Diversity UK hosted a Tech Showcase, in association with Eversheds Sutherland LLP at its offices in Manchester, on Wednesday 13th February 2019. The aim was to provide a platform to showcase the wealth of talent of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) founders and creators to address the perceived lack of diversity in the tech sector in Britain. Fifty guests heard pitches from Bidooh, a real-time self-service billboard advertising on the blockchain; Jobseekrs®, a video interactive, job-matching solution for millennials worldwide; Q Energy, an energy as a service (EAAS) provider for medium and large businessAll Postses and UrbanChain, which has been set up to redesign and optimise different utility markets.
The Tech Showcase was moderated by Lopa Patel MBE, Founder & CEO of Diversity UK with advice given to pitch companies by a judging panel comprising:
Vikas Shah MBE, Managing Director & CEO, Swiscot Group
Naomi Timperley, Co-Founder, Tech North Advocates
Nzube Ufodike, Financial Inclusion Programme Manager, Wayra UK
Charlotte Walker-Osborn, Head of the UK TMT Sector, Eversheds Sutherland LLP
Guests also heard about emerging technologies from Professor Andy Miah, Chair in Science Communication and Future Media at the University of Salford. Naeema Choudry, Partner in the Human Resources Practice Group at Eversheds Sutherland LLP spoke about the company’s diversity and inclusion initiatives and Charlotte Walker-Osborn, Head of the UK TMT Sector, Eversheds Sutherland LLP, described the services offered by the company to high-growth tech startups globally. Dilip Joshi MBE, Chair of Diversity UK thanked attendees for their courage in pitching and gave the closing remarks.
Pitches
Abdul Alim – Bidooh
Bidooh is a real-time self-service billboard advertising on the blockchain.
About Abdul Alim
Abdul Alim is CEO at Bidooh, real-time self-service billboard advertising on the blockchain. He is a technical expert, who previously worked at Capita PLC with over 18 years of experience in building large-scale systems for governments and private companies handling payments infrastructure processing over £1bn of transactions per month. Abdul has won numerous awards including the Pitch@Palace awarded by Prince Andrew. At Bidooh he is leading the team to build, what he believes, to be the first self-service digital billboard advertising platform on the blockchain.
Elsa Gayle Zekeng – Jobseekrs
Jobseekrs® is a video interactive, job–matching & culture-fit career solution, for millennials worldwide. It is a millennial-centric company, where millennials can be inspired, discover and matched with suitable opportunities and great companies.
About Elza Zekeng
Elsa Gayle Zekeng is Head of student engagement and enhancement at Jobseekrs® and a PhD student at the University of Liverpool. Her personal focus is on student’s growth from experience throughout education to job acquisition and job satisfaction, providing leadership and partnering with various academic institutions to increase student experience through Jobseekrs®. She is interested in ensuring the right policies are reached an implemented in various healthcare systems and creating opportunities through entrepreneurship for youth and women empowerment. As a European Commission 2016 young leader and receiver of the Queen’s Ebola medal for service in West Africa, she advocates on all things youth empowerment, equality, development and sustainable framed under the sustainable development goals.
Vijay Natarajan, QBots Energy
Q Energy (founded in 2018) is a Manchester and London based technology driven energy service intermediary serving business customers in the UK. Q energy is an Energy as a Service provider for medium and large businesses, helps reduce CO2 emissions, energy costs and operational risk by proactively managing consumption, generation and storage of energy.
Q Energy uses a technology platform utilising Internet of things, smart-devices and data analytics capabilities making energy as a service possible. As an intermediary platform, Q energy is working with energy suppliers, distribution system operators & national grid, delivering them value through data analytics and demand side load management.
About Vijay Natarajan
Vijay is currently co-founder & COO of Qbots Energy. Sales & Marketing professional and Qualified Engineer with 10+ years experience in marketing & business development, strategy and product delivery management, he has experience of UK & European smart city projects and has delivered IoT solutions & analytics projects in both public and private sector worth over £5 million in last 4 years using agile methodologies. He holds an MSc (B2B Marketing) from Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK and a BEng (Mechanical Engineering) from College of Engineering, Anna University, Chennai, India.
