin Wheeldon looks at what's hot in the world of gadgets. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 48 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK SOCIAL MEDIA What can we believe on social media? Social media influencers can have millions of followers, making them a ripe market for advertisers but recent headlines have shown it can be hard for fans to know when they are being sold to. Katherine Lofthouse reports. With TV it's obvious when you're getting the hard sell on a brand of washing up liquid, but it's not always as clear on social media. Social media influencers users with authority in an area who often have large followings are becoming a vital part of brands' advertising strategies as they look to hit a younger, engaged audience. However, this can make it hard to know when something's an ad and when it's genuine opinion. Shabnum Mustapha (pictured top) is media and public affairs manager at the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). She says that there are already clear rules in place for advertisers, which also translate onto social media. "If you've gone into a commercial relationship with a brand and they're controlling what you say, that's an ad," she says. "If they're not controlling what you're saying it's not an ad. Even if they've sent you a freebie or paid you it's editorial opinion and you've nothing to worry about." Ads need to be easily identifiable to avoid followers having to 'play detective', says Mustapha. It's also in the best interest of the influencers who've worked hard to create a connection with followers. However the ASA doesn't get a significant number of complaints about influencers, says Mustapha. When they do get flagged the responsibility falls with the advertiser, although influencers need to be aware. "The brand or talent and PR agencies are the ones that should know better," she says. "But there is also a responsibility for the influencer, especially if they've been around a while." However Andrea Cheong (pictured bottom), a luxury lifestyle blogger called The Haute Heel with nearly 23,000 followers on her @fleurandrea Instagram account, believes this is genuinely the reason some influencers get caught out. "Young girls start taking selfies on Instagram then get followers and realise they can make money," she says. "They don't go into it from a business mindset. Even for those doing it more professionally the guidelines can be quite blurry, whereas in the US the approach is always 'just put #ad on it'." Cheong says what the product is and how the brand interacts with her are factors in choosing who she works with. "If someone sends something and I post it it's because I genuinely want to," she says. "I've made it extremely clear as soon as you tell me how to photograph something or what to say that's an ad and you have to pay, but 80 per cent of brands are happy to let me do my thing." The fact that many influencers will only endorse brands they already like may be one reason followers don't mind influencers doing paid-for content. "There's data showing millennials and Gen Z don't care if something's an ad because they already expect it," Cheong adds. Rohan Midha is MD of digital influencer marketing agency PMYB. He says there are tools coming from tech platforms that will identify when something is an ad, much like Instagram's 'paid partnership' button. He also believes being sparing with paid-for content is a benefit to influencers. "We've identified a new type of super- influencer called a 'chromo-influencer'," he says. "They're in the top three per cent because they rate highly against 46 different factors, including whether they endorse brands all the time. We're after real influence it's not just about reach." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 49 @BCLOUDUK Is presenting your Former BBC presenter and host of The Krypton Factor Gordon Burns shares his top tips for presenting to an audience. As the former presenter of North West Tonight and cult gameshow The Krypton Factor Gordon Burns spent 40 years in front of a camera. At BusinessCloud's recent 'Learn to present in one morning' event he shared his top tips with the audience. The first and most important point is preparation says Burns. "If I had to make a speech I'd stand in the shower and didn't get out until I'd delivered it to the shower wall perfectly," he said. "There's no substitute for speaking the presentation out loud. You can read it to yourself but never get same feel for it or even get it to the right length." When researching a presentation it's important not to rely too much on specific websites especially if they're not as fool-proof as many might think. "I'd never take anything on Wikipedia as fact," he said. "I was constantly telling reporters on North West Tonight to stop relying on it. Anyone can put anything on there and it's not necessarily true. It had me down as dead a few years ago. They said I'd died in an ambulance on the way to hospital and I'd just gone to Cornwall for a week. Double check anything on there." When it comes to designing a perfect opening line Burns gives a lesson from his school years. "When I was at school we had a history teacher whose motto was 'don't be dull be different'," he said. "He said to imagine we were a history examiner who had to read hundreds of essays that all start the same way 'the French Revolution began in 1789 and ran for 10 years'. Then you get one that says 'the boulevards of Paris echoed with the sound of the guillotine and the gutters ran with blood'. That first line makes you sit up. "It's the same in journalism and presentation. If you get them in the first paragraph hopefully they will stay with you. If you've lost them it's hard to get them back. Start with a joke, a mind-blowing statistic, or some other quotation that will make people sit up. The first paragraph is key and the last is important. Statistics show people remember more from the last paragraph than any other." Kryptonite? Is PowerPoint dead? Buffalo 7 CEO Lyndon Nicholson tells us how to give PowerPoint a new lease of life We've all sat through mind-numbing speeches where presenters read straight off the slides. But for specialist UK PowerPoint agency Buffalo 7 who works with the likes of Honda, Boots and M&S it's not too late to save the Microsoft Office staple from dying a very dull death. At BusinessCloud's recent 'Learn to present in one morning' event, the company's CEO Lyndon Nicholson told us why PowerPoint is very much alive and kicking it's just up to users to make sure they're making the most of it. "The average office worker spends more time-face-to-face with Microsoft Office every week than they do with their significant other," said Nicholson. "There are 30 million PowerPoints given every day and it's a fantastic storytelling tool. The days of linear presenting are numbered people don't want to sit there and go through a deck of 50 slides. What we want to see people do is present in a way that works well for their audience. Make your presentation far more interactive, which can also help cross selling and upselling." Old features like video and new features like morph transition changing one thing into another to show how something looks on different devices and 3D modelling massively improve a presentation when used in the right way. "Giving the audience the impression you've created a video just for them makes them feel really special," said Nicholson. Learn to present in 10 top tips Does getting up in front of people strike fear into your heart? BusinessCloud's recent 'Learn to present in one morning'event asked experts from a range of fields for their hard-won advice. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 50 TELL A STORY To keep the audience gripped it's vital to turn your presentation into a story. One person who knows the value of this medium is Buffalo 7's head of storytelling Chris Tomlin (pictured above, right). "Any content or data needs to be structured in a way that's engaging for the audience and storytelling works extremely well," he said. "People want to feel emotions and ideally have a happy ending. There's a way of crafting literally any information into a story. Any good story has heroes and villains and needs to flow in a clear logical manner. If halfway through your story there's a three minute video it can jar the audience. It's better to inject small parts of video that are very relevant." KNOW WHY YOUR AUDIENCE IS THERE Knowing what your audience wants to get out of the day is important says serial entrepreneur, investor and ex-Dragons' Den contestant Steve Purdham. "When you do any presentation ask why are you doing it and what are you trying to do," he said. "You have to position that 'why and what' not just for yourself but for the audience. Learn about them why are they there? What are they trying to do? They want somebody to believe in. "It's also important that you ask the question. A lot of people go 'here's the business plan' and then leave. Martin Luther King didn't have a plan, he had a dream. That's more powerful than any plan and that's the difference between telling someone something and telling a story. But you have to ask the question at the end 'are you going to invest? Are you going to buy?'. A lot of people miss that out." PRESENTATION BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK Learn to present in 10 easy steps PREPARATION IS KEY This point was raised by almost all of the speakers at the event. Ex- Dragons' Den contestant Gavin Wheeldon (pictured above, left) of Purple summed it up. "Preparation, preparation, preparation," he said. "You're up there for 90 minutes and they're looking for 8-10 minutes to edit. They're looking to trip you up but I knew everything they asked. I knew the numbers better than an accountant, I knew the market inside out. No matter what they threw at me I knew the answer and I believed in what I was doing so I talked with feeling, depth and belief." INJECT YOUR PERSONALITY There is no such thing as the perfect presenter says Wayne Silver of marketing agency One-so make it your own. "Everyone's presentation style is different," he said. "That's what the audience or prospect want to see they don't want to see a robot in front of them, they want to enjoy the experience. Try to make sure you inject your personality." