Data innovation drives

Scotland can build on its strong capabilities to create a winning formula, says David Smith

When Scotland’s significant capabilities in the field of data innovation and exploitation were highlighted by the UK Tech Innovation Index, it came of no surprise to those working in the sector in Scotland.

The fact that it named Edinburgh as the most active tech innovation community outside London, with Glasgow not far behind, was again no surprise.

The tech index, developed by the Open Data Institute and the Digital Catapult, backed up the findings of the 2017 EY Scotland Attractiveness Survey, which ranked Scotland as the most attractive UK location for foreign direct investment outside the capital, and highlighted software as a particular strength for Scotland.

Just as we were at the forefront of the kinds of innovation that propelled economies forward in the past, we are again leading the way with industry and academia working together to innovate and create new opportunities for economic growth.

The tech index found that Scotland has strengths in areas such as the internet of things, artificial intelligence and health.

It also identified significant capabilities in the field of data innovation and exploitation.

In fact, Scotland already has more than 160 companies operating in this area, with a combined turnover from data-related activities of about £600 million.

It has been estimated that datadriven innovation has the potential to deliver £20 billion of productivity benefits for our economy over the next five years.

This success owes much to our world-class academic excellence and data assets such as Edinburgh University’s School of Informatics.

The dedicated data innovation centre, the Data Lab, is playing a key role in helping the industry to respond to the global impact of data-driven innovation.

Working with its partner universities and the Scottish Funding Council, Scotland has almost a quarter of all data science post-graduate courses in the UK.

The Data Lab’s masters programme has funded 260 students over three years and offers value-added opportunities on top of the degree qualification from one of 11 Scottish institutions.

The Data Lab is also behind a thriving Scotland-wide “meet-up” community of more than 2,400 business leaders. They are part of a can-do entrepreneurial community of Scottish companies investing in data opportunities.

We’ve seen significant homegrown global success with Fanduel and Skyscanner, Scotland’s first digital businesses to be classed as unicorns, tech start-up companies that reached a $1bn market value.

We’re also seeing a growing number of inward investors choosing Scotland as a location for their data-driven businesses, tapping into our skilled business environment and supportive tech ecosystem.

Scottish Enterprise is working hand-in-hand with partners to exploit these opportunities.

Last year we supported the Data Lab and other industry partners to host Scotland’s first Datafest, a week-long programme of events attended by more than 2,500 people.

This included a business conference of 450 delegates, where leaders discussed the global opportunities of data and related technologies. Today, we are looking forward to the next instalment as upwards of 3,000 people take part in Datafest 2018.

One of the many things we all agreed on at last year’s event was that our thriving data scene has put Scotland in pole position to become the data capital of Europe.

Reaching this goal will take significant work and further collaboration to encourage more investment into our ecosystem.

A great example of how this is already happening is the commitments made by the Scottish and UK governments and the Edinburgh City Region Deal partners towards significant investments that will help put Edinburgh and Scotland at the forefront of technology-led innovation.

We will also be increasing our support for business in this sector with a new data advisory service, led by Scottish Enterprise.

This will focus on developing the capabilities of companies in Scotland and helping them realise market opportunities.

We are rightly ambitious for Scotland when it comes to the opportunities of digital technologies.

But thanks to our culture of innovation, long-established relationships between industry and academia, and a growing skills base and tech ecosystem, Scotland is well placed to secure its position as the data innovation capital of Europe within the next few years. n