Video Transcript
It’s hard to believe, but we’re already into June, halfway through the year, with the longest day of the year on the horizon and summer is here, well, kind of. So whether you’re soaking up the sunshine or dodging heavy showers with a cuppa in hand. Hello, and welcome to the June edition of the Worcestershire Growth Hub newsletter. The Growth Hub team have been very active again this month, delivering events across a range of key topics to support Worcestershire businesses.
We recently kicked off our Talent and Skills HR series in partnership with the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce. Feedback from businesses attending so far has been incredibly positive, with attendees finding the sessions insightful and directly relevant to helping them achieve their business goals. There is still time to join us for the final sessions, which will cover succession planning for your organisation, how to bridge skills gaps and create an effective onboarding process. Please follow the link for more details in the newsletter.
Following the fantastic response to our Women in Tech event, that we held during TechFest at the start of this year, we were excited to host a second session for this growing forum earlier this month. Topics this time around included dealing with imposter syndrome as well as diversity and inclusion in tech. This emerging group is aiming to build a supportive community for women that are working in the technology, I.T. and cyber security sectors right across the county. We’re already planning the next event, so be sure to save the date the 16th of October 2025. More details will be shared for our usual channels soon.
Sticking with the theme of innovation for a moment. The Growth Hub, working with the wider partnership, have started to pull together several strands of activity around fostering an effective local innovation ecosystem across Worcestershire. We already have lots of fantastic assets and pockets of best practice right here in the county, and we want to learn more from our amazing businesses to harness this potential and make Worcestershire a thriving hub for innovation and technology adoption.
We want to see more local talent attracted and retained here in the county. So you’re going to start hearing more more about initiatives and support associated with innovation, primarily around three areas. The first is talent development capability. This is about working with our schools, colleges and university to champion digital and entrepreneurial skills to our young people. Second is funding capability. This is about how we can leverage greater access to various types of finance mechanisms so that our businesses can become more innovative. And thirdly, we’ll look to identify and support enablers. These are the glue, the connectors that help to bring the ecosystem together and include things like environments that support innovation, such as co-working spaces, bringing like minded individuals together.
The incubators and accelerators for entrepreneurs with ideas, which provide wraparound business support and innovation communities, that enable the sharing of best practice and enable collaboration. Like, for example, the Women in Tech forum that I mentioned a moment ago. The Growth Hub are plugged into regional and national business support programs, some of which can be quite fluid and fast moving, and include funding competitions that are relevant to many of our businesses here in Worcestershire.
And so I’d like to flag that the Growth Hub website now has a dedicated page, which is regularly updated with the latest up to date news and live funding opportunities, associated with innovation. This is part of our response to address the funding capability piece I referenced just now, and we’ll bolster this by posting alerts on our social media channels to highlight these opportunities. So please check back regularly to see if there there’s anything relevant for your business. As always, further details can be found in the newsletter.
And from an enablers perspective, I’d like to congratulate the BetaDen team who have captured yet another award. This time BetaDen has been named Technology Accelerator Program of the year 2025 for the West Midlands at the SME Business Elite Awards. This well-deserved recognition is testament to the team’s unwavering dedication to supporting innovation, nurturing start ups and driving forward the region’s tech ecosystem. A huge well done to BetaDen.
And last but not least, the Growth Hub were delighted to attend the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce Business Awards event this month. Once again, this is a high energy event showcasing some of the great businesses we have across the two counties. We were proud to sponsor the Micro Business of the year category. So a huge congratulations to all of this year’s winners again and to Micro Business of the year winner, Miss Milly Limited. The awards are a great opportunity to celebrate, make new connections and achieve recognition for all of your hard work. I’d encourage all businesses to consider entering next year, and to contact the Chamber of Commerce to find out more details about what’s involved.
As always, there’s plenty more support to find out about within the newsletter. And if you’d like to learn more about accessing any of the support mentioned, please don’t hesitate to contact the team via the details shared on screen. We’ll see you next time.