Somayeh Taheri, UrbanChain Ltd
UrbanChain Ltd has been set up to re-design and optimise different utility markets. Their current work focuses on the energy sector with a blockchain-based platform that will enable energy consumers to switch to the best deal in almost real time. We are working with over 20 public and private bodies and market players to cover technical, legal, commercial, operational aspects of disseminating blockchain technology in real life issues.
About Somayeh Taheri
Dr Somayeh Taheri is CEO at Urban Chain Ltd and also a research associate at the University of Manchester. Her research interests touch on studying and supporting landscape and urban planning with new methodologies and technologies using Blockchain, Data Science, Multi-Agent-Based Simulation (MABS), Geographic Information System (GIS) methodologies, and Building Information Models (BIM).
About the Judges
Vikas Shah MBE, Managing Director & CEO, Swiscot Group
Vikas Shah MBE is one of the UK’s highest profile entrepreneurs and business commentators. He holds a Professorship at MIT Sloan (The Lisbon MBA), and is an Honorary Professor at University of Manchester.
Vikas is a regular speaker and host at conferences around the world, and consults for a wide-range of businesses. Vikas is CEO of Swiscot Group, a diversified international trading business, a venture investor in numerous businesses internationally, and co-founder of 53 Degrees North, a feature film studio. He was awarded an MBE for Services to Business and the Economy in Her Majesty the Queen’s 2018 New Year’s Honours List.
Naomi Timperley, Co-Founder, Tech North Advocates
Proud to be in the top 50 of Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in UK IT 2018, Naomi Timperley is an experienced partnerships and engagement consultant with established relationships across the UK. She has extensive experience working with startups and growth businesses particularly in the tech, digital and creative sectors and was one of the Maserati 100 in 2015 – a definite list of entrepreneurs who support the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. Naomi has been a mentor for 8 years and has mentored over 200 businesses. As one of two iDEA Industry Ambassadors in the world for the Duke of York’s Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award for her work with Wakelet and iDEA, she is big champion of Digital Skills for everyone. Naomi is also an Honorary Industry Fellow at the University of Salford Business School; sits on GMCA’s Innovation Board; is on the Board of arts organisation Future Everything and is Chair of investment platform, Capital Pilot.
Nzube Ufodike, Financial Inclusion Programme Manager, Wayra UK
Nzube Ufodike is the Financial Inclusion programme manager at Wayra, Telefonica’s corporate accelerator. He is a former entrepreneur and adviser to early and growth stage businesses, primarily in the FinTech sector, in the UK and emerging markets. Prior, he led Strategic Partnerships and was a Digital Product Owner at Wealth Dynamix, London, an award winning technology vendor to the wealth management industry. Before that, he was part of a team at UBS SmartWealth that built and launched the UK’s first FCA-regulated robo-advisor, focussed on the mass affluent wealth segment.
Charlotte Osborn-Walker, Head of the UK TMT Sector, Eversheds Sutherland LLP
Charlotte Walker-Osborn is Head of the UK TMT Sector at Eversheds Sutherland LLP specialising in non-contentious IT law covering outsourcing, software and hardware agreements, services agreements, IT marketing agreements, e-commerce, data protection, and legal aspects of IT security. Charlotte has acted on a number of major transactions for both private and public sector clients, including negotiating and drafting a global sales agreement for a leading technology vendor for global sales worth $180m with one of their top ten customers and advising Cisco Systems on various sales and technology and licensing agreements over a number of years. In addition, Charlotte has undertaken a six-month secondment with Cisco Systems in their licensing and technology group. Charlotte is the resident legal author to and committee member of the British Computer Society – Information Security Specialist Group. She has also written a large number of articles for and given interviews to the local and national press. She has contributed to two guides on IT security, including the IBM/CBI business guide to ‘Protecting Your Business’, 2001.
About the Speakers
About Naeema Choudry
Naeema Choudry is a partner in the Human Resources Practice Group at Eversheds Sutherland LLP. Naeema advises on all aspects of employment law acting primarily on behalf of large scale employers who are household names. She has particular experience of dealing with clients in the consumer, nuclear and aerospace industries.
Naeema is an highly experienced Employment Tribunal litigator who has been appearing regularly in Tribunals throughout the UK since her qualification as a solicitor in 1995. Naeema also advises clients on cases in the Employment Appeal Tribunal and in the Court of Appeal. Her litigation work accounts for about 55 percent of her workload.
