Meet some of our new members

Catherine

Catherine Bell "I grew up in Madrid and Hull and went to Nottingham University to study History. Having grown up in Spain and travelled through India, America and across Europe, I’ve always had an interest in languages and travel as an invaluable opportunity to think outside the box and meet people from all backgrounds. I recently spent a few months working in Lima for a contemporary art gallery and as a translator for Peru’s leading translation agency before travelling through Central America and Cuba. I’m now back in Hull working with C4DI for the summer on several PR and marketing projects. After just a few weeks I can already say that I love working within this hub of ideas and creative people. Looking forward to continuing work within Hull leading up to City of Culture 2017 and beyond!"

Joe Bullivant

joe_b

"Recently set up a new company (provisionally called Avenir Applications) to develop analysis and data mining software specialising in forecasting financial risk. Together with business partner Alan (based in London), we intend to create software to more effectively undertake some of the primarily manual processes used within small banks to rank and score account data.

Moved back to Hull in the last few months, having grown up in Willerby. Previously studied at the University of Sheffield (Computer Science and Mathematics) before moving to the East of London for a few years; whereby I was working as a consultant for small to medium sized banks within the financial risk sector.

Can usually be found watching films, hiking, travelling, reading (mostly science fiction), grabbing a few beers or taking my motorbike for a spin.

I was looking for a friendly work environment with like minded people and a solid internet connection; C4DI more than ticked all of the boxes. The location is very convenient and the views overlooking the river and the Humber are spectacular".

Thom Davy

thom

Thom Davy, co-founder of stashboard a creative storage and organisation tool (think of it like dropbox but with loads more specialised features).

He's worked in leading design agencies in London before migrating to Australia in 2004 which is where he's been for the last 11 years. He has worked across all areas of brand expression with a broad range of iconic and global brands including – AMP, Coke, Dell, IBM, Lend Lease, Qantas, American Express, Jetstar, Medibank, Perpetual, RSPCA, Westpac, Sydney Opera House, Savills, and Vodafone. Originally from Cottingham he's over in the UK at the moment promoting his brand new startup...stashboard.

Stashboard caters to the creative work process making it easier for you to be more productive on a daily basis. It’s a private place for all your creative stuff such as Images, vectors files, textures, sketches, websites, links, video & music - in fact, everything you ever come across or create.

If you'd like to, you can check it out at stashboard.com or watch our brand video and case study video

We launched our beta just over 3 months ago and we have over 2000 users across 76 countries, we recently won few awards at TedX Syd and Amazon Tech Summit, however we still have a long way to go!!

Pop by and say hello!

Joanne Pinkney

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I am a marketing and communications professional with over fifteen years’ experience in education software and services across international and UK public sector markets. As a local Marketing graduate, I started my career in 1998 on the Hull University business park working in software marketing before joining SITS Ltd, now part of the Tribal Group and the market leader in the provision of Student Information Systems to the global Higher Education market.

My world has been fast moving, and complex for so long. I now want to make the move to help businesses (and myself) focus and use simple and effective marketing techniques to “stand out”. I am also passionate about new technology to help drive improvements in marketing, and to support businesses in using this and their data to be ahead of their game.

To this end, I am now in the throes of setting up Pinx Creative, and we will support businesses of all sizes with projects of all types across the on and offline marketing spectrum. We are already established as an events logistics business, and have a number of local clients including Kinderland, The Laser Clinic and The Travel Centre.

ARC Studios, the C4DI story…

We are very lucky to have some amazing members whose businesses and startups are thriving and who play a terrific part in the community.

ARC Studios are one of these startups and Will has kindly written an overview of what they have been doing over the past twelve months:

"Time has flown since we founded ARC more than a year ago now, but it seems like only yesterday that we walked into the Wykeland offices to meet Jon and John.

As a group of fresh-faced graduates of the Computer Science MEng program, our plan was fairly simple: Make some damn fine videogames. Problem is, making videogames is very, VERY time consuming, and somehow we had to keep the lights on at home whilst we did it.That’s where C4DI comes in. 

