In addition, Shell LiveWire is also offering an opportunity to pitch for £1000 and PR on the day, which can become a great boost and exposure for someone’s business idea.

Innospace’s own Dan Sodergren is sharing his insights in mobile, digital and social marketing.

more information 

The Creative Industries KTN will partner with PICNIC and the UK Science & Innovation Network in order to deliver a unique event in Amsterdam, on 21st and 22nd February 2012, exploring the creative landscape and making active business connections between the UK and Netherlands.

The event will mark the first in a series of collaborations between CIKTN and PICNIC throughout the year and will build on political contacts between the UK and Netherlands to drive economic connections, and which saw the Dutch Prime Minister visit London and Manchester with a group of digital businesses late last year.

Over the course of two days (pm 21st, am 22nd) attendees will hear case study presentations from high profile digital entrepreneurs, gain insight on two dynamic European marketplaces and participate in panel discussions contrasting the experiences of UK and Dutch digital start ups and exploring the landscape of European capital finance. On the evening of the 21st there will be a dinner hosted by the British Ambassador with a keynote presentation on future trends.

Importantly over the two days there will be a chance to network with like-minded digital businesses and instigate opportunities for commercial collaboration.

Who should attend:

The event will focus on start up media businesses with a concentration on digital technologies – whether communications, applications or services and ranging from social media to the distribution of digital content to software as a service.

The first 14 UK digital start ups to register their interest will receive a bursary of up to £250.00 towards the cost of travel and accommodation.

Event detail:

Date: 21st & 22nd February 2012

Time: 21st - 1400 > 1700 plus evening networking dinner hosted at British Ambassador’s Residence
22nd – 0930 > 1300

Location: De Waag
Nieuwmarkt 4
1012 CR, Amsterdam

Cost: FREE

Support: Bursaries of up to £250.00 to cover travel and accommodation costs are available to the first 14 digital start ups to apply (companies must less than 2 years old and able to articulate their potential in the European market).

Application: To register your interest in attending please apply here – places are limited. Final closing date will be 17th February 2012 but applying earlier will ensure your details are circulated amongst the Dutch attendees in order to set up one-to-one meetings.

For more information contact:

Mark Leaver CIKTN Producer mark@markleaver.net

Liesbeth Bouwhuis SIN Benelux liesbeth.buowhuis@fco.gov.uk

The innovative platform runs on Facebook and also integrates with Twitter, making it an extremely viral game running for 10 weeks.

The idea is to find the ‘most supported’ university voted for by UK students. It was the brainchild of Innospace tenants Grip Media, who also run the UK’s largest student money website www.SavetheStudent.org. As tuition fees are set to increase three-fold this year, the aim is to rekindle positive sentiment towards British universities by harnessing the power of social media and community spirit.

The experimental first round generated well over 2.5 million hits and 11,000 players, ending in a dramatic finale which saw Aberystwyth University take the title. Many student unions and universities themselves got on board, welcoming the support and realising the wider benefits of the fun competition.

For 2012, organisations including http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.com Fireb,ox and Vodafone have got on board to benefit from the high student activity and engagement. The competition runs until 31st march 2012 when the winning university is announced and 3 lucky students win big money prizes.

The success of University Face Off has inspired the team of Manchester graduates to continue developing the Facebook contest application, with the view to licensing.

More information
Facebook page

The M.E.N was one of 500 newspapers that took part in the scheme, organised by the Newspaper Society. Hundreds of entries were received from businesses across Greater Manchester, which were whittled down to three winners following a rigorous judging process.

Here, we profile the three Greater Manchester winners, who have won an advertising package with MEN Media, as well as a half-day coaching session from the Business Growth Fund, a scheme set up by Britain’s biggest banks to make equity investments in companies with growth potential.

They will also be put forward to a national final for the chance to secure a year of mentoring from Dragons’ Den star Deborah Meaden.

Mr Cameron said: “Congratulations to all the winners of the Local Business Accelerators scheme. It’s brilliant that so many promising young companies, from such a wide range of sectors, are benefiting from this excellent initiative.”

