Some of Bath’s leading tech entrepreneurs visited Buckingham Palace earlier this week for a special reception with the royal family to recognise the sector’s powerful economic contribution.
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were joined at the event by The Duke of Cambridge, The Duke of Gloucester, The Duke of Kent and The Duke of York, who is a long standing supporter of SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and the tech sector.
The event celebrated the growing strength of the tech sector to the economy and its role in continuing the country’s proud tradition of innovation. The Bath, Bristol and the West of England area is recognised as a major hub for tech businesses, particularly in chip design, and is establishing itself as a key location for growing firms in the sector.
Bristol & Bath Science Park chief executive Bonnie Dean helped organisers select the businesses and individuals that best represent the region’s growing strength in the tech sector.
She said: “We were delighted to be invited to the Palace as representatives of the UK’s incredibly dynamic and vibrant digital technology sector – which with the convergence of technologies is becoming vital to the future of the UK economy. The Bristol and Bath region is home to some of the most innovative tech start-ups with global ambitions.”
The Bath and Bristol group attending the reception included:
Glenn Smith, co-founder and chief executive of Bath-based MapleBird, a start-up company developing the smallest unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the world,
Mark Probert, creative director at Newicon, the Bristol-based developer of bespoke, cloud-based software for businesses,
Nicola Ray, managing director at Bristol technology marketing agency Modern Media,
Nigel Austin, CTO at healthcare technology solutions firm Cayder, based at Flax Bourton, near Bristol,
David Maher Roberts, managing partner at Bath tech start-up consultancy Digital DNA,
Jeremy Laycock, director of engineering for Ripjar, a software start-up specialising in cyber security big data systems based at SETsquared, the award-winning enterprise partnership of the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey,
Dr Tom Dawson, managing director of Rescon, which specialises in human performance technologies, and Simon Bond, innovation director at SETsquared who is also director of the University of Bath Innovation Centre.
Approximately 350 guests attended the reception including established innovators and business leaders, academics and investors as well as representatives of technology start-ups.
Pictured, from left: Nigel Austin (Cayder), Tom Griffin (Ripjar), Nicola Ray (Modern Media), Glenn Smith (Maplebird), Bonnie Dean (Bristol & Bath Science Park) and Steve O’Brien (Newicon)
