Following the launch of our annual report on female entrepreneurship we received a lot of media coverage on a range of different subjects. However, despite the successful launch causing celebration, we’ve not been lying idle.
Q2 kicked off with our Programmes Director, Sophie Jarvis, having a piece in the Telegraph comment section of the paper! She commented on the launch of BBC’s 50:50 project to get more women experts on panels arguing that, although the intention might be to empower women, the project will have the opposite effect.
Also, for the last month we’ve been very active on the recently launched Refresh, a new initiative by the Telegraph on their website providing comment pieces on the biggest problems facing Britain written by young people for young people.
Our founder, Philip Salter, and Sophie have both been in Refresh making calls for Britain, and Tories specifically, to embrace immigration if we want Britain to prosper. Sophie argues that the Tories can once again become the party for entrepreneurs as it was in the glory days of the late Margaret Thatcher if they endorse a new liberalised immigration system. By giving access to a broader pool of talents, entrepreneurs have the opportunity of scaling up their business. As Sophie also notes, scale ups are much bigger generators of economic growth than start ups, although focus should not be on one over the other. According to Philip, this could help detoxify the Tories and shake off their image as the “nasty party”.
On a different subject, our editor, Annabel Denham, was arguing in Refresh that young people have embraced the gig economy. Therefore, if the Tories want to recapture the Millennial generation they must stop implicitly conceding that Corbyn is right by killing off innovation with regulation. Not only will they scare of millenials with regulation, but it would hurt everyone else in the economy as well. In fact, as Annabel argues in the Women Mean Business section of the Telegraph, the gig economy is the future and women can lead the charge.
Those of you who’ve read our report (if you haven’t, you can read it here) know that mentorship is one of the best vehicles for encouraging and supporting entrepreneurship. If you want a slightly condensed version of the arguments, Jarvis was in the Women Mean Business section as well, making the case for why creating mentors are key for female entrepreneurship.
Our founder, Philip Salter, has also been busy on Forbes this month. He has done some interesting interviews with several entrepreneurs. He’s been chatting to co-founder and CEO of Coinfirm among other things, a company that is trying to professionalise the crypto industry.
Chances are you’ve not heard of mixed-reality marketing and you most likely haven’t heard of Landmrk, but Philip have been talking to their their co-founder and CEO to find out more on how mixed-reality can revolutionize marketing.
Ahead of Scale Up Britain, an event we’re hosting to highlight the importance of scale-ups to the British economy, Philip interviewed the co-founder, Chieu Cao, of Perkbox. Cao is not hedging his ambition, he wants Perbox to grow to be a £100m+ run rate business in 2020, followed by an IPO and Philip interviewed him to find out more.
Philip also talked to Kim Palmer, the founder of Clementine, an app helping women struggling with anxiety, low self-esteem or generally overwhelmed by life’s stress to become more confident. She tells her story of how she turned a dire situation into her first start-up.
Christian Owens, founder and CEO of Paddle, a one-stop shop for firms and developers selling software, also spoke to Philip on what lies ahead for his company.
The recently published report on AI by the House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Committee made Philip chip in with his thoughts on the subject. He thinks it’s important that the House of Lords don’t dismiss the risks of AI.
Annabel provides insight into the machinery of the UK’s second fastest growing business, Bloom & Wild. She tells the story of how the company managed to stay on top of the game and to make the step onto the international scene.
If you’re unable to find Sophie in the newspapers, you’ll most likely find her on a radio station near you. This month she was co-hosting Hoxton Radio’s DE:CODE, a program talking about the latest tech news and our event at the International Festival Business in Liverpool on June 12th. She’ll appear around 16:30 min. in. She also went on BBC London to do a paper review with Vanessa Feltz. She’ll be on from min. 48:30, and has appeared on talkRADIO for paper reviews on the day of the Royal Wedding (from 6am to 7am) & earlier on in April (from 7am to 10am)!
And last but not least, Sophie also spoke at Big Tent Ideas Festival Warm Up organised by George Freeman MP. She managed to come second in the finale! Her topic was on the equity funding gap. If you want to read some of her thoughts on the subject, she was in the Guardian this month writing about it. And if you have read all her articles and listened to all her radio appearances and you still want more, you can watch her talk here. In June she’ll be speaking at the RSA.