Our preliminary strategy was to go off and find separate full-time jobs, and dev in our free time at home. But it was at C4DI we were presented with the opportunity to work for ourselves instead. And work for ourselves we did.

The tech industry has a need for highly skilled developers to write enterprise software, and after studying the intricate nature of high end physics engines for 5 years, we felt we could apply the same performance driven solutions to business software. And we were right.

A year later and we’re fulfilling more software contracts every month from the clients that C4DI has introduced us too, and a then a few more. Our team has grown in size, and we’re now taking on internships from other university students, providing the real experience of working with larger teams than we ourselves had the opportunity to whilst we were studying. Because at the end of the day, it’s about giving back to the community that has supported us, and hopefully, paving the way for more talented graduates to follow in our footsteps.

arc_C4DI

So what happened to the video games?

Well, we haven’t lost sight of them. Our enterprise software has provided us with the funding (and subsequently, the time) to dedicate as many working days as possible to game development, by sharing responsibilities and workload across both our software endeavours,and our games.

Our first project, codename “StarGazer”, is already underway and has garnered positive feedback from everyone who’s seen it so far, but it is still top secret. We hope to unveil new features as they happen, and with regular dev-diaries, explain the various ins and outs of designing a game entirely from scratch.

After Stargazer, we want to move away from existing engines and hopefully unveil our own in-house proprietary engine; The ARC Reactor.

We’ve been invited back to university to give talks to the undergrads about software development and working with real clients, and it’s been a real pleasure to strengthen the ties between C4DI and the University. We be coming back to the university again in September to talk to the games degree students, who are now studying at the stage we were at a few years ago, about the lost fundamentals of good game design.

Being a part of the C4DI family has been instrumental in our success. Working alongside experts in different fields has not only enabled us to seek advice about the engineering and business worlds (to which we are new, and very much still learning), but has also introduced us to new friends and hobbies. It’s been a fascinating to watch the new construction grow, both first-hand, and by the fantastic time-lapse photography.

So here’s to the future, and to the glorious golden building next door that will become our new base of operations, because at this rate, we’ll need the space."

Visit from Tech North and Tech City

Last week we were delighted to host Claire Braithwaite, the new Head of Tech North, as well as Laura Bennett, Community Engagement Manager from Tech North and Emma Swift, Manager, Entrepreneur Relations for Tech City. The day was spent meeting startups based at C4DI, members and companies who we work with. We hosted a lunch for them to meet local people involved in the thriving growth of Hull and the tech / digital sector including Gary Young, the MD of KC, Martin Green, Chief Executive Hull UK City of Culture 2017 and Stephen Hudson, Director at Wykeland.

We also had a fascinating tour from Andy Whale, Head of Engineering for KC who demonstrated how they are rolling out the fastest fibre in the country with their KC Lightstream initiative.

Claire very kindly sent us her thoughts on the day:

"I spent a fantastic day in Hull. An exciting community is growing here and I witnessed property developers, corporates, developers, creatives, entrepreneurs and the LEP all working together to develop and grow Hull's digital economy. Hull has a strong proposition. KC, the local broadband provider, is delivering speeds of over 1000MB to businesses and homes in Hull and East Riding through its super fast fibre optic network. Underneath the streets of Hull pulses of light are carrying information through the fastest network in Europe.

Property developer Wykeland is building a state of the art 'tech campus' with C4Di as an anchor tenant in the Fruit Market area of Hull. Overlooking the Humber Estuary this building will support the growth of the tech community in Hull and recognises the value created in spaces where digital entrepreneurs, corporates and talent can collaborate and work. By offering flexible tenancies businesses can grow without being locked into onerous leases.

With Hull the 2017 City of Culture (headed up by Martin Green, producer of the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony) Hull is on an exciting trajectory and I predict we'll see high growth rates in digital businesses and employment in the cluster over the coming years."

We are looking forward to welcoming them back very soon.

Startup event: pre-seed funding opportunity

You are invited to attend this special event on Thursday 30th July at 6pm. One of the main focuses of C4DI is the creation and growth of startups. We have an investor team of experienced people who are interested in meeting startups who require pre-seed investment.

