Innovation is the lifeblood associated with a business and it is what provides a company its future competitive edge. The UK is extremely good at delivering innovation. According to Tech Nation, within the space of merely one year, the UK has shattered all records, with technology investment soaring by 44 percent to over lb10 billion – more than France and Germany combined.
Diversity and collaboration together breed innovation
This is due to having diverse pockets of innovation round the country, where small agile tech start-ups partner with established British firms to deliver nimble technology solutions to the earth's problems.
Incubators, accelerators, innovation hubs and testbeds all provide invaluable opportunities for the kind of collaboration that's crucial in shaping the evolution of recent technologies, and ultimately their request and adoption.
5G Testbeds Like a Service
One of the UK tech hubs at the heart of collaborative 5G innovation is in the county of Worcestershire, better known for its chocolate-box villages and therapeutic qualities than staying at the forefront of 5G technology innovation.
Based at Malvern Hills Science Park, the center of Malvern's “Cyber Valley”, BetaDen is a commercial technology accelerator that not only offers scale-up technology businesses support to commercialise their ideas but additionally has access to a 5G Testbed as a Service through nexGworx – a project made in July this year following a success of the Worcestershire 5G DCMS 5G Testbeds and Trials programme.
Many game-changing technologies have already been shaped in the accelerator this season as the COVID pandemic drove adoption of digital technologies across all industries.
Cybersecurity and defence
The move towards remote-working frameworks across academia and industry, for example, has driven the need for additional assurance and securities.
With a strong heritage in defence technologies because the Second World War when the government decided to hide their military telecommunications and radar research programme there, Malvern – just seven miles south west of Worcester – hosts an abundance of tech talent.
Today, the Malvern Hills Science Park – that is next to QinetiQ – hosts a number of early-stage security businesses. One particular business is Wembley Partners, a current BetaDen cohort member which, on 1 September, launched a one-stop-shop cyber response SaaS management platform called ORNA that appears set to disrupt the whole current cyber incident management sector. Meanwhile, Voice Biometrics – another BetaDen alumni – put its voice biometric technology to good use throughout the pandemic, helping universities in america to recognize students sitting their exams remotely.
Flying medical supplies
Other exciting pandemic innovations include the delivery of medical supplies by drone. DronePrep was a part of cohort 3 at BetaDen and recently appointed because the accelerator's first Entrepreneur in Residence. Primarily trying to map air corridors for drone use around the world, it became a part of a consortia trialing the delivery of Covid tests along with other medical supplies to remote regions by drone for that NHS throughout the pandemic. It's since been involved with numerous UK firsts, including partnering with Skyports, What 3 Words and Royal Mail to complete britain's first postal delivery via drone around the Isle of Mull.
Other recent inventions launched from BetaDen include JET Engineering's 5G At Sea initiative, the world’s first self-powered, floating 5G buoy to monitor sea-state safety and provide real-time data on sea condition; PLINX's sensor-driven safety technology for construction sites now mandated to be used on HS2; Veritherm's technology to watch the 'real life' thermal performance of buildings; and Conigital's driverless vehicle and ride-hailing solutions.
Innovation in the 'new normal'
As businesses adjust to a 'new normal' of remote and hybrid working, the chances are innovation labs and how they are used will even evolve.
BetaDen continued to function throughout the pandemic, remotely at first and then in hybrid form, ensuring cohort members continued to profit from possibilities to attend events, talk with mentors and discuss ideas with fellow cohort members in real life or online. This shift has also allowed the accelerator to develop its community, attracting attendees from as far afield as Australia to its popular TechTuesday talks as well as attracting applications from international businesses.
And while larger enterprise companies can, to some extent, initiate their very own innovation hubs and accelerator models, we're also visiting a growing trend towards industry partners working directly with innovation organisations, due to the advantages of being part of a wider ecosystem and access innovation talent which brings.
State from the market
The acceleration of mass digital adoption is without a doubt creating new commercial needs, with accelerator programmes, intrapreneurship programmes, boot camps and tech sprints all populating this space.