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 51 @BCLOUDUK BELIEVE IN YOURSELF It's easy to feel like everyone's waiting for you to mess up and that you're totally alone onstage but that isn't the case says the public face of easyJet Ali Gayward. "Believe in yourself, that's really important," she said. "Also you're a human being, no one in the audience is setting you up to fail. They really want you to be successful and the reason you're there is because you've got something interesting to say and they are there to listen to that. It doesn't matter if you make a mistake." GIVE AN 'AHA' MOMENT In many presenting scenarios especially when pitching for investment it's important to show where you can add value says Purple founder and Secret Millionaire contestant Wheeldon. "Everyone's coming in with the same story the features and benefits of their business and why they're different," he said. "They need an 'aha' moment. You need to teach them something they don't already know. They need to know you're going to bring more than just the service and that you'll take them on a journey. If you can come in with more knowledge than they've got and teach them something so everyone sits back and goes 'I never thought of that' then they see a partner not a supplier." BE SELF-AWARE Once you're aware of your personal brand it's important to know how you come across and take steps to address that if necessary says Hiring Hub founder Simon Swan. "I'm not naturally an energetic speaker so I've had to be a bit more self-aware, but I also want to be authentic," he said. "If people are going to trust you they have to know that it is you. I sometimes address that in meetings and say 'I'm very passionate but I'm not going to be running around the room'. It manifests in very different ways." KEEP SOME PERSPECTIVE Along similar lines is advice from ex- Apprentice contestant and The Link App founder Lauren Riley. "I'd worked really hard to build a career for myself so when I was on the show I was always focused on that," she said. "Even though they make it feel like life and death and it would be fabulous to win actually I have a life, I have a career, I have something to be proud of outside of this scenario. Nothing that happens in the boardroom can compromise that. Be true to yourself." THINK ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL BRAND Most people don't realise they're presenting their own brand all day every day, especially with the rise of social media, says UKFast marketing director Kristina McGuirk. "Personal branding is really important for any business to understand," she said. "Every person has a personal brand it's the perception you put out there. People judge a business based on the leader's brand." NUDGE PEOPLE IN A CONSTRUCTIVE WAY It's important to remember that even something like sending a press release is a way of presenting your business, and that it's important to build good relationships with the media says former newspaper editor David Helliwell of Helliwell Media. "A lot of firms don't get what catches the media's eye," he said. "You need something different and unusual and to get good stories out to the media in different ways. Most newsrooms get 300-400 press releases a day so have literally seconds to decide if something will appeal to their audience. If you're following up a press release be subtle. Ask 'is there something else I can help you with, or a way to make it more appealing?'" PRESENTATION SPONSORED BY Buffalo 7 BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 52 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Utter the words 'artifi cial intelligence' these days and the conversation will quickly turn towards whether machines will replace human-held jobs. Automation is transforming the manufacturing sector while chatbots are being increasingly used to deliver customer service, prompting Bank of England governor Mark Carney to warn that 15 million UK jobs are under threat from AI and robotics. American retailer Wal-Mart even rolled out shelf-scanning robots to more than 50 of its stores recently. However it was at pains to explain that the two-foot-tall Dalek-like machines would not replace human employees, who are able to use the data to stock shelves and fi x errors Will machines put you out of a job? As artifi cial intelligence advances at a rapid rate there are fears that millions of us could be literally made redundant. But as Jonathan Symcox reports, AI is far from a black and white issue and has great potential for business and society at large. more rapidly than they would otherwise be able to. AI evangelists argue that softer skills will come to the fore as more tedious duties are taken over transforming the employment landscape. Adam Hosker, head of commercial (North) at managed IT services fi rm Littlefi sh and a former contestant on The Apprentice, told our breakfast event on AI held at Manchester's Entrepreneurial Spark Powered by NatWest and in conjunction with Pro- Manchester that the bulk of jobs today are "mind- numbingly boring". "They're making us into machines," he said. "If you work in a call centre then you've got a script to follow there's no real creative thought happening. "Look at what happened when cash machines came in: there was a big concern that all the bank branches would close down, but the jobs simply changed and became a bit more interesting. The people who were dishing out cash before began selling mortgages and advising customers." The change will not happen by itself, according to Richard Potter, CEO of Manchester-based data analytics fi rm Peak, which is placing a greater focus on Glyn Powditch top, and Andrea Perizzato. How will AI impact jobs? BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 53 @BCLOUDUK ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE " I firmly believe that most jobs will be replaced by tech and we need to really encourage young people into a tech career path, especially girls." SAM COLEY (l-r) Angie Ma, Luke Grimes and Sam Coley. AI and machine learning after securing 2.5m in Series A funding in September. "I think we're a long way from a general AI capability, if ever. We shouldn't be worried about adopting it," he said. "But we need it to be coupled with a wider economic and industrial strategy which develops skills in young people and retrains workers so that people can concentrate on the creative jobs, the jobs that you can't automate." Rob McCargow is the AI programme leader for professional services giant PwC's UK operation. He was ranked as the 38th most influential person in AI in the world by Onalytica in a list which placed a focus on Twitter engagement. That puts him one place above Garry Kasparov, chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, who famously played IBM supercomputer Deep Blue in two chess matches in 1996 and 1997. The second of those matches marked the first time an AI had defeated a reigning world champion at chess. McCargow said that AI needs a human touch if it is to change our lives for the better. "We have to embrace this technology because of the benefits it offers in terms of economic growth, the ability to drive diagnostics in healthcare and to liberate and simplify our lives. "However we have to do this on our own terms there is a need for a human purpose to be at the heart of this. My concern, from a dignity point of view, is the language we use talking about jobs. There is a lot of benefit there in terms of replacing risky jobs such as climbing up electricity pylons or mining but jobs do provide a purpose in people's lives. "We have to be very sensitive about that and ensure the benefits of the tech are spread equitably across all parts of society." CHATBOTS Events comparison site TickX launched a search engine chatbot this summer. The AI answers questions instantly about more than 125,000 events in the UK, Ireland and Spain, providing users with intelligent recommendations. Sam Coley is co-founder of the start- up and turned down offers of investment on BBC Dragons' Den before raising 925k from Ministry of Sound & 24 Haymarket. He believes advances in AI- driven technologies could soon put a lot of lawyers and doctors out of a job. "Parents and society as a whole are still pushing the brightest students to be doctors and lawyers. AI is going to destroy a good chunk of lawyers soon enough, and maybe doctors a little bit further down the line," he said. "I firmly believe that most jobs will be replaced by tech and we need to really encourage young people into a tech career path, especially girls. The more 'hardcore' areas AI, machine learning and programming are massively male-dominated and that's not good for the industry as a whole." App developer Dreamr has built a chatbot which could have obvious benefits for society at large. CTO Andrea Perizzato said the bot, which it integrated into intelligent assistant platforms like Amazon's Alexa, was a "test bed to gain knowledge". "We collected a bunch of public data on crime rates in San Francisco and trained the network on it," he explains. "We could then predict the likelihood of a crime happening in a specific place and time in the future." 'Alexa, is it safe to go to Shoreditch right now?' might seem like an application of the future, but London-based ASI Data Science is already using AI to improve life in the capital. COO and founding partner Angie Ma said: "We've done a project with the London fire brigade where we optimise the staffing of fire engines. Unless you have firemen with all the right skills, you can't actually go out [when an emergency call comes in]. "Looking to the future, what about the 80-year-old lady crossing the road? The Host Chris Maguire interviews Richard Potter. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 54 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE traffic light could identify her age and give her longer to cross. Our mission is to help everyone to benefit from AI it shouldn't be the privilege of a few large companies on the West Coast of the US." BIG DATA People, businesses and devices have become data factories pumping incredible amounts of information on to the internet each day. According to an IBM Marketing Cloud study, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day 90 per cent of the data currently in the world has been created in the last two years alone. The potential for business is obvious and firms should begin collecting data now even if they don't currently have a use for it, according to Luke Grimes, co-founder of software development studio Webantic. "Businesses should harness it for future use. You don't need a massive data set to leverage artificial intelligence, but the more data you have, the better the insight," he said. "There are so many applications in business today which can transform processes, such as cashflow forecasting, stock control and customer service chatbots." Such is the potential for data-driven gains that Potter claims Peak, which operates a subscription-based service and has a base in Jaipur, India, could become a $1bn business. "A customer of ours has 2.7m registered users and make their money selling services to those customers," he explained. "They have a big database of those customers and their behaviours. "Our AI streams all that data into Peak. We lead-score those customers, give them a ranking from one to four, then push that score back to their CRM system. Their marketing and sales teams then concentrate on those with the highest propensity to buy. Their revenues went up 27 per cent in the first week. "The efficiency of the workforce also went up by 35 per cent because the AI was able to tell when people were likely to answer the phone and also to buy, so they were able to staff the call centre around that. They won twice." Dream Agility, based in the Lancashire town of Ramsbottom, is a machine learning adtech platform which is one of the fastest-growing Google Premier partners and has opened offices around the world. "We have a client in Australia called Princess Polly, which is like Missguided," CTO and co-founder Glyn Powditch told the audience. "Their product churn is so fast that a lot of the time it isn't able to learn anything from the data it gathers. "We're able to tell them which clothing sizes are selling best and which are costing them money on Google Shopping without generating much in sales. We then use machine learning to optimise, optimise and optimise." He added: "In Australia and South Korea the decision-making process seems to be so much faster than the UK. In Europe the economic growth rates are not particularly great compared with Asia, which is flying." GLOBAL RACE PwC research has predicted that AI could be worth an extra $15.7bn to the global economy by 2030, with the UK in line to generate an extra 232bn 10 per cent of GDP if it competes with leading markets such as China and North America. McCargow says start-ups could be key to unlocking its true potential. "The UK is talking about bolstering Masters courses and getting 200 more PhDs. If we can significantly develop our talent, provide access to data and create the right environment, it gives us a fighting chance to retain and grow our global prestige. "But China, for example, has twice as many people online as the US that gives them a significant amount of data to train AI on. "We have a competitive global picture on AI emerging and we have to move apace to grab this opportunity to drive significant growth." Audience at Manchester's Entrepreneurial Spark Powered by NatWest. Rob McCargow, top, and Adam Hosker. The $100 billion question The global market for video games is bigger than movies. Jonathan Symcox reports on an industry transformed by mobile and VR and the resurgent development scene in the North West. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 58 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK GAMING Technology has transformed the video games industry beyond recognition because of the infl uence of mobile, virtual reality and brand names. The UK has been at the forefront of the games scene since the Sinclair Spectrum's 1980s heyday, when adults and schoolchildren alike made cash and headlines from their bedroom coding. Fast-forward to the present day and console games using 3D graphics are now capable of movie-like visuals but the size of the teams and budgets needed to make them has grown exponentially. London is home to 673 studios and publishers, the largest number operating in the UK today, with the North West hosting 198. There are 2,182 active games companies in the UK in all. "The North West is the biggest area of games development outside of London," Simon Smith, a veteran developer now leading development at Manchester start-up Desk Dragons Interactive, told our event focused on the area's games scene at the Foundry Film Studio in Salford. "Just like other places known for making games like Dundee it comes down to one thing: rain! It keeps us indoors and messing about on computers, making games, 3D models and coding." Young developers looking to crack the industry have increasingly turned to mobile as smartphone games off er a throwback to the days of simple games made by small teams. Greg Robinson, now an advisor at Boomdash Digital based in Manchester's Sharp Project has been involved in publishing hit mobile games from the pre- smartphone era to the present day. "There's been a general laziness with the North West games industry," he said. "The community is now driven by the people who fell out with the large studios such as Psygnosis, Activision, Acclaim and Bizarre Creations. "Rage, Warthog and Activision have all gone, while EA left Warrington and Sony downsized at Liverpool. The number of talented people is just enormous, but over time those Is gaming sector North West's best-kept secret? BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 59 @BCLOUDUK GAMING studios have been lost without people paying too much care and attention to it. "We started Boomdash out of a desire to have a publisher in the North West which could help the development community: they shouldn't need to go to London or San Francisco to get their game published. The fact that it's getting attention now and coming back is a good thing." The mobile market is now saturated with releases but that has not stopped Playdemic, a studio in Wilmslow, Cheshire, from releasing a string of hit games. After attracting millions of players to games such as Village Life, it developed Golf Clash before being bought by TT Games part of Warner Bros. earlier this year. The game, which generated $1 million in in-app purchases in a single day on July 4th, is advertised on the sleeves of Premier League club Burnley this season and scooped Best Game of 2017 at the prestigious TIGA Awards. Its CEO Paul Gouge said: "We're all trying to find that alchemy that single moment which captures people's attention and continues to deliver. The games industry is a $100 billion global business, second only to TV in terms of entertainment. It's growing more quickly than almost any other entertainment form. It's not a curiosity it's massively significant. "It's encouraging to see the indie scene really bubbling up and starting to get some critical mass again. The emergence of publishers like Fabrik Games and Boomdash Digital is what we need. "We're starting to see the middle ground reappear between the top publishers and the smaller projects. The industry needs all levels of investment and product to thrive." Arthur Parsons is head of design at TT, which now works exclusively upon LEGO games. He said: "We don't take ourselves too seriously; we just concentrate on trying to make the most fun experience. LEGO gives you that chance across the various franchises." Fabrik, based in the Sharp Project, was started by industry stalwarts Si Donbavand and Graeme Ankers three years ago. Donbavand was previously a development director for Sony PlayStation, looking after several studio teams, and also ran 'games and playful' for the BBC for almost two years. Fabrik developed and published its first title, Filthy Lucre, for PlayStation 4 and PC platform Steam in 2016. "It's basically if Guy Ritchie did a video game get in, do a heist, get out, don't get killed!" is how development director Donbavand describes it. "Success is relative in this industry," he said. "The games industry model of sales is a bit broken: games developers tend to need to sell X number of units to break even, which means you can cover your investment; you then need to make X number of sales more to eat and make another game; and then we'd like to make some profits so we can buy a yacht and a private island!" Painting a roulette analogy, he added: "Generally speaking, you never really get to break even because you spend a ton of money up front, you put it all on 'black 12' and hope that enough people are going to buy your game. "For us, success is I'm still making games this year and that's the way I've looked at it since 1996." Fabrik has taken indie studio Odd Bug under its wing. Formed by three graduates from Norwich University of the Arts, Fabrik released its first game 'The Lost Bear' on PlayStation VR recently. CEO Jack Bennett (pictured on opposite page) said Manchester's "booming indie dev scene" was a big pull and helped with the development of its dark cinematic platformer. The main thing was getting funding. You can have the best idea in the world, but if you can't sell that idea and get the money to make it, you can't make it," he continued. "Having someone that believes in your idea, like Si and Graeme have with us, is key." Smith, who is also chair of games industry network Gameopolis, agrees: "The video games industry traditionally has difficulty connecting with potential investors even though we are one of the largest and most profitable creative sectors in the UK." Filthy Lucre. The Lost Bear. Golf Clash. Sponsored by creators of Golf Clash BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 60 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK GAMING PlayStation released its VR system, which works with the PlayStation 4, in October 2016 and rapidly took the lion's share of the virtual reality entertainment market. By June it had sold a million headsets while it has now sold more than ten million games for the device. Paul Rustchynsky, who is leading development of a new racing franchise Onrush for legendary games studio Codemasters, developed a PSVR version of his previous game DRIVECLUB. "I'm a big fan of VR, but it's a very diff erent platform. All the rules and lessons you've learned in making games over the years you throw out the window. It's a whole new way to make games," he said. "It's still very much in its infancy and year-on-year, as the technology improves and designers get better at working with the hardware, we'll see more and more amazing experiences. In the long-term, it's going to be one of the major ways to play games." PlaygroundSquad is a Swedish game development school which trains up students and apprentices, using cutting edge technology such as VR, with a view to them entering the industry. It opened its fi rst UK base in the Sharp Project in 2013 after becoming impressed by the Manchester games scene. Clayton Carpenter, programming supervisor of the UK operation, is a former student of PlaygroundSquad himself. "The way we work is project-based rather than theory: we learn what we need to know to make games," he said. "If you put the time in to learn, it's very easy to go out there and get a job. The industry is more or less scraping for competent people right now." However the skills learned in making games are increasingly being transferred across industries, according to Mike Hayes, digital lead for investment group Mercia Technologies, who says there are thousands of talented and frustrated developers around the country looking to broaden their horizons. In a separate interview, he said: "Forecasts for 2025 show that the VR market will be worth something like $35 billion but probably only a third of that will be around games. I believe the other