Who is this event for?

Startups looking for pre-seed investment.

Format:

- Welcome and drinks

- Overview of the pre-seed fund and how it works

- 5 minute pitch slots to investor team followed by 5 mins of followup in the board room - startups will need to pre-register for a slot using the form below.

We’ll also provide a sample/template presentation if you need it.

If you are an individual looking to team up with people, or looking for ideas, you are very welcome to attend too.

Follow-Up:

The investor team will get in touch with them following their presentation if they want to take them forward.

Any questions, don't hesitate to get in touch.

Best wishes

Jon

<a href="https://jonmoss.wufoo.com/forms/k1qsk3p30w1s6fh/">Fill out my Wufoo form!</a>

The Digital Awards

Hull and East Yorkshire is a hive of digital activity, with superfast broadband, entrepreneurial investment and online commerce expanding more rapidly than ever before. The Digital Awards celebrate creative and forward-thinking applications of cutting edge technology, bringing the digital community together for an inspiring first-of-its-kind event in our region.

With eleven categories covering everything from Best Hardware to Best Digital Marketing Campaign, businesses, organisations and sole traders from all sectors are invited to enter, presenting a comprehensive showcase of the innovative spirit and indomitable pride that Hull and East Yorkshire offers to the world.

The Digital Awards 2015 will be held on the third floor of the new C4DI, a perfectly suited environment with spectacular views over the city’s growing digital and cultural quarter.

Martha Lane Fox will be speaking and our friend Rory Cellan-Jones will be the host on the night!

We are delighted to be hosting the event and sponsoring the digital startup category. We hope to see you there!

Read about the award categories, the special guests and the event! Unmissable!

Stunning aerial footage of the new C4DI

As you may have noticed, our new home has suddenly sprung up from @TheDock and is taking shape! It's going to be an incredible place, focussed on community, innovation and startups. One of our members is Chris Fenton who runs Octovision Media specialising in professional aerial media using his drone technology. We are very grateful for the photos and video Chris has already provided (have a look here) and the video below is the latest instalment... ENJOY!

The Dock 2 from Octovision Media on Vimeo.

C4DI and IT@SPECTRUM Biz Week Event

C4DI and IT@Spectrum: Unlock profits in retailing using advanced statistics, ’Big Data’ and your brand.

Wednesday June 3rd 4pm

C4DI, Wykeland House, 47 Queen Street, The Fruit Market, HU1 1UU

Who should attend? 

Business owners, senior management, managing directors, marketing directors and teams, across all industry sectors.

IT directors, people responsible for technology and innovation

Who's speaking?

Hedley Aylott is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Summit will demonstrate how cutting edge predictive analytics is being used to optimise online marketing campaigns by predicting customer behaviour with incredible results.

David Keel, Global Innovations Director of Trident, will talk about how his business has pivoted from working in one of the World’s most traditional industries to becoming one of the most advanced digital businesses in the area, simply by leveraging the data that existed within the organisation.

Stuart Carlisle, MD Ebuyer will give valuable insight into a national strategy and the importance of your brand.

PLUS

An onsite look at @The Dock, the new home of the C4DI - see and hear how the Fruit Market is being transformed.

PLUS

After party and drinks at the legendary Thieving Harry's on Humber Street. Music provided by LabelWORX, Europe's leading digital label services providers.

Find out more and RSVP now by clicking here!

Buried under spreadsheets? The new tax year is a great time to switch accounting software!

This is a guest post from our friend's at FreeAgent...

For many small business owners, the first week of April doesn’t just mark the beginning of a new tax year and payroll year, but also the start of a new accounting year. FreeAgent’s Chief Accountant Emily Coltman FCA explains why this is such a great time to switch to new accounting software and make some positive changes for the year ahead.

‘For most sole traders and many limited companies early April is the start of a new accounting year, and it’s also the start of a new payroll year for any employers. The new accounting year is the point in the year when accounts from the previous year are being finalised and you’re starting afresh for the new year. 

