Hundreds of new UK jobs have been announced as the UK takes centre stage as official partner country at CeBIT 2014, the world’s largest technology trade fair.
Opening CeBIT 2014 alongside the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Minister David Cameron said:
"Four years ago, we put in place a long-term economic plan to turn our country around – and innovation is right at the heart of that plan. It is our ambition to make the UK the most digital nation in the G8."
The Government announced at CeBIT that over the coming year the Technology Strategy Board will continue to sponsor innovation in the Internet of Things by committing a further £45 million via a range of its funding tools and programmes, bringing government investment in this area to £73 million.
The Internet of Things could allow billions of everyday objects to talk to each other over the internet using low-cost, low-power chips - for example, electricity meters that talk to the grid to get the best deals.
The Government is also launching a new European Internet of Things funding competition, designed to support young, early stage companies in the Shoreditch and Cambridge tech clusters. The competition will receive £1 million of funding from the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board and run in conjunction with Tech City UK.
A new research collaboration focused on the industrial and societal impacts which 5G will bring has been announced between the University of Dresden, King’s College University in London and the University of Surrey. With 4G, an 800 megabyte movie takes around 40 seconds to download; with 5G that would be cut to one second.
The UK’s innovation and tech sector is worth £58 billion and employs 1.3 million people. To grow the sector further the government has launched a new commercially focused science and innovation organisation, the UKTI Innovation Gateway. The organisation will be a ‘one-stop-shop’ for securing science and innovation investment from large international funds and corporate companies. Over the next two years the organisation is tasked with unlocking £1bn of investment and creating 500 new UK jobs.
Speaking at CeBIT, Trade and Investment Minister Lord Livingston said:
“Our aim is to grow investment in the UK innovation and tech sector and today we are launching a new organisation targeting international businesses that want to take advantage of UK excellence and invest here.”
The UK Government's ‘Innovation is GREAT’ campaign seeks to improve international perceptions of UK innovation, promoting the UK as partner of choice in the design, building and commercialisation of new technologies and products, whilst unlocking significant trade and investment opportunities. The campaign is anticipated to deliver investment of up to £50m.
Run by the ‘UKTI Innovation Gateway’, the ‘Innovation is GREAT’ campaign will deliver a coordinated message about the world-leading strengths of the UK innovation system based around the 8 GREAT technologies in key events in 10 international markets, to raise awareness internationally and attract further innovation investment and stimulate trade.
Barhale has completed work on two separate Rapid Action Taskforce Spills projects it is carrying out for Severn Trent.
Börger UK, which has firmly established itself as a leading pump brand since it was set up in Staffordshire in 2004, has moved into bigger, brand-new premises in Shrewsbury.
HUBER Technology UK & Ireland are inviting people to register for their March webinar where they will be providing information about HUBER water intake screens for municipal and industrial applications.
Sulzer has launched a new global Center of Excellence (CoE) for Water Treatment Solutions - the CoE consolidates Sulzer’s wastewater treatment expertise in a unified and global manner.
Hear how Scottish Water has completed its £235 million Ayrshire Glasgow Resilience Project - customers across Greater Glasgow, Ayrshire and East Renfrewshire will now benefit from a more secure and resilient water supply.
Hear how United Utilities is accelerating its investment to reduce spills from storm overflows across the Northwest.
Find out more about the remarkable career opportunities on offer at WSP - scroll down to watch the inspirational video.