two- thirds will be driven by the skills of these games engineers, who are very good at engaging people. "To look around a World War One trench in VR is motivating, but not wholly educational you've got to draw people in, take them on an interactive journey then surprise them so they go back again. We're seeing a terrifi c amount of this at the moment in training, education, health and the military." There is also a real opportunity for brands to use games to engage with customers, says Cari Kirby, marketing manager for Sheffi eld-based Team Cooper. The studio develops HTML5 games which people can play online. Its latest off ering, Capital Conga, sees a ferry captain collecting passengers from the streets of Dutch capital Amsterdam into a conga line before the ferry leaves. Enticing players back with the prospect of winning an Apple Watch, it was played a massive 225,000 times by more than 14,000 people in the two weeks after launch. "We've been working with DFDS Seaways for about seven years," she said. "One of the things we have to consider is that these games have a purpose, they're not there just to have a bit of fun with they need to either drive people to the website or capture data and get people to sign up to special off ers." (l-r) Simon Smith, Paul Rustchynsky, Si Donbavand and Arthur Parsons watch trailer for LEGO Ninjago Movie video game. (l-r) Cari Kirby, Paul Gouge and Greg Robinson. " The way we work is project-based rather than theory: we learn what we need to know to make games." CLAYTON CARPENTER BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 61 @BCLOUDUK REGIONS How to save a life in 280 characters or less Social media might seem like the last bastion of selfi es and celebrities but Echosec UK is quietly using it to save lives. Where do you go when there's a big breaking news story? When the awful news of the Manchester Arena bombing broke in May, there's a good chance that Twitter was your fi rst port of call for information. The platform may have been hijacked by politicians, C-list celebrities and companies trying to sell you things but one Cardiff -based company is using its software to put social media to good use. 27-year-old Ben Milsom is MD of Echosec UK. He believes that social media plays a bigger role in a crisis than most people realise. "People go to social media before going to the police," he says. "In October 2014 there was an attack on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada. We were asked to deploy our system to identify the movements of the gunman. We had a good idea of what the person looked like and the weapon used, so the police could use that to inform their tactics." The attack proved Echosec's salt, and three years later the business has grown to several hundred clients in more than 70 countries, with 15 employees to its name. " We currently pull information from 10 diff erent social media sources so we have to constantly manage API access to all the diff erent platforms." Echosec zones in on social activity in particular areas to fi nd out what's happening from the people in the heart of the action. By focusing on what's being posted in a specifi c location, it's able to fi lter out all of the noise from other areas. For example, if you were searching for the phrase 'Manchester Arena' on 22nd May, the biggest percentage of posts would have been from people around the world commenting on the attack, not from those actually at the Arena. Other successes include identifying the missile used to shoot down Malaysian airlines fl ight MH17, winning an award for saving the life of a school pupil in Canada and identifying bomb threats at high- profi le celebrity events. Proving its diversity, the tech was also used to monitor the Champions League fi nal in Cardiff earlier this year and is now moving into the retail space, allowing advertisers to locate clients near them. "There's an obsession for people to get the fi rst photo," says Milsom. "We saw it with the attacks on Westminster we were fi nding information and pulling up posts which were then turning up on the BBC feed." While it might have multiple benefi ts, the fast-paced world of social media also brings many challenges to the young business. "We currently pull information from 10 diff erent social media sources so we have to constantly manage API access to all the diff erent platforms," says Milsom. Add to that the rapid rise and fall from favour of the diff erent platforms themselves and it means the team has to be constantly monitoring both their systems and the wider social media environment. Of course, social media users don't see the hefty work going on behind the scenes of Echosec's heroics but, as the company continues to prove its worth, they could ironically become its biggest problem. The more coverage Echosec has, the higher the likelihood of social media users realising they are the company's oblivious 'reporters' on the ground. "We're drawing a box over, say, Cardiff to see people posting in the area," says Milsom. "Even though people are sharing these things openly they don't necessarily know who's looking at it. At the moment we're still good to go but that may become trickier and we'll have to adapt. "What's that saying if there's a free service you're probably the product?" For those that aren't keen on this idea, the solution is simple but unlikely to be popular. "If you don't want to be part of it then realistically you probably shouldn't be on the internet," says Milsom. "That's just the way it works at the moment but there are big changes happening and the GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation coming in May 2018] will have a big impact too." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 62 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK REGIONS Boosting employee morale with tech Meet DevOpsGuys the company that will revolutionise your employees' happiness while they revolutionise your tech. Katherine Lofthouse reports. Cardiff-based IT development and operations expert DevOpsGuys are on a mission to be a 100m turnover business within the next five years. While this might sound like pie in the sky for a company that's only been around for four years, CEO James Smith says their approach of going into companies and helping them get up to speed with technology is proving hugely popular. DevOpsGuys counts government departments and blue chip businesses among its main clients including household names like Admiral, BAE Systems, Waitrose and Travelodge. However Smith says the benefit of what they do goes far beyond any tech. "Employees say 'I enjoy coming to work again'," he explains. "It's probably the most fulfilling element of my job. In one company they did a big employee satisfaction survey across several hundred staff who were involved in these new working practices and their satisfaction rates went from about 33 per cent to well over 70 per cent in 18 months." The DevOpsGuys' mindset is to bring technology to businesses so it acts as a catalyst to do things they haven't been able to do before. "You're giving the smart people inside the business a lot more autonomy to make decisions and get them empowered with their work," says Smith. "It's moving away from 'command and control, you shall do this' to 'how are we going to solve this problem?' It's about simplifying processes in a lot of instances." Having gone from a team of two to over 85 in just four years themselves, Smith is keen to make sure that DevOpsGuys are creating an environment as positive for their own employees as the ones they create in other businesses. "I have three kids under seven so it's important to get a balance," he says. "My learning journey there has helped me distil that into the business. Our team start between eight and nine each day and by 5.30pm everyone's gone we really coach hard on the importance of a work- life balance, taking regular holidays and not burning out. It's so important and such an issue in IT, it's something we all really need to bring to the forefront of discussion." Smith, who describes himself as a 'technologist by trade', started his journey with Dell in 1998 before moving into the start-up world then co-founding DevOpsGuys in 2013 after seeing a gap in the market. "They say in magic timing is everything. I think it's the same in business," he says. "It's been a growth trajectory from the moment we kicked off. Steve [Thair] and I put 500 capital into the business to kick it off and this year we're on target for 10m so it's quite exciting. It's been a lot of fun in between." This might already sound like a big win for a young company but the team's plans don't end there. "We have plans to be a 100m business in the next five years," says Smith. "That's the forecast but I'd love to exceed that I don't like to talk about it because it potentially sets a cap on what we do, but we'll just keep working hard. "The most important thing for me is demonstrating that this can be done in Wales and get the lessons we're learning into the community. We want to give people confidence in incubators like Entrepreneurial Spark and show them the next steps in growing their business." However this won't always be an easy burden to shoulder and Smith admits that shaking things up can create friction with new clients. With this in mind, DevOpsGuys works hard to make this new approach to tech an easy pill for businesses to swallow. "We put in the foundation of education and learning so people can understand why the changes are coming and where they fit into the process," he says. "It's about engaging everyone from senior leadership to team level and quickly demonstrating that we will make a difference." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 63 @BCLOUDUK REGIONS 24 HOURS in South Wales BusinessCloud visited a region forging its identity through tech and innovation following the demise of the coal and steel industries. CAERPHILLY The birthplace of comedian Tommy Cooper is dominated by its imposing castle. It is also home to the Welsh Innovation Centre for Enterprise. Jamie McGowan, Welsh ICE: "We are home to 170 micro SME businesses, from virtual PAs to freelance graphic designers and video game companies. When they need specialist services, we connect these up together." Richard Hillsdon, Tekeez: "When we decided to move from Oxford, we knew they have good infrastructure here such as superfast broadband and 4G and lower rents and rates. We're just 18 minutes' train ride away from Cardiff and can enjoy Caerphilly Castle as well as the nearby rivers, lakes and mountains." PENARTH 'The garden by the sea' was once a popular holiday destination but is now regarded as a Cardiff commuter town. Many tech firms have based themselves in OpenGenius' Tec Marina shared working space. Natalie Rowley, OpenGenius: "We wanted to take on a space that had previously been used rather than build something new. Our CEO Chris bought a 1930s speedboat to display as an example of good technology which lasts through the ages." Gareth Manger, BLAM!: "We sell websites and apps to small businesses. We were based in Barry before and wanted to mix up with more tech businesses. This is a great location close to Cardiff." NEWPORT The third largest city in Wales and historic port is home to Celtic Manor, which hosted the 2010 Ryder Cup. It is also home to Platfform, a shared working space for digital businesses, and part of the Cardiff City Region. Simon Renault, Innovation Point: "Our software academy at Platfform is changing how Cardiff Uni students are taught. All their learning is through performing real services for clients e.g. building websites." Richard Sheppard, Interceptor Solutions: "Entrepreneurship in general is essential to the Welsh economy. It's always been that way and digital technology is the new coal mining or steel and as essential to Wales as any of those traditional businesses have been." The capital city is gaining a reputation for FinTech and start-ups thanks to bodies such as Innovation Point and Cardiff Start. NatWest's Entrepreneurial Spark accelerator in the shadow of the imposing Principality Stadium played host to a BusinessCloud roundtable. Caroline Thompson, NatWest: "Entrepreneurial Spark has the expertise to work on the mindset of our entrepreneurs to help them grow and scale. Tech in South Wales is growing pretty quickly. We're on the cusp of something special." Liam Giles, SpinDogs: "In the last four or five years people are waking up to the fact that there's a lot going on here. The reaction now is completely different people tell us that they've heard Cardiff is an amazing place to be." CARDIFF The home of Dylan Thomas and Catherine Zeta-Jones recently announced 500m plans to transform the Swansea Bay City Region into a digital super-hub linked to its university. Adam Curtis, Hoowla: "The Welsh Government runs Big Ideas Wales which sends innovation entrepreneurs into schools I talk about IT-focused areas. It's good for the kids to see people who have been there and done it. And it's good to give back to Swansea." SWANSEA Tech Tour: Time to shout about South Wales BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 64 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK FUTURE-PROOFING Embrace technology or die Back in 2000 Block- buster passed up the opportunity to buy Netfl ix for $50m because the video rental giant couldn't see the opportuni- ty created by online streaming. Today the value of Netfl ix is $80bn while Blockbuster is no more. The business graveyard is full of examples of companies that failed to see disruptive technologies that were coming their way. However by embracing technology, estab- lished brands can not only survive in the new age - they can thrive. Shop Direct has gone from being a catalogue business to a pure in- ternet retailer while Auto Trader is now the UK's largest digital auto- motive marketplace after ditching its print edition in 2013. BusinessCloud teamed up with CascadeGO HR Software to look at how modern businesses can future-proof themselves through technology. Mo Aldalou reports. A leading real estate consultancy business in Manchester is using virtual reality technology to bring multimillion-pound property projects to life. OBI Property co-founder and director Will Lewis (pictured) said the company has made a signifi cant fi ve- fi gure investment in VR tech company Revere 3D in a move to bring new and innovative tech to property marketing. He explained: "The guys from Revere 3D gave me a call and said: 'we think we can help, we think that virtual reality is going to be a big part of property in the next three to fi ve years'. "They moved over to Manchester from Harrogate, we've invested in the business and we're now working with lots of our existing clients." He added: "We saw it as a natural investment in helping us extend our off er. Some of the projects we work on cost millions of pounds and take years to come to completion and VR can really help bring them life. By putting on a headset the VR technology brings the plans to life. "The technology is available and if you want to improve the service you off er to your clients then you need to invest in what's out there. VR isn't the future, it's the here and now." When it comes to planning, Lewis said he doesn't look too far ahead. "I get really frustrated when you come up with a plan which is too long and don't implement the strategy," he explained. Property fi rm invests in VR CASE STUDY 1 7 ways you can future-proof your business BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 65 @BCLOUDUK FUTURE-PROOFING Companies which pay lip service to emerging social media platforms like Snapchat could be missing out on a future generation of customers. That's according to social media expert Becky Boyd (pictured below), who says that businesses are losing out by not paying enough attention to digital skills training. Founder of The Social Media Geek, Boyd was chosen to be the fi rst trainer for Google's Digital Garage project, which was set up to bring 200,000 SMEs across the UK up to speed on digital. She specialises in social media but also advises businesses about their wider digital marketing strategy, including how to manage their social media accounts more eff ectively and how they should be presenting themselves online. Boyd said: "A new graduate isn't necessarily going to know everything about tech because of their age; you need to nurture and train them." Boyd added that while it's time- consuming to have a presence on every social media platform, it's important to look at how to engage with customers in the future. "A question I often ask when I'm doing a training session is: how many of you are on Snapchat? The next question is: how many of you want to see your business grow in fi ve years? Many of your customers in fi ve years' time will be using Snapchat exclusively. "I'm not saying you must be on every social media platform that's ever existed because that's just not practical for many businesses but it's very much worth playing around to see what you can from it." Business software developer Godel would not have grown as it has if it hadn't established a base in Belarus. That is according to chief commercial offi cer Paul Green (pictured right), who said that a skills shortage in the UK was the main driver behind the company looking for software development talent overseas. "I think it's no secret that we've got some very talented people in the UK but there isn't always enough to go around," he said. Godel Technologies was established in 2003 and now employs more than 400 staff , with only 20 based at its headquarters in Manchester and the remainder spread across its Belarus operations. The company has recently opened a new offi ce in Grodno, its third nearshore software development centre of excellence in Belarus, located 175 miles west of Minsk where its primary centre of software developers is located. Godel, which counts the likes of Virgin Holidays, Jet2, Rentalcars, Tesco Mobile and Transport for London among its clients, grew turnover to more than 9m last year and is on track to generate revenues of 13.5m in 2017. The fi rm has invested in providing all its clients with free HD video conferencing equipment and technology to enable them to speak with developers face to face. "Our guys in Belarus are thousands of miles away but actually they're all working on the same systems and essentially working in the same offi ce through the use of cloud technologies and other technologies that are available," Green said. Belarus base crucial to growth of Godel CASE STUDY 2 Snapchat users could be future customers CASE STUDY 3 App takes stress out of travelling CASE STUDY 4 Technology has enabled every traveller to have an on-call adviser available at the touch of a button. Rob Snelson (pictured left) is the chief technology offi cer at 550m turnover company Travel Counsellors, which acts as a 'personal travel concierge' for all their customers. Described as "the world's most loved travel company", the business has more than 1,700 self-employed travel counsellors in seven countries. Every customer also has access to an app, which acts as a personal extension of their travel counsellor and provides them with personalised information about their holiday and all their bookings. Snelson said the company places great importance on using the customer satisfaction metric Net Promoter Score (NPS) in its booking process. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 67 @BCLOUDUK FUTURE-PROOFING The boss of a fast- growing HR software company has said companies need to embrace technology if they want to remain relevant in modern business. Cascade HR's integrated payroll and HR system is used by the likes of Everton FC and Sheffield's Meadowhall Shopping Centre. Cascade's CEO Oliver Shaw said: "The pace of innovation within the cloud space means that SMEs and start-up businesses can now benefit from access to tech, data and automation that was previously only attainable by larger organisations with big budgets. Now, a company's size, infrastructure and financial resource are no longer barriers to change. "Firms need to work out how the tech works for them and where their habits may need to evolve, if the investment is to fully add value." He cited video conferencing as one example of how companies can seamlessly adopt tech. "This is a tool that is readily available, affordable and presents the opportunity to have almost the same quality communication experience, as if being in the room with someone. But so many people stick to a telephone conference because it is perceived as easier, safer or 'the norm'. "It's therefore important to make the tech work for the organisation concerned by establishing processes that make it the norm. Colleagues don't have to be sat at the far end of a room using only single camera for instance instead they can use the integrated camera within their laptop. "Make this the practice as standard for new business meetings, and time, fuel and environmental savings will rocket." Technology is key to staying relevant CASE STUDY 5 Accountants ditch 'boring' tag in favour of tech CASE STUDY 6 A Manchester accountancy firm claims its investment in technology has allowed it to work 30 per cent quicker. Daniel Moon and Damien Loughran say when they launched Williamson & Croft 18 months ago they went tech-first, going completely paperless and using the cloud. Loughran said: "The general consensus was that accountancy firms are boring and people don't like dealing with them because they're unresponsive. "We wanted to set up a firm that broke the mould, was responsive and utilised