‘At the start of a new accounting year, the amount of information you need to input into a new accounting system is much less. Instead of importing many individual transactions, you’ll be able to take the closing balances from your previous accounting year and use these to create the opening balances for your new year.  The details of your closing balances should be readily available from your accountant or from your existing software system, if you’re using one.’

Read more about switching accounting software.

Welcome to WP Engine!

We are delighted to welcome WP Engine as our latest supporter!

WP Engine is a leading SaaS content management platform for websites and applications built on WordPress, trusted by over 27,000 customers worldwide. We power thousands of websites and apps built on the WordPress platform delivering a fast, reliable, secure web experience. All levels of users including bloggers, marketers, SMB, and large corporations rely on our platform to keep their websites up and running. Here are just some key points that set us apart from other hosting providers:

• Our EverCache technology runs WordPress on average, 4-6 times faster, improving page loads and SEO ranking
• Customer security/performance rules sets with over 4,000 WordPress specific active scanning rules
• Always on, world class, technical support 24/7/365 via live chat, tickets and phone
• Speak with experts. Every support technician is specifically trained for WordPress, it’s all we do

C4DI is a great client of ours and we’re excited to announce a special incentive for all their members who are new to WP Engine to use for their own sites… $20 off each month for your first three months on our either our Personal, Professional or Business monthly plans.

Publication of the TechNation Report

Screen Shot 2015-02-05 at 19.11.37

As part of Tech City UK's mission to shine a spotlight on the digital strengths and opportunities of the UK, we're delighted to tell you about the publication of the TechNation Report. Gerard Grech, CEO of Tech City UK writes:

"...We all know that Britain’s digital economy is growing exponentially. And most of us recognise that this growth is happening all over the country.

The launch of Tech Nation today feels like a landmark in more ways than one. To start with, it’s the first truly comprehensive analysis of the UK’s digital technology clusters.

But to have it all mapped out and analysed —the regions, the tech clusters, the companies and people who make it happen—and presented in a digestible, plain-speaking format. That’s not just informative, it’s also inspiring.

Everyday we talk to the entrepreneurs, developers, designers and pioneers powering this new economy. We take their needs and concerns straight to the government representatives who shape policy. It can be thrilling and frustrating, as well as satisfying and challengin g all at the same time.

The results all help drive the tech engine forward.

Tech City has become one of the UK’s greatest success stories. Now it’s time for Tech Nation..."

Screen Shot 2015-02-05 at 19.11.30

The report gives fascinating insight into the the thriving tech clusters that exist around the country. Hull is featured throughout the report, drawing attention to:

• The advantage that KC's fibre network brings to businesses in the region
• The 12.2K people employed in tech locally
• A 57% increase in new tech companies started
• The size of many indigenous tech companies such as Trident, Ebuyer and Summit.
• The significant levels of private sector investment into the local tech community from businesses such as KC and Wykeland.
• The strength of the Computer Science course at The University of Hull
• The range of large companies actively supporting startups locally such as PwC, Ebuyer, Amazon and Spencers.

We'd encourage you to take a look at the report and download the PDF.

If you have any questions about the report, please do get in touch by replying to this email, or calling in at The C4DI.

Hull to San Francisco - a chat with Leander Kahney

cult-of-mac

We are very lucky to have some interesting people call in on the C4DI Batphone (read Skype line) and last week was no exception.

Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac. He is the NYT bestselling author of Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products; Inside Steve’s Brain; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London.

I was introduced to Leander via good friends in San Francisco, Joao and Jim. After a few emails we scheduled the call and had a very enjoyable hour chatting with Leander.

We covered all sorts of questions including Apple's current market position, their quite incredible quarter results announced last week and of course, the Apple watch and Apple Pay. We also covered home automation and the incoming launch of HomeKit. (I'm personally a big fan of Nest and what they are doing and was disappointed Apple didn't buy them).

We are going to be staying in touch with Leander and may well organise another session for members this year.

