Last Thursday saw the official launch of the Digital Innovation Business Acceleration Hub (DBAH) and it was a huge success! Over 100 guests attended the event which was held at the Bath Brew House - a great venue - with added disco ball - oh yes!

The DBAH is part of a number of business support programmes which have been set up by the University of Bath and delivered through Bath SETsquared. The pioneering business hubs are funded through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and offer support to SMEs in certain sectors across the West of England.

The launch event for the Digital Innovation Business Acceleration Hub was a great opportunity to bring all parties involved with the DBAH together and help shine the light on tech innovation and celebrate the brilliant people in Bristol, Bath and the West of England region. It was also a great opportunity to highlight to key influencers in the tech sector that free business support is available to companies working on new technologies in the health, well-being and creative media sectors.

The evening was opened by Professor James Bilzon, Chair in Human & Applied Physiology from the University of Bath. James joined the Department for Health at the University of Bath in 2008. James emphasised the importance of collaboration between businesses and the university and talked about how the long-term impact of the project will be a much-improved innovation eco-system, where local SMEs will establish deep long-term relationships with the University that are mutually beneficial.

Garry Pratt, Entrepreneur in Residence for the DBAH programme then went on to welcome the panelists - Jo Hardy from Curious Trekkers, Becky Sage from Interactive Scientific and Adrienne Percival from Flourish Zone. All three panelists have benefited from the business support on offer from SETsquared - they chatted openly about their tech start up journey, discussing how innovation and collaboration is important and a superb discussion was had around diversity and inclusion, along with some of the highs and lows they have experienced along the way. All panelists highlighted the valuable support they have received from SETsquared - from the connections made available to them from researchers at the University of Bath to the business mentors who are experts in their field and are able to help with the commercialisation of their products - to receive support of this nature and to be able to collaborate with the university is invaluable for any start up or companies who are accelerating quicker than expected.

Following the very engaging session from the panelists, guests stayed to network and enjoy the free drinks, courtesy of Fwd Thinking Recruitment.

There was a real buzz in the room and MP for Bath, Wera Hobhouse, was just one of the guests who gave positive feedback about the event and the DBAH programme.

Rosie Bennett, Centre Director at Bath SETsquared Innovation Centre was very pleased with the turnout and the opportunity to introduce colleagues at the University with tech leaders from the city, saying; “It’s been great to be able to bring so many key people together - we’d like to thank everyone who came along to support the event and also thanks to our sponsors for helping make the event happen. We are very excited to be part of one of the strongest technology clusters in the region and look forward to working with innovative tech companies across the West of England that will drive this sector’s growth and productivity.”

For more information about the Digital Innovation Business Acceleration Hub and for detail about how to apply to the programme please get in touch with us here. And keep up with our latest news via @dbahub.

'Collaborate to Innovate’ is the theme at the launch of new tech hub