technology to differentiate our offer." Williamson & Croft say that by being completely paperless they've created a better work environment for staff and clients. Loughran said: "When we set up the business we knew about the efficiencies and benefits we could get by investing heavily in tech. We'd worked in bigger firms before with paperless offices so it was a natural thing for us to do. "We wanted to be a firm that can work from anywhere." Loughran says investing in tech and the right software means that the firm can work 30 per cent quicker. "Providers try and combine everything tax, accounting, practice management into one package for accountacy firms. They tend to do a few things really well but other things are more like an afterthought. "We've invested in having different specialist software providers so we have the best of each. "We spend a lot more on technology than other firms our size but we reap the rewards of it." Investing a six figure sum into a new tech dashboard for clients has seen an energy procurement firm win a raft of new customers. Lancashire-based Businesswise Solutions has grown turnover to 2.5m and seen its workforce expand to 32 on the back of its investment in an online portal called UTILITYi. Businesswise Solutions is an energy procurement and management specialist which was established to allow big energy users to forward-buy their energy and save money in the process. Managing director and co-founder Frazer Durris said UTILITYi enables customers to see their energy consumption in real-time on an easy-to- Tech investment energises Businesswise Solutions CASE STUDY 7 read dashboard. As the energy procurement market was evolving and becoming more competitive, Durris says investing in the dashboard was fundamental to the business remaining at the forefront of the industry. "We're really well known for our energy management services and expertise, which we couldn't provide without the UTILITYi dashboard. It's now become a fundamental part of our offering." The other speakers were Mark Rowe, technical director, Secarma; Jonathan Bowers, managing director, UKFast Enterprise; and Mylo Kaye, CEO, app development agency Dreamr. Mylo Kaye (left) and Frazer Durris (right). BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 69 @BCLOUDUK REGIONS intelligence, development and technical talent. However he adds: "We should be talking more about why businesses should set up their base here: the work-life balance and quality of life. Ultimately businesses want to recruit talented people quickly and they can do that in Leeds. I don't see that being promoted anywhere." Alex Epstein, former star of The Apprentice and chief marketing offi cer at BigChange Apps, says the BBC's move to Manchester has had a "very powerful multiplier eff ect" on that city. "I think if a similar thing happened in Leeds it could have a ripple eff ect on the economy here," he says. BigChange Apps enables businesses to manage their time smartly through an all-in- one mobile workforce management platform. "Tens of thousands of SMEs still run their businesses on paper, particularly in the service sector," Epstein says. "Our app takes the business entirely paperless and replaces lots of separate pieces of archaic kit so, compared to running a legacy system, there's huge savings to be had." Natasha Babar-Evans is an enabler at Entrepreneurial Spark Leeds and is buoyant about the city's prospects. "We have got some great businesses which are determined to scale and grow and they want to stay here," she says. "We have enough room in the city but we're focused on creating an ecosystem that is wide and supportive enough to make sure businesses can survive and thrive." Tina Kalantaridi, founder and director at The Language Pod, thinks more people need to get behind initiatives like the Northern Powerhouse. "I think Leeds is a fantastic city, but it needs to grab whatever it can and run with it!" Sanjay Parekh, CEO of home security start-up Cocoon, says more support networks and accelerators would make a "big diff erence". Graham Pearce, who leads KPMG's technology, media and telecommunications business across the North, said what he'd really like to see is a major international carrier at the airport. "I'd also love to see a proper VC open an offi ce in the city." A tech hub worth shouting about Leeds is on the rise with a thriving digital scene and a fertile breeding ground for start-ups, but more needs to be done to promote it. That was among several key messages BusinessCloud heard from local tech businesses and entrepreneurs at a recent roundtable held at KPMG's offi ces in Leeds. According to the 2017 Tech Nation report, Leeds has an average digital salary of more than 50,000, a bigger fi gure than Manchester, Oxford and Cambridge. The biggest employers run academies for graduates while early-stage businesses have access to fl exible offi ce space and networking opportunities thanks to Futurelabs and Duke Studios. Meanwhile, a 3.7m grant from Leeds City Council will be divided between innovative tech projects. Simon Brereton, acting head of economic policy and sector development at Leeds City Council, is confi dent that the city will be a diff erent place in a year's time thanks to new offi ce developments, improved support networks and a better working relationship between tech businesses and the local authority. However, he stressed that more people and businesses need to get behind 'brand Leeds'. Adam Hildreth, CEO of social media risk specialist Crisp Thinking, says being headquartered in Leeds provides the company with access to artifi cial Leeds is home to tech unicorn Sky Betting and Gaming and boasts the fastest-growing average digital salary, but is the West Yorkshire city doing enough to shout about its tech sector? Mo Aldalou reports. Top to bottom: Tina Kalantaridi , Adam Hildreth, and Natasha Babar-Evans. Inside the Leeds tech scene BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK REGIONS Synap From medicine to taxis Synap was created by two frustrated medical students looking for a better way to study, but the education tech platform is now expanding to other verticals. Mo Aldalou reports. When James Gupta and Omair Vaiyani created the first version of award-winning revision platform and app Synap, they had no idea that it would attract 15,000 downloads in 24 hours. The then second-year medical students were faced with the daunting task of learning a huge amount of information in a short period of time. Frustrated and dissatisfied with outdated methods of revision, they wanted to create something that could help them and other students in their year study in more engaging and effective ways with the help of technology. The pair began mixing things by writing questions and challenging each other to take them. Over time this evolved into a blog, and later a crude (but functional) app called Synap. "As time went on, Synap became more popular to the point where we received 15,000 downloads in 24 hours," Gupta recalls. "At that point we realised we'd tapped into something pretty big, and started to address the problem more systematically, asking how we could develop a study tool that helped students learn more in less time." Synap claims to be the world's most powerful and intuitive platform for creating, practising and sharing educational quizzes. It lets students connect with each other and study in short, regular bursts designed to help them learn more in less time. The format lends itself perfectly to a mobile-first generation, as the questions can be practised on the go, Gupta says. The platform has a range of user- generated quizzes (over 200,000 questions) as well as a growing range of professional content from leading publishers such as Oxford University Press. It also incorporates a cutting-edge 'Spaced Learning' algorithm that develops a personalised learning plan for each user, sending them the questions they need to study most each day based on their strengths and weaknesses. "Overall, the people who engaged with the Spaced Learning last year saw their scores increase by 100 per cent compared to those who primarily studied without it," Gupta says. After proving to be a hit among UK medical students, Synap began expanding to other educational fields including business and engineering and now has a total of 50,000 active monthly users. It was one of the Northern Stars winners in November and is now also running trials with businesses that could use the platform to improve the training of their employees. "For the last year or so we've been getting quite a lot of interest from companies who want to use the platform for internal staff training or to manage remote teams," Gupta says. "Until recently we've both been in full-time education and so we didn't necessarily have the resources to commit to it but now we've got a team and all the stuff we need so we're running a few trials with companies." Among those companies is mytaxi, the black cab app formerly known as Hailo, which has been offering new drivers financial incentives in a bid to significantly boost its taxi fleet in Ireland over the next few years. The company also developed a set of questions to help train prospective new drivers for the Small Public Service Vehicles (SPSV) entry test in Dublin, and was looking for a learning management system to house them. "We gave them a completely customised environment where drivers can register, login and start practising for the exam," Gupta says. Synap will continue to explore working with other companies and start offering customised solutions for staff training, but growing rapidly in the medical space is still a major focus. "It will always be a key market for us because of our background and also the sheer 'information intensity' of the healthcare space," Gupta says. "We want to triple our medical user base in the next 12 months, and also start expanding into other high intensity fields such as law and finance." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 71 @BCLOUDUK REGIONS All round protection with Cocoon Cocoon's home security technology is so advanced it picks up sounds too low to be heard by the human ear. Mo Aldalou reports. When Dan Conlon's annoying house alarm wouldn't turn off he had no idea it would be the trigger for him to launch a business. In desperation the entrepreneur and former engineering director at security software giant Trend Micro climbed a ladder and pulled the device off the wall to get some peace and quiet. The experience led him to think that there must be a better way to monitor home security and together with his fellow co-founders Sanjay Parekh, Colin Richardson, Nick Gregory and John Berthels, he launched Leeds-based tech start-up Cocoon. Cocoon is an all-in-one smart home security system which can monitor an entire home through a single device despite being not much bigger than a cricket ball. Fitted with an HD video camera, a motion detector and temperature sensor, Cocoon is capable of picking up infrasonic sound waves which are too low to be heard by the human hear. The system also uses machine learning software to analyse and learn the sounds of a particular household to distinguish between expected movements, like a pet walking across the living room, and unexpected ones. When an alert is triggered by the device, users are notified through a smartphone app and can access a live video feed to see if there's an intruder. If deemed necessary, they are also given the option to contact police. Chief executive Parekh said: "When we did our customer research, what people didn't want is an automatic alarm system that went off like everybody else's. They just get ignored. "Our device detects something that isn't quite right in your home, it'll send you a video alert and you can see what's going on." Cocoon was launched after a successful crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in 2014. It has since attracted more than 5m of investment from Aviva Ventures and Breed Reply Investments and through an equity crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube. The business has enjoyed rapid growth, with its smart home security devices now sold through Amazon in more than 50 countries around the world. According to Parekh, Cocoon is on track to generate turnover of between 750,000 and 1m this year. "Our growth strategy is to primarily expand our channels to market, starting with the UK retail channel, which is a well-developed market in terms of consumer electronics and the interest in smart homes is growing at quite a rapid rate," he said. "We're also expanding overseas. The need is universal and people all over the world are concerned about security, so we're launching in Dubai and Australia. "That's one strand of our expansion strategy, and the other is to develop partnerships with large corporates." Parekh says it's easy to overtrade and over expand but that it's crucial for Cocoon to open up the right channels to market at the right pace and manage the growth in a sustainable way. "We certainly see that over the next two years we could get to the 10m to 15m turnover mark quite happily," he added. Top to bottom: Dan Conlon, Colin Richardson, John Berthels, Nick Gregory and Sanjay Parekh. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 72 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK ECOMMERCE Where does retail go next? Daniel Bobroff pioneered advertising in video games before founding ASOS's venture capital division. He now runs Coded Futures - disruptive tech for the fashion and retail world. He spoke to Mo Aldalou on where retail goes next. As career decisions go, spending 10 years living in a forest in the south of France was probably one of the more unusual Daniel Bobroff has taken - but he's making up for lost time now. The entrepreneur made his name for launching in-game advertising and developing bestselling video games before he opted for a career break. On his return he joined forces with Nick Robertson, co- founder of the online fashion retailer ASOS, to set up ASOS Ventures with a brief to look for ideas to disrupt the retail sector. To bridge the gap even further between the worlds of retail and technology he launched his own business Coded Futures - in January 2016 with a mission to identify new digital products and solutions within the retail technology ecosystem. Now in demand as a global retail speaker the 53-year-old predicts that the most successful retailers will be the ones who personalise their offer to customers the best. Reinventing himself is something Bobroff knows all about. Back in 2012, after his decade-long career break came to an end, Bobroff was disheartened to hear a good friend tell him that "tech is for young people". "I found it insulting but I also thought that it simply wasn't true," he recalls. It was in the same year that Bobroff met up with ASOS CEO Robertson. "He and I had this chat and he was very interested to see how ASOS could capitalise on its mould-breaking, disruptive, entrepreneurial spirit that had made it this huge success," Bobroff says. "Nick increasingly felt that he couldn't do the things he used to do or be the entrepreneur he had been in the early days because ASOS was such a big business by this point. He asked me to come up with a way by which ASOS could be aware of and become involved with the next wave of disruption. Who was the next ASOS? Where was the technology going to come from that was going to be able to help ASOS get to that next level and do some of the things it imagined it might be able to do? What's the next monster coming over the hill?" Bobroff helped establish and became investment director of ASOS Ventures, which was all about scouting exciting new technologies and disruptive companies and entrepreneurs. "I was quite good at it," recalls Bobroff, who decided to venture out on his own and establish his own advisory business Coded Futures, which is focused on the future of retail. He believes that using a powerful combination of augmented reality and artificial intelligence to create an immersive user experience for online shoppers could be the next big thing in the eCommerce industry but online retailers first need to get personalisation right. "I think personalisation is very high on the wish list of most online retailers and efforts are being undertaken to get that right, but as a whole it's still poorly done," he says. "The good news is that there is evidence out there for its success. Amazon enjoys an uplift in sales of anywhere between 10 and 30 per cent thanks to personalised offers, which is a substantial figure and proves that the effort to get it right is worth it. "There are quite a large number of statistics that not only show that customers like personalised offers, but that they're willing to hand over their data to receive something personal. They expect value in return for their data." Bobroff believes that creating an immersive user experience for online shoppers using a combination of augmented reality and artificial intelligence could be as critical as personalisation. "AR and AI have the potential to change the game in terms of how we think of and experience eCommerce. "Most eCommerce experiences today are basically just browsing through a catalogue of products, accompanied with some content and a little bit of attention paid to how frictionless your journey is. "That's very different to an experience that's immersive or augmented, and it's also different from the tremendously strong social element that these particular technologies can offer." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 73 @BCLOUDUK XXXXXX Andr Hordagoda was visiting his sister at her luxury bag store in Westfield, Stratford City when he had the lightbulb moment for GoInStore. After 45 minutes there hadn't been a single visitor yet three well-trained salespeople were there ready to help. He and co-founder Aman Khurana decided to bolster a waning generation of bricks and mortar retailers by helping them take their best sales assets their staff and branded stores and give them to their online customers in an easy-to-use, seamlessly integrated package. "If you look at the experience you have online versus instore they're completely different," says the company's business development lead Jeremy Dodd. "Even with the best tech and photos, shopping online is still a static experience and much less personal. The metrics reflect that and typically conversion rates for the same retailer are ten times higher instore than online. It's crazy, and something that's not shouted about much. So we thought 'why not put that instore human being into the online channel using video?'" Customers who want to shop online from the comfort of their living room can visit a store's website and then choose to speak to an available staff member from the shop floor. The technology filters out the shop assistant best equipped to deal with the inquiry. It can also gather intelligence on the shoppers so the business will know what searches they've made. They have a two-way audio feed, so they can speak to each other, and a one-way video feed via wearable glasses so customers can see product demonstrations without having to get out of their pyjamas. On average the company's clients have seen online sales rise to match those they would see instore, and include big names like Dyson and Marriott, which uses the technology to sell event space. "We work with a pretty well-known brand called Porsche and at first its staff said 'I want people to come into the showroom and not just visit online', says Dodd. "I said every customer in your showroom will have gone online first. We're allowing you to build rapport with the customer from the first time they hit your website." Dodd admits that as yet the technology is mainly aimed at considered purchases like cars, jewellery and technology where customers want to see the product in action or be assured of quality, but that in time the company hopes it will bleed down to a wider range of products. "We've been called the antidote to bots," Dodd explains. "A number of retailers suffered store closures, here and in the US, and it's terrible press, terrible for jobs, terrible for staff and bad for morale. We're saying 'stop, these people are valuable'. We're championing people." It's a win-win for the staff that Dodd and the team want to champion, as the technology which Dodd says is second nature for a generation brought up on Snapchat and FaceTime allows them to make more sales. "The really good, key thing for us is now selling to the online channel and making sure the staff are attributed," he says. "Once a customer engages through live video they can have a more valuable interaction. When they're done they can give feedback on their experience and if they go on to convert because of that integration they can attribute the sale to the instore member for things like commission, bonuses and employee of the month." Put tin g a fac e to on line sho ppi ng Ho w d o re tai lers co mb ine th e c onv eni enc e o f on line sho ppi ng wit h t he per son al t ouc h o f sp eak ing to an ass ista nt? Go InS tor e th ink s it ha s th e a nsw er. Ka the rin e L oft hou se rep ort s. BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 75 @BCLOUDUK DISABILITY Will technology cure this man's paralysis? Rower, adventure athlete, motivational speaker and all-round good guy. Mark Pollock has done most things in his life but faces his biggest challenge yet as he looks to tech to fi nd a solution to his paralysis. He spoke to Mo Aldalou. my choice but I've come to make sense of it by understanding it and acknowledging