Manchester Digital

✨ And that’s a wrap on Digital Skills Festival 2025! ✨ One incredible week. Five major events. Thousands of people connecting, learning and shaping the future of tech. Here’s what we achieved: 🚀 HackaFuture – Sponsored by AtkinsRéalis One intense weekend of innovation, leading to 10 full-time job offers from AtkinsRealis for the winning teams! 💡 Future Innovators Challenge – Supported by Amazon 105 students from 9 Greater Manchester teams joined us at Amazon Manchester for a morning of action-packed activities, before pitching their incredible ideas for the future of tech - with Andy Burnham on hand to award the winners! 💜 Digital Her Day – Sponsored by Tracsis PLC, Auto Trader UK, Nexer Digital, Information Commissioner's Office and Lloyds Banking Group 150 women in tech and their allies gathered at HOME Manchester to explore three powerful themes through inspiring keynotes, panels and workshops. 👥 Talent Day – Sponsored by JLR 2,200 students, graduates, career changers & jobseekers joined us at New Century Hall to meet 30+ businesses and training providers. 165 CV clinic sessions and 4 insightful seminars helped connect talent with opportunity. 🍽 Digital Skills Feast – Sponsored by Slalom 100+ senior leaders, educators and government officials came together at the Museum of Science & Industry to discuss the future of tech over great food and conversation. In addition to the above sponsors, a huge thank you to: ⭐ AtkinsRéalis - Headline Sponsor ⭐ Manchester City Council - Ecosystem Partner ⭐ Greater Manchester Combined Authority - Ecosystem Partner ⭐ ECOM - Industry Insights Partner ⭐ The Manchester Metropolitan University - Education Partner Without the support of our sponsors and partners we simply couldn't put events like this on every year. 📹 Chloe Waterhouse - thank you for spectacularly capturing content across the week! And a huge thank you to the hard work and dedication of the Manchester Digital team: Roxy Stafford, Emma Grant, Katie Gallagher OBE, Ghislaine West Assoc CIPD, Kate Wilson, Natalie Barnes, Ellie Powell, Alice Pickersgill, Daniel Evans, Thom Docking, Carolyn Hughes. Finally, to everybody who joined us across the week - from speakers and exhibitors to attendees and dinner guests - we hope you enjoyed the festival as much as we did. We can’t wait to hear the success stories that come from it! #MDSkillsFest #DigitalSkillsFestival

Discover the benefits of joining the Manchester Digital community ✨🙌 The brochures are your guide to understanding the opportunities, resources, and support available to businesses of all sizes in the Manchester Digital network. From accessing exclusive events and insights to support with your marketing or talent strategies, our tailored brochures showcase the key benefits of joining and outline the work we do to support the region’s digital economy. Choose the brochure that matches your business size to explore how Manchester Digital can help you achieve your goals ⬇️ Download here: https://buff.ly/3C1MHuZ

We're partnering with DTX Manchester 2025! It's the North’s biggest digital & IT event showcasing the technology, solutions and strategies to advance the next wave of digital transformation fuelled by AI. Covering IT infrastructure and cloud, operations, data, AI, software engineering, DevOps, cyber security and more! Sign up to the event by registering now! #DTXM25 https://buff.ly/wMvW8Zg

Member news ⬇️ CyberLab, a specialist cyber security company providing a wide range of security solutions and services, have announced the launch of their new Cyber Security as a Service (CSaaS) bundle, Threat Detect. https://buff.ly/3QrRppq

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📈 New research from EY predicts that Manchester’s economy will grow by 2.1% annually from 2025 to 2028 — significantly higher than the UK average of 1.6%. This is fantastic news for Manchester’s tech sector and reinforces the city’s position as a thriving hub for innovation and business. https://lnkd.in/dNar7bVH

Member news ⬇️ Informed Solutions has launched a dynamic AI Readiness Service designed to accelerate organisations’ understanding of readiness and capabilities to take advantage of AI for operational and service efficiency. https://buff.ly/54P5p56

Manchester Digital were delighted to welcome Feryal Clark, Minister for AI and Digital Government, to the Tech Incubator yesterday. We were able to discuss driving AI adoption across the regions and some of the key issues around simplifying procurement for tech SMEs and startups, and it was incredibly encouraging to see such enthusiasm from government on these topics. In addition, we introduced Feryal to a selection of Greater Manchester's innovative startups and SMEs who are putting AI to use in fascinating ways, including Peak, CloudGuard, Voxelo.ai, MolMart, Vulse and zally®. Thank you to everybody who joined us to showcase their work. Strong links between central government and the regions are crucial for ensuring that policy decisions support businesses on the ground. We look forward to working with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology more in the future to advocate for our members and strengthen the tech ecosystem across the North.

The product consultancy Hyperact have built a product development blueprint to help teams visualise how they build products – helping them instil best practice, and optimise for speed and impact. The blueprint is aimed at companies feeling the growing pains of scaling up or those dissatisfied with the impact of their product development efforts. It can help guide initiatives at all levels, from individual features to whole products, and is underpinned by a set of principles Hyperact believe are essential to building successful products, successfully: → Continuous discovery → Product engineering → Fast, incremental value → Flow over governance → Evidence, not opinions You can read more about the blueprint here: https://buff.ly/CaiD0Eh

Member news ⬇️ Full-service digital marketing and web development specialist I-COM is proud to celebrate two decades of developing creative and results-driven solutions for its clients. https://buff.ly/4ic5PpH