*Read about the Local Business Accelerators success stories:

Hiring-Hub aims for £1.4m turnover

Hiring-Hub

Full story

Companies able to work in Dundee are eligible to use the prototyping studio located at Abertay University, where industry-standard equipment and software will be made available.  Other locations around the UK are still eligible, either through partnership with a local institution, or through use of your own premises. See the Facilities and Partnerships page for further details.

Key conditions

Abertay University does not take any ownership of the company that is applying for a grant, or the IP being developed.

Grant repayment (with a modest return) is only applicable where projects go on to be successful, perhaps through a revenue share agreement or lump sum repayment at the point of full development funding being secured for example. This is flexible to fit the needs of the applicant and is intended to ensure the sustainability of the fund.

With a desire to assist in skills development, we strongly support and favour any project that is able to include recent graduates from our UK wide Talent Pool. The intention is to help with any skills gaps that may exist in project teams, as well as provide valuable commercial work experience for the graduates involved.

The application process

Funding rounds will open throughout the year, if you would like to be notified of the next application period then a mailing list is available, simply contact us to add your details.

Applications will be matched against criteria (such as innovation, potential for growth, and commercial viability) and reviewed by an approval panel which includes external industry representation. From the initial application we aim to make a decision within a three month period.

Apply now

The recognition comes as Hiring-Hub.com’s founders Simon Swan and Sara Jones were both named in Insider Media’s 42 under 42 Class of 2011; a respected collection of the north west’s most exciting entrepreneurs under the age of 42. “At Insider we are always on the look out for businesses doing things a bit differently,” said Rupert Cornford, features editor, North West Business Insider.

“When I met Hiring-Hub.com’s founders they showed me the software platform they had built and explained their proposition, and I thought it was a great idea,” continued Rupert. “The team has picked up some big-name clients in the short time they have been trading and the business model appears to be disruptive in the sector.”

27-year-old Sara Jones, has also been shortlisted for a Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas Award this month. Previous winners include Richard Reed, founder of Innocent Drinks and and Jamie Murray Wells, founder of Glasses Direct.

The Good Web Guide, meanwhile, has shortlisted Hiring-Hub.com for its prestigious 2011 Website of the Year Award, which will be judged by King of Shaves founder Will King and Editor of The Times Digital, Craig Tregurtha. Hiring-Hub.com is up against stiff competition for the accolade, including the likes of Moonfruit and ParcelMonkey.

This could be anything from – extra directions to signs, imaginary figures appearing from walkways, to advertising coming alive and linking to facebook, and different ways of understanding the business world.

“GoAugmented is a really good, modern, virtual reality marketing company doing a great job in what is still an experimental marketplace,” says Matt Thomas, commercial manager and editor of Smarta.com. “They are at the cutting edge of augmented reality using graphics to add value to traditional advertising.”

But they want to go further than that as Mr Sodergren explains ‘Due to the nature of things at the moment most of the interest in Augmented Reality comes from marketing people. It’s ever marketers dream as AR doesn’t need QR codes and creates a seamless experience – it really gives the wow now – which impresses people which is why big brands such as Tesco’s are using it. But the potential of augmented reality applications on mobile phones is much greater than this. Limiting AR to advertising is like saying the printing press could have only made flyers for theatres. As we know, it did a lot more than just that.”

Introduced to each other by Manchester Metropolitan’s business incubator Innospace, lead developer Nadeem Rashid, 23, and marketer Dan Sodergren, 35, have formed a partnership which has seen huge growth for the company in their first year.
As Nadeem Rashid – Lead developer for goAugmented puts it “Augmented Reality will change the world. Not just with augmented reality in advertising but using augmented reality in design and in the way we interact with our homes, our cities, our friends. Adding graphic information to add value to things we buy and things we love. You will be amazed at what AR can do.”