that sometimes we have the luxury of choosing our challenges and sometimes challenges just choose us. What we decide to do about it is what counts, it's what we can control." Through the Mark Pollock Trust he is trying to raise 5m with an annual walk called 'Run in the Dark' to fast-track a cure for paralysis. Pollock is confi dent that technology and robotics will play a crucial role in this mission, but ultimately that it will come from multiple sources including exercise, drugs and electrical stimulation. "Technology will be part of a cocktail of interventions that will ultimately cure the range of problems associated with paralysis," he says. When Mark Pollock was left paralysed in July 2010 after falling out of a two- storey window he could have been forgiven for feeling sorry for himself. After all the accident happened a month before he was due to get married and was the latest in a series of mishaps to hit the likeable Irishman. Pollock was fi ve when he lost the sight of his right eye and became completely blind in April 1998 at the age of 22 after his left retina became detached. The bad luck seemed to have sunk his ambitions to become a professional rower but Pollock is made of stronger stuff , evidenced by him winning two medals at the 2002 Commonwealth Rowing Championships. In 2008, in a move to mark the 10th anniversary of losing his sight, he became the fi rst blind man to race to the South Pole but his world was turned upside down two years later when he was left paralysed from the waist down. Now an accomplished speaker he shared his amazing story with a room full of business leaders at Deloitte's offi ces in Manchester. "If I'm an expert in anything, it's in acquiring and collecting disabilities," he joked by way of breaking the ice. Recalling the fall which left him paralysed, he said: "It turned me from my upright, walking, running and jumping form into a seated compromise of what I once was. "The friends who found me thought I was already dead, the doctors in intensive care suspected that I was going to die. And when I realised what had happened, I wondered whether dying might have been a better outcome. "I didn't choose any of it, the accident, the injury, the consequences, none of it was "From a technological perspective, the combination of robotic legs and electrical stimulation is particularly exciting - not as an alternative to wheelchairs but rather for rehabilitation as a way of trying to move closer to a cure. "We have been combining an Ekso Bionics exoskeleton with a NeuroRecovery Technologies trans-cutaneous electrical stimulation device. These two interventions have allowed me to voluntarily move my legs during assisted walking. "We are starting to look at further technologies to add into the package. For example, with performance data such an important part of training for athletes we have been working with industry and academic partners to make that performance data accessible for rehab. "We have developed an accessible app to speak heart rate, speed, power etc on demand. Furthermore, we have started to investigate VR and AR applications in conjunction with wearable sensors to enhance the rehab process." But while robotic legs and electrical devices are being developed, the costs can be staggering. Pollock said he is excited by the prospect of robotic legs becoming more accessible and aff ordable thanks to 3D printing and other alternative manufacturing methods. "You can imagine that 3D printing or other alternative manufacturing methods will start to reduce the costs and make them more accessible and aff ordable, and that really excites me." BUSINESSCLOUD EDITION 8, Q4 2017 76 BUSINESSCLOUD.CO.UK XXXX COLUMN: PEARCE'S POINT OF VIEW Getting investment into start-ups Graham Pearce is a mergers and acquisitions professional and leads KPMG's TMT business across the North of the UK. The UK's start-up community is growing at a healthy pace with hundreds of thousands of new businesses opening every year. In 2016 there were an estimated 650,000 start-ups established across the country and more than 100,000 of those were in the North (source: Start-Up Britain). This continued growth is underpinned nationally by generous tax breaks as well as grant and government funding, providing entrepreneurs with ready access to the seed funding needed for initial set up and 'proof of concept'. In the North, entrepreneurs have the added benefi t of dozens of universities, local access to key industrial hubs and transport points, and operating costs well below that of the London region. Seed funding and lower costs are not enough, Substantive access to funds bridging the gap between start-up and self-sustaining business remains an obstacle. This is especially true across the North, where young businesses struggle to connect with ideal funders capable of providing scale-up capital, relevant experience and contacts, frequently having to look to London and abroad. NorthInvest exists to fi ll that gap and provide local level support. NorthInvest is a not-for-profi t company wholly dedicated to building a diverse and robust support community for Northern-based start-ups. It fi lls the gap in the Northern Powerhouse investment scene by making it easier for the region's start-ups to access crucial early funding as well as providing free business advice and support. Meanwhile, our angel investors have access to qualifi ed deal fl ow from across the region. NorthInvest connects not just people, but ecosystems to create inclusivity and build the Northern business economy. Central to that ecosystem mission is connecting and supporting the region's organic growth in technology across: FinTech Health tech Tech-for-good Media Cyber These fi ve sectors are already underpinning the region's growth which hosts the headquarters for NHS Digital, BBC and Atom Bank among other industry leaders. NorthInvest will be a catalyst for expanding the region's capability across these areas and establishing robust cross-sector out- reach. We are supported by an experienced board of professionals and regional infl uencers, who have all previously or currently owned / operated leading businesses and partnerships in these sectors. Our board includes: Dr. Adam Beaumont - founder of NorthInvest; founder and CEO of aql Dr. Richard Arning - vice president business development at SES Satellites Prof. John Fisher - Professor of mechanical engineering, University of Leeds Graham Pearce - head of KPMG corporate fi nance technology, media and telecoms Helen Oldham ex-chief publishing offi cer, Johnston Press Tom Bridges - chief offi cer for economy and regeneration at Leeds City Council After a soft launch, NorthInvest is now fully operational, having facilitated three investments to-date and attracting 3-5 deal fl ow applications per week with an average funding request of 350k. Our deal fl ow will typically span 50k- 10M. Once an investment is registered with the NorthInvest platform, the investment history can be tracked from fi rst round upwards, making follow-on investment simpler and more agile. Unlike many others NorthInvest does not seek to take an equity stake in any business, a small fee is levied on the investor side to cover our very basic running costs. As the organisation builds momentum any surplus profi t will be used to create a fund specifi cally for Tech for Good projects. Our partners and supporter organisation are key to our strategy of advancing the Northern ecosystem. These currently include: aql KPMG Leeds City Council Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership Tech Link UK Business Angels Association Over the next 12 to 24 months, NorthInvest will be working closely with public and private sector partners to drive the Tech sector profi le and investment across the North. We are hosting a rolling programme of events to bring partners and entrepreneurs together to accelerate progress in our fi ve areas of focus, including the creation of panel pitching opportunities, and a package of support services to successfully incubate start -ups and accelerate tech SME growth. A Northern Angel conference is also being scoped for 2018 in partnership with UKBAA. Adam Beaumont. Striking a BLOW for looking great A few weeks ago, my colleagues decided to have an impromptu Friday night out. Whilst they all live in the city and are within reach of their bathrooms, wardrobes and make- up, I was at a loss as to how I would get myself ready, even if I had the time to call out and get a new outfi t in time. A friend suggested an app called Blow LTD. Founder of Blow LTD Fiona McIntosh (former editor-in-chief of ELLE Magazine) noticed a gap in the market that would off er fast beauty for time-poor people. I downloaded the free app and saw a list of options available for both men and women. You select your service, such as Kerastase blow dry or OPI nail services such as manicures and pedicures - or even some specialist treatments for the gents. We opted for a group booking as there were three of us and we booked before noon for a 6pm appointment. The two consultants came to our offi ce in Manchester's Spinningfi elds and had all three of us ready to go before 7.30pm. The cost for both hair and make-up for the three of us was 155 and we got 25 off for our fi rst booking. It brought the total to a little over 43 each. The quality, friendliness and ease of this service meant we went out feeling special and like we hadn't rushed around Manchester to two diff erent salons trying to get ourselves ready. Since then, I have used Blow LTD for all of my beauty requirements, even getting them to come to my home in Bolton to get me ready on the morning of my friend's wedding, rather than having to rush around to three separate salons. I was relaxed at home with a G&T whilst Blow LTD took care of everything; they even waited around till I got dressed to make sure I went out 'party perfect'. If you're a busy professional that needs a service that takes the stress out of looking perfect, download the app. I can't believe it's taken this long to make beauty simple. Rachael Fish works for Bruin Financial If you can't wait for your next edition of BusinessCloud magazine why not check out our website for the latest news and views on tech? Every week we upload around 70 news stories, opinion pieces and interviews with entrepreneurs and deal-makers in the worlds of business and technology. Become one of more than 30,000 people from around the world who check in at Businesscloud.co.uk every month. If you want to receive our weekly newsletter, packed with extra video and podcast content, subscribe on the website homepage or by emailing subscriptions@businesscloud.co.uk Rachael's rating 5/5 We also have a dedicated YouTube channel with big-name interviews, features and footage from our events. Check out our channel </p>