BELFAST BRIEFING:Derry city is fast developing a reputation as a hub for culture- related digital creativity
WHAT COULD a virtual microbe called Grash, which explores the imaginary worlds of micro- organisms, have to do with creating new and very real economic opportunities for Derry?
More than you might imagine. The likes of “Grash” are helping push the city to the top of the location list in Ireland for digital dreamers hoping to make it big.
The microbe in question is the brainchild of Troll Inc, a newly developing game studio in the city which is hoping to create quite a stir when it launches its first release on the app store later this year.
Troll’s team of programmers, artists and game designers could be based anywhere, so why choose the northwest in which to locate a cutting-edge digital business?
Derry, gearing up to be the first UK City of Culture in 2013, has a long-established creative tradition, particularly when it comes to music and the arts. It is also fast developing a reputation as a hub for digital creativity, especially in music technology, web applications and other cultural related-tech start-ups.
In the last 12 months there have been more than 20 digital businesses established in the city – quite an achievement these days.
They range from the likes of Mobile Report – which utilises mobile technology to allow field- based workers to put together reports from various sources – to Little Kite Design, which uses film, animation and motion graphics to act as digital backdrops for productions from theatre to opera and fashion shows.
Some of Derry’s new digital businesses have obviously been inspired by the experiences of their founders. One of these, Mesh, is directed at job-hunting graduates which aims to help them make the “transition from university to employment”.
Others such as Data Sentiment have clear ambitions to become leaders in their chosen field. It is developing what it terms “intelligent customer loyalty for mobile, web and print” – essentially allowing retailers to employ mobile phones instead of loyalty cards to keep tabs of customer preferences.
There are others like established players Seedups, which has a track record of matching 766 start-ups with 320 investors to provide €21,950,000 in start up capital funding, that have chosen Derry because of the potential it sees.
The city is no Silicon Valley so how has it managed to tap into and capture the attention of the next generation of creative entrepreneurs?
According to one of its most successful IT entrepreneurs, Pádraig Canavan, it has not happened by chance. Canavan, the founder of the Derry-based IT software provider Singularity, says the city saw an opportunity and pulled together to create the right environment for a new digital-driven economy to flourish.
A year ago the Londonderry Chamber of Commerce, together with Derry City Council and the urban regeneration company Ilex, set up the collaborative project “Digital Derry”. Today it is a driving force, with many locally privately owned businesses, universities and public bodies strongly involved in it.
Canavan, who is the current president of the chamber, says Derry has much to offer entrepreneurs, not least “a world- class digital infrastructure” and “a university with huge growth potential”.
He should know what he is talking about having built an international company in his home town. Singularity, founded in 1994, has offices from Derry to Singapore, New York, London and Hyderabad in India. It specialises in business process management software and employs more than 230 people worldwide.
Canavan believes opportunities for creative businesses to flourish in Derry are “exciting and substantial”. He says the city and the chamber are determined to nurture new digital start-ups because they will, in the long term, create jobs and opportunities,
Local entrepreneur Mark Nagurski, who runs Own Brand Media, is so convinced about the potential of Derry’s future digital economy that he has to “put his money where his mouth is”. Nagurski has been appointed as the city’s own “digital champion”.
He believes that Derry can tap into its creative heritage and marry it with a “unique blend of technology and culture” to create a vibrant new industry.
Digital Derry has now set itself the target of supporting the creation of 100 new businesses by 2015. Nagurski says he is confident the city’s “growing entrepreneurial spirit” will help them succeed.
