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Helping Manchester become a leading European digital city

What makes a leading digital city, and how can the digital and tech industries help the UK emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic? These are just two of the questions that will be explored during the Manchester Digital City Festival which takes place between 12 to 23 April.

This year’s virtual festival will unite people working across tech, marketing, e-commerce, media, and creative, to celebrate successes from across Greater Manchester and facilitate meaningful connections across industries.

As part of our long-term commitment to Manchester’s burgeoning tech community, we’re proud to be one of the sponsors of the 2021 festival.

Supporting Manchester’s tech sector

The sponsorship builds on our previous involvement in the Manchester tech scene, including running our own Meetups, such as the DevOps Battle Royale; providing speakers for other local events; engaging with local coding boot camps, including Northcoders and Code Nation; and hiring great people through courses like Tech Returners, which helps people back in the tech sector after a career break.

Last year, a new initiative saw us forge closer links with the Manchester tech community. Our partnership with youth employment charity, Generation, helps people who are either unemployed or from an underprivileged background to start a career in tech. The first cohort graduated from the free Manchester data engineering programme before Christmas, and our next course concluded at the end of March.

It’s fair to say that our Manchester practice has grown in parallel with the local tech community during the past four years. We believe a thriving tech scene, reinforced by support from local businesses, is a fundamental part of a successful digital city, and we’re proud to play our part in creating that.

Where to find us at the festival

We’ll also be contributing to the learning at the festival through two thought-leadership sessions.

In week one (13 April), Software Engineer Stuart Forrest will be talking about how our partnership with Generation has helped us discover new talent in Manchester, create a positive social impact in the tech community, improve candidate diversity, and help us bridge the digital skills gap. You can find out more about his talk and register here.

During week two (22 April), Principal Consultant Hiren Joshi will be talking alongside senior leaders from cinch about how engineers based in Manchester came together to design, build, and launch a vehicle e-commerce site of the future, completely changing the way people buy used cars in the UK. You can find out more about this talk and register here.

The story of our partnership with cinch has also meant we’ve been shortlisted for the Cloud Project of the Year accolade in the associated Digital City Awards. The awards will be broadcast live from MediaCityUK on 15 April and we wish all of the other finalists the best of luck!

How to register for the event

We’re looking forward to being involved in this year’s festival and would love to see some new and familiar faces across the two weeks. If you’d like to learn more about the free event and to register for a ticket, you can find out more by visiting the official website here.