Yet, making amazing technologies and being at the top of their class in development may have actually held the company back initially. As Mr Sodergren reports: “It’s great to have amazing technology teams, we are lucky here at goAugmented as Nadeem is ranked as one of the top two developers in Europe by the German-based augmented reality platform Junaio (our main supplier). The initial problem was they were so busy making stuff that they weren’t selling it to clients. They would make something amazing and then go onto the next project. I saw their potential in this and I’m now the commercial manager. We have turned the company around to be more client-focused and so in the last six months we’ve seen the turnover increase by a factor of ten.”

Big names clients such as Samsung and Manchester City FC have bought into this new vision of things to come and been added to forward thinkers like the British Museum as goAugmented clients. With a lot of the technology created by goAugmented’s Nadeem Rashid as well as external AR provider platforms like Junaio from Germany.

The company is now exploring many other uses for this in house built technology such as working with fashion labels – with people will be able to transpose items of clothing onto themselves using web cams and mobile phones and will be releasing a white label product around this in October.

This year’s Smarta 100 provides a fascinating snapshot of UK small business today: a cross-section of ingenious new ideas and the fast-growth big businesses of tomorrow. Hiring-Hub.com was included in the Top 100 courtesy of its founders’ vision to make recruitment more efficient for businesses in the UK. It is the second gong Hiring-Hub.com has won since inception, following its success in the 2011 DediPower Digital Innovation Awards earlier this year.

Founded by Simon Swan and Sara Jones, Hiring-Hub.com launched in February this year and quickly caught the attention of many of the UK’s leading and most progressive businesses, plus hundreds of SMEs. Built to make the lives of those responsible for hiring that little bit easier, Hiring-Hub.com is now used regularly by public, private and third sector businesses.

“Naturally we are delighted to have been named and recognised as one of the UK’s smartest businesses,” said Hiring-Hub.com co-founder, Simon Swan. “In a way it validates our efforts and vision, while giving our team a pat on the back for their hard work and success to date.”

Commenting on this year’s Smarta 100 winners, Dragons’ Den star and Smarta board member Deborah Meaden, said: “This year’s Smarta 100 has uncovered some superb businesses. What pleases me is that these awards are championing passionate and ambitious people with brilliant ideas who’ve acted on those ideas and turned them into flourishing businesses. These businesses and individuals are hugely important and deserve our recognition and support.”

Proving the crucial role small businesses have to play in the future recovery of the UK economy, Smarta 100 revenues total over £65,000,000, with an average turnover of £692,000. They’re contributing more to the nation’s coffers than they’re borrowing too, with over half (51%) entirely self-funded.

On average, they are three years and two months old. They employ a total of 740 people, with 9% employing a staff of more than 20. The Smarta 100 also tells us about the people behind Britain’s brightest small businesses. This year’s winners are 55% male, 45% female, aged between 18 and 52 with an average of 33.

Smarta founder Shaa Wasmund added: “The quality of entries for this year’s Smarta 100 was ridiculously high. If anyone ever tries to tell you the UK lacks an enterprise or entrepreneurial mindset, point them to this list. We’re hugely proud of this year’s award winners. I’ve every confidence a significant percentage will double in size by the time we announce the 2012 winners!”

Digital Labs combines the traditional University aims of experimentation, knowledge sharing and discovery with a commitment to deliver business solutions that have an immediate impact.

You will be based at MMU’s city center campus in a newly refurbished two-person office. We will provide a new MacBook Pro with SSD and external display.

You will be working on a diverse range of projects from educational apps to concert ticketing apps for the famous Manchester music scene. You will be working within a cross-disciplinary team of academics, developers, and students. As an early-stage employee of The Digital Lab you will have the opportunity to shape both the future of your role and the Digital Labs project.

For an informal discussion regarding the requirements of the role please contact Dr.Darren Dancey (d.dancey@mmu.ac.uk)

For more information and to apply online, visit http://www.mmu.ac.uk/jobs If you do not have access to the internet or require an application in an alternative format please contact Human Resources on 0161 247 6403 quoting reference HP/1052. Closing date for receipt of applications is 18 September 2011. Applications must be submitted by midnight on the closing date.

MMU values diversity and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.

https://www.jobs.mmu.ac.uk/mmujobsite/VacancyDetail.aspx?VacancyUID=000000006743