Digital Economy
Cornwall’s plan for access to superfast broadband for businesses and communities is becoming reality through the Superfast Cornwall Project managed by Cornwall Development Company. This will make Cornwall one of the best connected locations and present exceptional opportunities and challenges for business. CUC institutions are working in partnership to help leverage and extend Cornwall’s competitive strategy.
University College Falmouth has core strengths to support business in this field, particularly within its Academy for Innovation and Research. Plymouth University also offers a full range of services for digitally enabled and creative industries and accredits all degree level courses provided by Cornwall College and Truro and Penwith College.
We have and will continue to have a ready source of high level and vocational skilled labour, increasingly at the forefront of emerging technologies.
"Digital technology is the single biggest lever for productivity and competitiveness across every sector of the economy... the export of global technology services and world-class content offers substantive opportunities for wealth generation." Skillset and Creative & Cultural Skills, Sector Skills Councils Strategic Skills Assessment for the Digital Economy, 2009.
Academy for Innovation & Research - Supporting Innovation and R&D
University College Falmouth’s AIR is a design innovation centre supporting businesses with growth potential in the digital economy and sustainable design. It will help shape, scope and implement key questions around areas like infrastructure; network communities; how to develop new business models and strategies to monetise content; how to adapt the way we work to business anytime, anyplace; how to encourage new users to embrace the internet – digital inclusion; how can public services deliver better quality service, productivity, value for money and extend their reach; which technologies help make business more competitive and how can we instil new skills from school onwards.
AIR is open for business and will relocate to a purpose-built environment on the Tremough campus around May 2012. It offers a range of current and planned services including an open plan reconfigurable space to stimulate creative thinking in challenging issues from new perspectives, innovation and R&D in business, creative facilities to undertake live projects through sandpit type events, opportunities for collaborative research through PhDs, Masters dissertations, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and student projects.
Recent creative workshops have included: A number of Superfast Labs - How do we connect communities within and beyond the county and generate new communities? How do we help businesses experiment with Superfast broadband whilst doing the day job?
Up Skilling Your Business and Workforce
Many of us recall the changes we had to make in the way we work to harness generations of new technologies as they impacted on our daily work and this will be no different. Technology enabled businesses will be at the sharp end, including content developers, IT, software digital creative and e-marketing but every business will be affected.
Business and sector networking groups such as the Digital Peninsula Network, the newly formed Digital Meet Up Group and the Cornwall Design Forum are grappling with these questions and how we all respond. CUC partner universities and colleges will work in partnership to identify and deliver relevant skills training for businesses, as the Superfast Cornwall Project unfolds, based on demand and fit with our skills delivery capability.
Unlocking Cornish Potential
Unlocking Cornish Potential, the CUC partnership graduate placement project can also help implement digital development projects. Businesses across the county continue to benefit from projects undertaken by graduates involving social media, digital marketing skills and e-commerce development. These will continue to evolve based on the business need.
Digital Economy Contacts and Resources
Superfast Cornwall Project use the opportunities to improve your business - cloud computing (remote hosting) as part of your IT strategy (in-house and outsource models), improved communication and less travel through VoIP and video communications, realtime collaborative project environments, better social media, better data transfer, secure back up via remote data storage, better remote access and the opportunity to connect multiple devices simultaneously.
Cornwall Digital Meet Up Group is for people in the software, IT and digital industries in Cornwall
Invest in Cornwall encourages business relocation and start up in Cornwall