All New 2015 Meetups

One of the best things about the C4DI community and the wider Hull Digital Community is the events: meeting new people, hearing great speakers and having a beer or coffee with friends new and old. I'm delighted to announce the brand new event line up for the year. We've tried to listen to all the feedback received and focused on a few aspects:

1. Consistency - making sure the events happen at the same time each month which allows you to know what's happening and can hopefully plan better

2. Bringing some of the events to a lunchtime slot

3. Introduce some regular social events to make sure you get to meet and know fellow C4DI members.

Lastly, and most importantly, a focus on startups and the opportunities and support that we can provide as well  as our supporters and partners.

Please see below for the line up! The events open to everyone will always be promoted on the Hull Digital Meetup site. The Amazon Web Services event has its own Meetup site and the member events will be promoted on Slack and via email. Any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

(You can subscribe to our events and see a calendar by heading over to the events page here).

First Thursday of every month - Hull Digital Hardware Meetup (open to everyone) in the evening

Second Thursday of every month - Data (open to everyone) at lunchtime where we will be exploring the wonders of data, analytics and insight!

Second Thursday of every month - Hull Digital Developer Meetup held at 5pm (open to everyone)

Third Thursday of every month - The Greenhouse (C4DI members only) - an exciting new startup meetup where people can get together to discuss ideas, find Co-Founders, pitch their latest product and encourage each other to start up! We will also be having some of our supporters and partners there to talk and give advice.

Last Thursday of every month - Amazon Web Services Meetup (open to everyone) led by Steve Bowman at lunchtime.

Last Thursday of every month - PwC Office Hours (C4DI members only) held between 2-4pm where members of the PwC team will come in and you can book time with them.

Last Friday morning of every month - Techie Breakfast at Thieving Harry's  where we will be buying a coffee and perhaps a bacon sarnie for members!

Every Friday afternoon - Beers and Beats with LabelWORX providing the tunes (C4DI members only)

This may change as we move over to our wonderful new home on the @TheDock development and we may add some new events as we progress throughout the year. I look forward to seeing you!

Digitial Utopias Event - January 20th 2015

This is superb news - a brilliant one day event happening in Hull! Digital Utopias is a one-day conference which will inspire and incite debate about how new technologies are enabling creativity across the arts.

What to expect Topical debates will take over the main auditorium where we will celebrate the connections between contemporary digital practice and art and technology histories; examine how organisations are redefining social spaces through networked objects and thinking machines, plus we invite insightful critiques of current art/tech collaborations.

In the studio theatre artists, curators and thinkers will showcase tools and practice covering:Digital sculpture, wearables and smart devices; interactivity, motion tracking and video mapping in dance and theatre; New publishing and distribution methods. In the classroom we will host run two clinics one on what to do with your organisational data and the second on ensuring long term access to digital information through collecting, archiving and preservation.

Speakers The event will feature the following speakers with the full line up and schedule to be announced shortly see www.artscouncil.org.uk/digitalutopias for further details Dr Sarah Cook, Lynn Scarff (The Science Gallery), Ruth Catlow (Furtherfield), Ruth MacKenzie (The Space), Memo Atken, Tatiana Bazzichelli, Matthew Plummer Fernandez, Julia Kaganskiy (NewInc), Dr Jennifer Gabrys, Marshmallow Laser Feast, Morgan Quaintance, Sarah Ellis (Royal Shakespeare Company) Irini Papadimitriou (V&A), Extanct, Joanna Ellis (The Writing Platform), Katrina Sluis (The Photographers Gallery), Karen Gaskill (Crafts Council), Amit Sood (Google Cultural Institute), Yes Yes No.

Ticket are £6 and are available now. Book here!

Digital Utopias is an Arts Council event curated by Abandon Normal Devices as a trailblazer event for Hull City of Culture 2017, bringing together a range of Arts Council partners including The Space, AHRC and The British Council as well as artists and cultural practitioners from across the UK and beyond.

New partnership with Pipedrive

I'm delighted to announce a new partnership with Pipedrive! Pipedrive is for any organisation wanting amazing CRM software. We have been using it here at the C4DI for a couple of months and it has honestly transformed the way we work. Made by sales pros, for sales pros Pipedrive's roots are in direct sales. As sales managers and trainers, two of the co-founders experienced an increasing amount of pain with CRM software. There simply was no good solution for managing the company's sales pipeline.

