A project to help UK start-up technology businesses to find their feet and become successful is accepting new applications.
The Difference Engine is a business incubator for technology businesses, offering an intensive mentoring programme in the North East over 13 weeks and giving each participant £20,000 in return for an eight per cent share in the company.
Further reading
The programme is being funded and supported by a variety of organisations including One North East, Middlesborough and Sunderland City Councils. The programme’s mentors hail from a variety of backgrounds and include serial entrepreneurs, technology experts and professionals such as lawyers, marketing specialists, accountants and venture capitalists.
The new round is open to applications until 23 July 2010 and applications should be made via the Difference Engine web site.
Among the current candidates are:
CANDDI which helps companies to convert more web site visitors into customers, increasing marketing ROI and ultimately profit by tracking real individuals over multiple visits and across every one of a company’s online presences, from email to social media, to create a complete picture of their behaviour.
Curated By is the first dedicated curation platform for the real-time web. Curators are given the tools to create handpicked streams of updated, tagged and categorised content. Similar to Wikipedia, users sort the best content into bundles of information to be shared and consumed by other people.
Cutefund is a crowd-sourced mutual fund and platform for investors. As a mutual fund, CuteFund buys and sells stocks; the difference is that CuteFund does not have a fund manager: investors vote for stocks and votes are weighted and averaged so it buys the best stocks and sells the worst.
Geogoer is an open transport platform where anyone can find passengers, cars and public transport, or publish their own journeys. It supports different modes of transport, such as cars, coaches, trains and even “flying carpets”.
Recite allows any web site to become more accessible to people who are dyslexic, visually impaired or who have a young reading age, by intercepting the web page online, instantly adding accessibility techniques such as voice, high-contrast text and simpler word options and outputting it for any user to read.
Rock Control encourages the global public to launch and manage a band from scratch, from picking who they want in the final line-up to deciding the look and feel of the band and choosing which media opportunities they want to take.
ScreenReach provides real-time delivery of media content to a mobile phone or any smart device via any digital display, be it TV, outdoor advertising or a PC.
Tagorize: The Tagorize system claims to describe online information so accurately that it can provide a level of search relevancy that is intrinsically more valuable and accurate than existing systems.
Wishlist is a Facebook application that helps people give gifts. Users create a list of the people for whom they buy presents and invite them to create wishlists. Then they receive email reminders before birthdays and buy them things they want.
Programmes like this not only support start-up technology businesses, encouraging them to grow and flourish, but also recognise the significant impact the technology industry can have on the long-term prosperity of this country. It is important, especially in economically uncertain times, to encourage UK tech firms so that Britain can become a global force in the technology industry and drive growth for the rest of the economy.
It is the responsibility of both government and business to recognise the vital role the UK IT industry can play in Britain's continuing economic recovery.
Programmes that serve as business incubators ensure the UK has the opportunity to build home grown talent, challenge the established powers of Silicon Valley and stimulate financial growth.
Julian Dobbins, Micro Focus
Posted by: Julian Dobbins 16 Jul 2010
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