Sensor City and LCR 4.0 at Sensor City took part in the third International Business Festival (IBF2018) last month.
IBF2018 hosted more than 50 major global events and conferences, in addition to its core programme, bringing together thousands of industry leaders from around the world to make connections, share knowledge and do business.
Sensor City and the LCR 4.0 delivery team exhibited at the Festival across the three weeks, including an enhanced presence at the ‘Manufacturing’ and ‘Health & Life Sciences’ themed days.
Alison Mitchell, Executive Director at Sensor City, said: “Festival delegates, working in a wide range of sectors, were keen to understand more about Sensor City and the support we are able to offer businesses.
“There was a lot of interest around our laboratory equipment and engineering expertise, with delegates keen to engage in synergistic opportunities and take advantage of our business and technical support.”
Among the thousands of Festival delegates were some high-profile attendees, including HRH Prince William, MP Greg Clarke (Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy who officially opened Sensor City in November 2017) and local footballing legend, Jaime Carragher.
The Duke of Cambridge, who was patron of the Festival, gave a speech to delegates explaining: “Britain has always been a champion of trade and a hub for commerce and exchange between our nations. There is perhaps nowhere in the country that embodies this more than Liverpool.”
Liverpool is also a leading hub for the science, health, technology, culture and education sectors, congregated in the Knowledge Quarter.
On June 26, Sensor City took part in the ‘Developing Health-Tech across Liverpool’s Knowledge Quarter’ panel discussion, to promote the role of the Knowledge Quarter in facilitating the application of new technologies in healthcare.
The session also highlighted the importance of collaboration across various stakeholders in the health economy, such as clinicians, academia and industry, in addition to the pioneering work undertaken by Sensor City and the other assets in the Knowledge Quarter.
Led by Sensor City, the Liverpool 5G Consortium also participated in the ‘Health & Life Sciences’ day, with experts on hand to explain to delegates how the 5G Testbeds and Trials programme will help reduce the digital divide by employing cutting edge technologies like low-cost unlicensed mmWave 5G broadband, sensors, open source networking, artificial intelligence, mixed reality, virtual reality, Smart Health, robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Additionally, the LCR 4.0 delivery team at Sensor City were actively involved throughout the Festival, promoting the benefits to SMEs of getting involved with the ERDF funded programme.
Bringing together world-class, practical support to transform Liverpool City Region businesses in the manufacturing space through digital innovation, the LCR 4.0 team showcased how they can help SMEs to increase productivity and de-risk innovation.
The strong presence at IBF2018 has directly resulted in an increase in enquiries at Sensor City, covering office and event space hire, site visit requests and commercial interactions.
Joanne Phoenix, Business Development at Sensor City, said: “We made over 250 new contacts at the Festival, including several from international delegations including China, India, Zambia, Peru, Lithuania, Israel and Poland.
“The interaction we had with these SMEs, larger corporates, intermediaries and academics proved to be of genuine interest and we are looking forward to see how these connections develop in the near future.”
