The QT

Monday 21 October 2024
21/10/2024

Author name: Jamie Hardesty

man presenting at tech conference

North East Tech in 2024 so far

For the last five years I have been the Editor of the Newcastle Tech Digest, a free weekly newsletter covering and championing tech sector news, events and insights from across North East England.  Much potential exists in our regionโ€™s technology sector, thereโ€™s certainly enough going on to be excited about. Though, perhaps due to its …

Hope for women in tech, come what May

Before International Womenโ€™s Day earlier this year, I wrote a piece for The QT addressing the lack of female representation in the North Eastโ€™s high-growth tech sector. โ€œIt isnโ€™t impossible to be a female tech founder in the North East but it is unusual,โ€ was one of my many observations. In the article, I bemoaned …

Developing a fascination for tech meetups

โ€œWhatโ€™s that, like?โ€ I asked, bewildered. Iโ€™d just been invited to a dev meetup but I didnโ€™t really know what that meant. Working late in the office one evening, around a decade or so ago, the digital platform I was writing for was having a series of technical difficulties. Staying late to fix the problem with …

Finding an exit to enter techโ€™s world stage

As the Premier League season draws to a close, Newcastle United are battling at the top end of the table, hoping to secure a European qualification place.  Since the Saudi-led takeover of the club in late 2021, the black-and-white armyโ€™s fortunes have been transformed. Opportunity, ambition and momentum exist.  Cities thrive when theyโ€™re winning.  I …

Feeding at techโ€™s top table

Itโ€™s official, people: weโ€™re firmly in the tech calendarโ€™s busy season. Wonโ€™t someone please think of the writers incapable of resisting fancy award show puddings? This quarter saw the launch of UK Tech Week, while the North Eastโ€™s very own tech festival TechNExt will return in June. Before then, in May, the region will enjoy …

More than a match for our tech friends in the North

Iโ€™m enjoying the articles Iโ€™m reading in The QT each week. With enhanced devolution fast approaching, thereโ€™s rightly a lot of speculation and concern relating to how we get the most out of the opportunity. Whatโ€™s interesting is the commonality of attitudes Iโ€™m seeing, irrespective of which sector commentators hail from.  It seems most of …

Strength of immersive tech is a reality

โ€œImmersive technology is the future and the future is in Gateshead,โ€ they said. Well, one of them said it and they always say things, donโ€™t they?  It was a chilly, wet and windy morning in November 2017 when I first entered Proto, the emerging technology centre based in Gatesheadโ€™s Baltic Business Quarter.  The rain had …

Insight into our data dilemma

In my column for The QT last week I explored where the North Eastโ€™s tech sector fits into the wider narrative of a region set to embrace deeper devolution.  In the piece I talked about how we must assess the size of the sector and understand the strength of its constituent parts if we are …

Donโ€™t tell me the North East tech story, show me!

Whenever I go to leading UK tech events, be it in London or elsewhere around the nation, two questions are often thrown at me: “What are the North Eastโ€™s tech strengths?” and, unless Iโ€™m in Scotland: “What tech companies have you got up there?” While the questions, the latter especially, could be considered ignorant or …

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