So in 2010 they teamed up with talented developers to create Pipedrive, a simple and yet powerful tool for managing sales.

They have a very useful feature overview page here which I would encourage you to browse through.

pipeline-view-2

The really good news is that C4DI members get a full 90 days free trial instead of the standard 30. This is another amazing benefit for members joining special deals with Twilio, Zapier, AWS, FreeAgent and more.

The Shopify Economy

A guest post from @Keirwhitaker !

The Shopify Economy

In late July I headed North to Hull (a surprisingly hard place to get to from my home town of Bath) to give a presentation on Shopify at the C4DI, in particular why there's never been a better time for designers and developers to start engaging with the Shopify community.

shopify-home

I've known Jon Moss, one half of the C4DI founding team, for a few years now having been introduced by a mutual friend. I was also privileged to participate in Jon's HD Live 2012 event. I hope that returns one day.

Since the inception of the C4DI I've been keen to visit and it was great to finally make the trip. Thanks to everyone who came along and asked some great questions. I hope you found it useful. What follows are the key points from my talk:

The commerce and Shopify landscape

• The ecommerce landscape is rapidly evolving and online sales are growing rapidly year on year
• Many web designers and developers are taking advantage of this to specialise in the area, many specifically with Shopify
• Shopify now powers over 110,000 online businesses, a number that is growing month on month
• Shopify enables online and offline business - today it's about commerce, not just ecommerce
• The demand for knowledgable Shopify theme designers and developers is high and growing

Theme based and feature packed

• Shopify is theme based meaning web designers and front-end developers can concentrate on design whilst Shopify handles all of the back-end administration and product management
• Shopify is feature rich - out of the box you get 24/7 support, automatic image resizing, easy to manage navigation lists, all assets pushed to a global CDN (Content Delivery Network), multiple page and product templates, easy to use redirect module for migrating stores, flexible discount engine, gift card support and more.
• Notable stores (and Keir's favourites) include:
  • A Book Apart
  • United Pixel Workers
  • Greats
  • Pure Fix Cycles
  • Best Made Co.
  • Hard Graft
  • Hiut Denim
  • Herb Lester

Benefits beyond ease of use

• The Shopify Partner Program is the gateway to designing themes and developing apps for use with Shopify. It's 100% free and allows Partners to create unlimited "dev shops" and gives access to Partner specific forums, help and support.
• Shopify Experts is a free to join curated super-set of the Partner program providing qualified (application is possible after launching three stores) Partners with lead generation.
• The Partner program offers all Partners a 20% revenue share on every store they bring to Shopify via their Partner referral link

Active theme and app store economy

• Shopify has it's own theme and app store. Many designers are earning six figures per year via the theme store. The revenue share for themes is 70/30 in favour of the theme author if they handle all support queries or 50/50 if support is handled by Shopify. App developers receive 80% of revenue for apps via the app store.

Themes aren't hard to learn

• Themes are made up of four key components:
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JS (entirely optional)
  • Liquid
  • Liquid is a template language that allows designers to pull in data from a store directly into a template. Templates are agnostic and don't need to know anything about the store they are paired with - this makes them sellable via the theme store and reusable.
  • Themes are neatly organised into five relevantly named folders (assets, config, layouts, snippets and templates)
  • Template files have the .liquid extension but are editable using any standard text editor
  • Different templates are rendered depending on the URL requested
  • Shopify themes use a concept known as layouts which allows designers to put recurring elements of the site into one file. The individual templates located in the templates folder are rendered within this file in place of the {{ content_for_layout }} tag.

