Leeds, home to 3,500 digital and technology companies across a range of industries, is again staging the North’s largest digital festival (16-27 April).
Leeds Digital Festival will be reflecting Leeds’ digital GVA (gross value added) of £688m with huge growth potential.
Since its inception in 2016, the Leeds Digital Festival has grown to embrace 150 events and an expected 15,000 attendees.
City convention bureau ConferenceLeeds highlights some of those events that delegates can look forward to, including the full-day conferences FinTech North and TechEdge, hosted by Whitecap Consulting and Sky Betting & Gaming respectively. Other programmes include Branded3’s Leeds Loves Search, Trinity Mcqueen’s Policing the Digital Playground and Netpremacy’s insights into the Google Cloud Platform.
Leeds’ healthcare and medial sector strength and its data research credentials will also be highlighted throughout the festival. Leading healthcare companies such as NHS Digital, the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC), Leeds Institute of Data Analytics (LIDA) and Open Data Institute (ODI) will all be hosting a range of events showcasing their most recent cutting-edge projects and hosting workshops.
Elements of the festival programme also aim to address diversity in the digital sector, including the discussion ‘Where are the women in tech?’, which is a collaboration between Swedish government-backed Java4Women and UK-based Virtual Pair Programmers.
Finally, the festival also shines a spotlight on some of the city’s most popular creative venue spaces. This includes the recently-opened Platform, a Bruntwood office space, which officially launched its tech hub at part of Leeds Digital Festival on 16 April.
Platform recently received a portion of this year’s Leeds Tech Fund, alongside Duke Studios, and both are hosting events during the festival, alongside food and drink venues Headrow House, Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen and Arc Inspirations.
Festival director Stuart Clarke said: “We are extremely excited to be back and even bigger than ever, as we move to a two-week long Festival to make even more noise about the digital sector in the city. We have exciting popular events returning such as FinTech North and Code in the Dark, as well as a range of new events based around data, healthtech, sports tech and start ups. We also have the introduction of the Leeds Digital Festival Awards, so we can really demonstrate the up and coming talent in the city.”
Jennifer Young, head of ConferenceLeeds added: “The Leeds Digital Festival is an extremely unique experience which really demonstrates how Leeds is really leading the way in discussion and innovation in the tech industry.”
