An north-east business development body has received a £4million boost in its bid to launch an “economic renaissance” in Aberdeen city and shire.
Opportunity North East (ONE) will use the cash to accelerate the creation of its digital solutions arm.
ONE Digital will become the organisation’s fifth sector board and will focus on building digital capability and capacity in the region, including supporting digital product company creation. The board will be formed in the coming weeks under the initial chairmanship of Sir Ian Wood.
He said: “We currently have parts of a digital cluster in the region, but there’s a huge market here with industries with significant scope for digital solutions. The oil and gas industry, particularly operators, is making major investments over the next few years in automation, artificial intelligence and robotics with the supply chain doing likewise. Food, drink and agriculture are also very active in achieving digital efficiencies, as is tourism.”
Sir Ian said the cluster will be a physical hub to help nurture and grow digital tech companies with a strong focus on encouraging entrepreneurship in the sector and some early stage seed funding opportunities available.
He also hopes the board will be able to hold community events to foster entrepreneurship and maximising the contribution from the city’s universities.
“Access to skilled people, with coding and digital business skills, supported by a network of digitally savvy mentors and professional advisors is also vitally important,” Sir Ian said.
“We already have a small number of high potential digital companies and the aim over five years is to get 10 to 20 companies with highly differentiated products and systems, with sales above £20m and with international aspirations. There’s also a significant number of companies in our region now seeking to build digital efficiency into their business and ONE Digital aims to improve the availability of high quality companies to identify digital solutions and applications to enhance the competitiveness of these businesses.
“ONE Digital will apply expertise, influence and funding and work with partners to build strong digital capabilities, which will be a transformational factor in delivering the shared goal of long-term economic renaissance for Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.”