Liquid - an easy to learn and powerful template engine

liquid

• Liquid has four main features
  • Output as denoted by the {{ }} delimiters. For example {{ shop.name }} will output the shop's name as defined in the admin. Output grabs data and replaces the tag with the content
  • Filters enable the content to be manipulated. The | (pipe) character denotes a filter in action. For example {{ shop.name | upcase }} will take the name of the shop and filter it by turning every character to uppercase. There are many useful filters to manipulate strings, monetary values as well as HTML helpers. The most important being the asset_url filter. This will return the path to a particular stores assets folder. This is essential as there's no way of knowing where your theme will be located within the Shopify network - the asset_url filter means this isn't a concern.
  • Logic constructs enable questions to be asked in a template. These follow normal programming conventions such as if, then and if, then, else. Logic is often used to conditionally show data dependant on stock levels or pricing. There are many other uses too.
  • Loop constructs allow us to output collections, for example a collection of images associated with a product. Loops are used extensive in Shopify - for outputting images, for outputting the contents of a particular product collection and more.

Useful articles

• Learn How to Build Themes for Shopify
• An Overview of My Shopify Workflow Tools
• Mastering Images in Shopify
• Nested navigation in Shopify themes

Get started

You can find more information about Shopify and how easy it is to get started on the Shopify Partners web site. You can also view the slides from the evening on Speaker Deck. Feel free to get in touch if you have any further questions. You can find me on Twitter.

Demolition! (Updated with time-lapse video!)

It's all happening... demolition has started! (Scroll down for the time-lapse video!) After being in the C4DI beta for just over 12 months, it feels like another milestone. There is a huge amount of activity on the new C4DI site. not only has the dry dock been pumped out (it really was more like a wet dock for many years), the dock gates are being made watertight and the demolition of the old buildings on the site has started.

It really is the start of something amazing. We have an incredible opportunity in the future to grow the technology sector in the Humber region through the creation of and development of innovative startups. We hope you can join the amazing startup community.

We'll be posting up ongoing updates of the build, not only the C4DI, but also the surrounding area.

UPDATE! We now have some wonderful time-lapse footage - the last thirty seconds is where the action is!

Mogo Freedom is the smallest cinema for 2014 Tea Break Film Festival

We are delighted that two of our members are collaborating with this brilliant project. Matjaz Korosec of Mogo Freedom and Jay Moy of Make Moving Messages generated another creative adventure!

Mal Williamson of Creator College and Jay Moy of Make Moving Messages invited Mogo to become a movie theater and host The Tea Break Film Festival at 2014 Yum Food Festival in Hull from 7th to 9th of August. Mogo will be customised to the world's smallest traveling movie theater where the voting public will enjoy the submitted short movies and select the winner of the “The Tea Pot” prize or “The Grand Théière”.

mogo

From the ancient Japanese tea ceremony to the British tea-cosy, the tea break is a time for reflection or chat. A time to be interested or switch off. To relax by focussing. This is the exact effect of short movies that are shown during the 2014 “Tea Break Film Festival” in Hull. If Cannes has “The Palme d'Or”, Venice “The Leone d'Oro ” and Berlin “The Goldener Bär” - is it not the most fitting that Hull has “The Tea Pot” prize or “The Grand Théière” to commemorate the most engaging, drifting, refreshing, and restful short film shown during The Tea Break Film Festival sponsored by the most the most engaging, drifting, refreshing, and restful trailer in the market?

There is a lot going on in Hull, the 2017 UK City of Culture. Hope to see you at the festival just in front of the Hull City Hall from 11:00 to 18:00 every day from 7th to 9th of August!

For the full press release, click here now.

Email sanity is here with SaneBox

Email. Like it, loathe it, tolerate it, manage it, it is here to stay (as far as I can tell) and is something that we all use every day. Email overload is common phrase you hear time and time again and I admit to saying this on a number of occasions. It's no fun opening up your email client and see the emails literally squabbling for space as they pile in! A wonderful phrase I recently heard is that

"your inbox is a todo list which anyone has access to."

Not an ideal situation but so very true. Do you find yourself battling through the emails with more arriving? There are many strategies and hacks for managing your email like batch processing, not looking at emails until you do your MITs (Most Important Tasks) and only checking and replying to emails twice a day. You have to find something that works for you (and also for your clients).

However, something else I have recently found and started using is SaneBox. Our Chairman, Dave Keel originally mentioned it a while ago and I finally tried it a couple of months ago. Hallelujah! What a difference.

