- Thu
- 05
- Nov 2009
Being Competitive In A Digital World – We Built This City On Rock and Roll
Tags: birmingham uk, funding, ITN, newspapers, Sion Simon
For all the global aspirations and connections of digital technology, the Hello Digital ‘Being Competitive In A Digital World’ event was firmly rooted in Birmingham. Creative Industries Minister, and MP for Erdington, Sion Simon began the day likening Birmingham’s digital economy to both the birth of heavy metal in the region and the Lunar Society.
He suggested that Birmingham was starting to be proud of it’s digital strengths in a way that it hasn’t in the past about its industry or even its music. He focused on the reasons that industries succeed — and brought it all back to one thing: the talent of the people involved. It set the tone for a day that focused at lot on Brum successes, and innovations. This lead BCU’s Jon Hickman to suggest:
You can’t get much more local and innovational than the building of a virtual copy of the building the conference was in. Daden are virtual worlds specialists and showcased Virtual Millennium Point…
The debate on News Innovation proved very topical, with huge changes being announced to the Birmingham Post and Mail in the days leading up to the event. Birmingham Post Editor Marc Reeves chaired the discussion, and Joanna Geary (who launched the Post’s blog network before leaving for The Times) was also on the panel.
by Drawnalism
In a way the local newspapers taking the digital scene seriously in Birmingham contributed to it’s growth, so the future of news is a topic close to many hearts.
At a tangent, the work done by the region’s gaming industry is both a huge contributor to the economy — there were demonstrations of some fantastic new interfaces and an fascinating panel which looked not only at that but areas where games are being used for serious purposes as well as fun:
Different industries, but areas in which it seems Birmingham is in with a chance of leading the world — which makes you feel good.
