NORTH-EAST DIGITAL MINDS SET SAIL FOR SWEDEN

Entrepreneurs and business leaders forge new links at conference

Some of the north-east’s most creative business minds are heading off to Sweden next week, with their sights set on forging new links with Scandinavia.

Their destination is the ‘Digital Minds: The Nordic Light’ conference in Gävle, a historic city two hours north of Stockholm.

Speakers at the event include Codeworks CEO Herb Kim, James TerKeurst from the University of Teesside’s Institute of Digital Innovation, and Steve Blanks of Newcastle-based Fat Frog Media.

A number of the region’s digital creative businesses are also making the trip, hoping to encounter new ideas and global business contacts.

Georgia Rakusen, of digital arts production company Haus Projects, is one of those attending the conference.

“Digital Minds: The Nordic Light is a conference all about cross-pollination and creative people sharing ideas,“ she explains. “I was at the Thinking Digital conference in Gateshead earlier this year, so I know what a huge impact this sort of cross-genre event can have. I’m very excited to see what new opportunities we can develop collaboratively with our Swedish digital counterparts.”

Other digital creative entrepreneurs attending the conference include:

Rob Colling of Gateshead-based internetsubtitling.com, which produces subtitles and captions for web video

Frances Calvey of Middlesbrough-based video production firm Kirkwood Media

Adam Green of Assyria Game Studio in Middlesbrough.

"It's an amazing opportunity and I'm looking forward to representing the north-east internationally,” says Frances. “Spreading the word about what digital industries have to offer in the region is an exciting prospect."

“In difficult times like these, there's more reason than ever to establish relationships outside the UK, with an eye to trading globally rather than just regionally or nationally,” says Rob. “The region’s business community is going to be very well represented in Gavle, and it’s great to see that north-eastern firms and organisations are so far ahead of the game when it comes to thinking internationally.”