The main premise of SaneBox is:

"SaneBox determines the importance of each email based on your past interactions with your Inbox. It moves unimportant messages out of the Inbox into a new folder called SaneLater, and summarizes them in a digest email."

What arrives in your inbox is what you need to see and potentially act on. You can also train emails so they go to the inbox, or go to the SaneLater folder. You can turn on other folders too. Never want to see an email from a sender again? SaneBlackhole. Want to snooze an email to tomorrow or nest week? You can do that too.

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When the email digest arrives (you can even configure how often you get these), you can check / scan emails in the SaneLater folder and even see which emails you've trained.

There are not many products / services which I rave about, but SaneBox is one of these I can heartily recommend.

The really good news is that the kind people at SaneBox (thanks Dmitri!) have given you lucky people $15 credit towards a SaneBox subscription. What are you waiting for? Give it a try for free, get $15 off and you will not be disappointed!

LEP Survey About Our Sector

We are working closely with the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to ensure that the digital/tech sector grows rapidly in the next few years. Sarah Clinch is the business development manager from the LEP and is very keen to promote you and your company!

Please read on and help!

"We have fantastic digital companies in the Humber. The problem, as people keep telling us, is that no-one outside the region knows they’re here.

The Humber Local Enterprise Partnership is a partnership between local authorities and businesses that aims to promote economic growth and create jobs. We know that we have a strong digital sector and want to help that sector to grow. However, we need you to help us to promote the Humber as a hub for digital creativity and innovation (and raise the profile of your company) by helping us to tell the story about the talent and expertise we have here.

We’re collecting information about companies to build up a comprehensive picture of the digital sector in the Humber. We’d also like to use your businesses success stories in publicity material about the Humber. If you would like to be involved, please click the link below to fill out a short form - thanks!"

Click here now to let people know about what you are doing!

We are looking specifically for success stories, unique stories about businesses and brands you are working with or products you are making and developing.

Thanks very much.

C4DI AWS Activate Programme

I'm delighted to announce that we are partnering with Amazon Web Services and are now part of the AWS Activate Programme! What is the Activate programme I hear you say?!

Amazon Web Services provides startups with low cost, easy to use infrastructure needed to scale and grow any size business. Some of the world’s hottest startups including Pinterest, Instagram, and Dropbox have leveraged the power of AWS to easily get started and quickly scale.

AWS Activate is a program designed to provide startups with the resources needed to get started on AWS. Join some of the fastest-growing startups in the world and build your business using AWS.

We are honoured to be part of the Activate programme and very grateful for the support. This follows on from a recent C4DI visit to Edinburgh, where we spent some time at Amazon's Edinburgh Developer Centre. Mike Clarke gave a terrific presentation to their team, wowing them with his tales of adventure in Antarctica.

So, down to the good stuff. What do C4DI members get?!

Well, how about this! We actually have two separate packages, one for the co-working space and one for our upcoming accelerator. The only difference is in the credit amount – for co-working companies they provide $1,000 in AWS credits; for accelerator companies, they are able to go up to $5,000 due to the additional diligence and selectivity of companies receiving direct investment.

$5,000 in AWS credits valid for 2 years for the accelerator companies / $1,000 in AWS credits valid for 1 year for all others

Free access to the AWS Essentials 1 day web-based or instructor-led training (normally ~$600/course), AWS Technical Professional Accreditation course, plus 8 tokens for self-paced labs (normally ~$30/lab)

One year of premium AWS Business Support for accelerator companies / 1 month for all others

Free access to 1:1 virtual office hours with AWS solutions architects

Special offers from other companies that help startups, including Chef, Bitnami, Amazon Payments, SOASTA, Podio, CopperEgg and more.

This is incredibly generous and will play a huge part in our support and growth of startups.

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We had a fascinating introduction to AWS yesterday when Ian Massingham, the UK Technical Evangelist came and gave a talk at the Hull Digital Developer Group. The feedback has been superb and so we are starting an AWS User Group very soon. Watch this space!