UKBI December 2010 Newsletter
All of us at UKBI would like to take this opportunity to wish all our members a Merry Christmas and a Peaceful and Happy New Year.
Nominations for the 2011 UKBI Awards are now open!
Each year, UK Business Incubation awards its members who have shown excellence in providing the right environment for start-ups businesses and entrepreneurs to flourish and this year's awards are bigger and better than ever before!
Open to members only, the awards give UKBI, the body for the advancement of good practice, the opportunity to reward those who strive to support world class businesses and entrepreneurs, impacting on local, regional and national economies whilst at the same time creating a sustainable environment/s for the future.
We have made a few changes this year and have some different categories. Full details can be found in the awards application brochure which you can download here.
Closing date is 28th January 2011. Good luck!
ACHIEVE MORE Final Event - Accelerating Growth of Knowledge Intensive Service SMEs in the ICT sector
Wednesday, March 16 2011
ACHIEVE MORE was established in early 2008, and has since created a partnership of almost 70 business incubators, leading edge clusters, investors and stakeholders focused on the ICT sector, in 28 countries across Europe and beyond. In addition it has created the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Exchange (EIX) - an on-line community of nearly 600 professionals focussed on business incubation and innovation in the services sector. The project’s aim is the creation of a continuous virtuous circle through the identification and dissemination of best practice at leading organisations, passed on to others working to support start up and early stage business.
We will be celebrating the achievements of the Achieve More Project in Brussels on 16th March 2011 and invite you to join us in what promises to be a stimulating and enlightening session. For more details click here.
Media Lightbox meets the Queen.
Leading online file sharing company, Media Lightbox, was amongst a small group of business leaders to meet the Queen at a reception in Hillsborough Castle celebrating business excellence recently. The company is based in Newry at Greenshoots Incubation and Innovation Centre, managed by Southern Regional College.
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh ended the first day of their official visit to Northern Ireland meeting people from the business community. They were guests of honour at the dinner organised by Invest Northern Ireland. The black tie dinner at Hillsborough Castle was an opportunity for business owners to meet the Royal couple as part of a two-day royal visit to Northern Ireland. Read more...
Funding initiative for Solent companies launched at Collaborate2Innovate
A new initiative to assist growing companies in the Solent region looking for business development funding was launched at the Collaborate2Innovate 2010 event today. The universities of Portsmouth and Southampton announced that they have signed a sponsorship deal with Oxford Innovation to support investment network meetings and investor training workshops in Portsmouth and Southampton from next year.
The aim of the collaboration is to assist local companies by providing access to funding from high net worth individuals (‘business angels’) who are members of Oxford Innovation’s investment networks and to facilitate involvement by prospective local investors. The longer term objective is to work with local partners to establish a new Solent investment network. Read more...
Ten Years Old and 432 Reasons to Celebrate
Ten years after opening its doors one of Britain’s leading business incubation units, Hillington Park Innovation Centre, has 432 reasons to celebrate. They are the number of new jobs the Centre has helped create by nurturing innovative technology start-up companies during its first decade of operation.
Situated close to Glasgow airport the start-up business support facility has assisted a total of 171 fledgling enterprises.
Over the ten year period HPIC has nurtured 136 of its tenant companies to a stage in their development where they outgrew the business support ‘nest’ and graduated into the stand-alone commercial world.
A recent review of Centre by UKBI, the organisation representing business incubator industry across the UK, showed that the survival rate of HPIC graduate companies was 95% after a year and 85% after 5 years. Read more...
UMIC MD wins Biomedical Personality of the Year Award and Moves on to a New Challenge
UMIC Managing Director, Dr Martino Picardo, has been awarded the Biomedical Personality of the Year award 2010 at the gala BIONOW awards dinner which took place on the 11th November.
Martino commented: “This is a great award to win and is a testament to all the hard work and success of the Bioincubation activities in Manchester over the years. It also recognises the tremendous support that has been provided by The University of Manchester throughout this time and all the hard work and support provided by the UMIC staff for which I am extremely grateful. Likewise, I have always appreciated and tried to recognise both the funding and support provided by BIONOW to our Incubation activities in Manchester. Read more...