Naeema also advises on executive terminations, whistleblowing, large scale redundancies, TUPE, contractual disputes and discrimination issues. Naeema regularly works in a cross border environment. Naeema is a frequent speaker at seminars and conferences. She contributes to a variety of publications and broadcast media. She is also featured in the Legal 500, Legal Experts and Chambers directories in which she is noted for her “articulate and professional manner” and “high level of competency in various areas, from tribunals, to pension issues, to discrimination” and as someone “you would want in your corner”. In 2013, Naeema was appointed a fee paid Employment Tribunal Judge sitting in the Midlands (West) Region.
About Dilip Joshi MBE
Dilip Joshi MBE is the Chair of Diversity UK, an equality and inclusion think tank. He is a seasoned professional with extensive senior level management experience who was awarded the MBE in June 2000 and the prestigious citation of ‘Videsh Samman’ for contributing to Indo-British understanding by the High Commissioner of India. He holds a Masters degree in Transport and Logistics Management and is a Fellow of Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.
Previously Dilip has coordinated the Hindu Council UK (HCUK) relationship with the Greater London Authority and Central Government and led the HCUK drive in making private and public sector organisations more representative. He was also Chair of Asian Welfare and Cultural Association, Eastleigh, and a special advisor to the chair of Ethnic Minority Business Group (EMBG).
About Professor Andy Miah
Professor Andy Miah is Chair in Science Communication and Future Media and leads the SciComm Space at the University of Salford. He is a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, USA, and an Advisory Board Member for the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, and Executive Committee member of the British Interactive Group (BIG).
Professor Miah’s research discusses the intersections of art, ethics, technology and culture and he writes about emerging technologies, particularly related to human enhancement. He has published over 150 academic articles in refereed journals and books, along with writing op eds for magazines and newspapers, such as the Washington Post and the Independent. He is the author of 9 books and in 2017, he published the long-awaited book ‘Sport 2.0’ with The MIT Press, the first book to approach the growing mixed-reality future of sports, considering how digital technology is changing the athlete, spectator, and officials experience of sport.
Professor Miah has given over 300 major conference presentations over the last decade at which he is often invited to speak about philosophical and ethical issues concerning technology in society.
About Lopa Patel MBE
Lopa Patel is a digital entrepreneur with significant experience of creating start-ups and transforming businesses through technology. The founder of two ventures in online media and a data-driven marketing consultancy, she is also the Founder & CEO of equality and inclusion think tank Diversity UK; a Trustee of The Science Museum Group and a Non-Executive Director of the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) Steering Board.
With a lifelong love of science and technology, she is an evangelist for STEM, innovation and bridging the skills gap in business. She has been recognised with accolades including an MBE for services to the creative industries; the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion and an Honorary Doctorate by The Open University, in recognition of her efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in science and technology and her broader contribution to British industry, society and culture.
About Diversity UK
Diversity UK is a think tank to research, advocate and promote ideas for improving diversity and inclusion in Britain. Diversity UK delivers its objectives by undertaking research and consultations, facilitating debates, hosting roundtable meetings and publishing a monthly newsletter focusing on contemporary equality issues. Diversity UK also publishes the Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech list, in association with the Ethnic Minority Foundation, KPMG and NewAsianPost and it hosts the annual Paul Stephenson lecture on diversity and inclusion.
Diversity UK is a registered charity (No: 1155189) in England & Wales.
For further information visit https://diversityuk.org/
About Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP
As a global top 15 law practice, Eversheds Sutherland provides legal advice and solutions to a global client base ranging from small and mid-sized businesses to the largest multinationals. Clients describe us as creative and well-versed in cutting edge legal work – we listen well in order to understand how and where we can be most effective and add the greatest value.
Diversity and inclusion for us refers to the similarities and differences that exist between people. This
includes not only race, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation and gender identity but also social and educational background, nationality, marital status and family or care responsibilities. It acknowledges that most individuals do not belong to a single identity group but, in most cases, to several. For us appreciating diversity means demonstrably valuing and respecting our people, our clients and our community for all identity groups. We pride ourselves on developing an inclusive high performance culture where our clients, people and communities can thrive.
For further information, visit https://www.eversheds-sutherland.com