'Lightning-fast' broadband and knowledge jobs bring Hull's digital city dream closer to reality

Hull - the digital city. It’s a concept that has been talked about for years without ever seeming to move significantly closer to reality, but maybe that is finally about to change.

Recently, I’ve detected some very exciting digital developments which could be profoundly important for the prosperity of the city and wider region, transforming employment opportunities and the economic landscape. All the talk at business meetings may be about Siemens and renewables, but something else is stirring which some have claimed may be just as significant.

The digital city concept had at its core the presence of a unique, local telecoms provider in KC and the availability of a network ripe for development to provide the infrastructure - or so-called plumbing - for major developments in education and business.

That concept gained credibility from the late 1990s as a result of the launch and development of Kingston Interactive Television (KIT), KC’s ground-breaking internet television service delivering video on demand and TV streaming via broadband. It was a truly pioneering service which was hugely ambitious in both its technology and objectives. In truth, it was way ahead of its time.

KIT was wound up in 2006 because KC could no longer justify a huge investment, which had come too early for commercial viability. But it had some significant outcomes, including that it was a key reason why the BBC chose Hull as the base for a major regional centre and it was used by the corporation as the testbed for a number of innovative interactive services, which informed later developments such as Freeview.

Now KC is again leading the way in developing digital infrastructure. This time, the company has embarked upon on a programme to install “lightning-fast” broadband across its East Yorkshire network. It’s early days, but the new service, KC LIghtstream, is delivering remarkable results and winning customers fast.

After relatively small-scale trials in Woodmansey, near Beverley, and Hull’s Great Thornton Street Estate, KC has begun a major rollout, starting in Beverley, and now has more than 800 subscribers for a service that guarantees broadband download speeds of 100 megabits per second (mbps), which is four times faster than the Government’s definition of “super-fast” broadband.

Just last week Beverley was declared the broadband capital of the UK, with the fastest speeds in the country. Speed test site Netindex showed Beverley as the fastest UK broadband location, with an average download speed of 43 mbps – nearly six times the UK average - as a result of the KC Lightstream performance.

The remarkable speeds are delivered because the data travels down fibre-optic cables fed through to customers’ homes, replacing traditional copper connections. KC is stealing a march on other Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as BT, by installing Fibre To The Home (FTTH), rather than Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) - a connection box in the street. Elsewhere in the UK, connections are slowed down by copper cables for the last part of the data journey. In Lightstream premises, speeds are not constrained and the technology is future-proof, enabling acceleration of download speeds as demand for digital data and content grows.

The results seen already are impressive - users of the new service can download music albums in just two seconds, hour-long television programmes in 31 seconds and high-definition films within two minutes. It’s truly a revolution in accessing information and entertainment in homes which now frequently have multiple digital devices  being used at the same time.

But this new network is potentially even more significant in terms of its power to enable the development of East Yorkshire’s emerging digital sector. It has been interesting to note Hull’s growing credentials in this sector - in website and app development, gaming, social media and other disciplines. Indeed, that capability and credibility will be showcased this weekend (17th & 18th March) at Platform 2012, an event at the University of Hull focused on the huge gaming industry.

Quietly, Hull is gaining ground as a centre of knowledge jobs, with technology a key element, supported by high-quality educational establishments, such as the university and Hull College. Also important in this picture is the Hull Digital community of entrepreneurs and developers, which plans its own significant event, HD LIve, at the university on 1st November this year.

Factors are coming together to accelerate this welcome development of technology-based and enabled jobs in the knowledge economy - jobs that will be vital to achieve a re-balancing from public to private sector and blue to white collar employment.

KC’s commercial and financial director Sean Royce talked about this change recently when setting out the benefits for businesses of the Lightstream rollout.  The huge boost to broadband capability will encourage start-ups and SMEs focused on activities such as online retailing, app development and gaming.

Mr Royce pointed out that digital industries already generate £130 billion for the UK economy - 10 per cent of gross added value - and employ six per cent of the workforce. The sector also continues to grow, despite the economic climate. It’s a trend the Government recognises and wants to encourage. It plans to commit £780 million to support the development of super-fast broadband and mobile provision across the UK  to help to deliver a world-class digital infrastructure. Estimates are that the investments by Government and the private sector could create 600,000 new jobs and pump £18 million into the UK economy.

One local digital entrepreneur, John Connolly, wrote in a recent blog on the Hull Digital site that the rapid development of the local broadband network will enable businesses to work and communicate in new, faster, more efficient and effective ways, including through home and remote working. His view was that the Lightstream network would be “the backbone of business and education in the city for years to come”, enabling the development of exciting new enterprises and ways of learning.

And, although large-scale employers, such as Smith & Nephew, Reckitt Benckiser and, indeed, KC,  are hugely important to the East Yorkshire economy, SMEs are the real backbone of UK Plc, providing 60 per cent of private sector jobs.

So, while the headline news is how Siemens, the burgeoning offshore wind industry and other forms of renewable energy will bring new prosperity to Hull and the Humber, it’s not the only story of economic potential and job creation. No doubt renewables will continue to hog the headlines, but the development of digital infrastructure, businesses and jobs may be just as vital over the long term.

Beverley has Britain's fastest broadband
Forget Silicon Valley - welcome to the Humber digital estuary

Hull and the Knowledge Economy

Gadget king's inspiring message to potential young entrepreneurs

I’ve witnessed a business masterclass by one of Britain’s most admired entrepreneurs. It’s far from the first time I’ve listened to a successful businessmen share the secrets of their success, but this was different.

The difference was the audience. It wasn’t a gathering of fellow businessmen and women - listening intently were 12 and 13-year-olds.

The speaker was Jonathan Elvidge, founder of the pioneering Gadget Shop and now owner of RED5, one of Britain’s fastest-growing private companies. His audience came from Hull’s Malet Lambert School - youngsters who have already expressed an interest in starting a business, despite their tender years, or who plan to take Business Studies at GCSE. They had been brought together by the school’s Business Champion Stephen Logan and the For Entrepreneurs Only (FEO) group.

FEO is made up of 70 entrepreneurs who have built successful businesses in Hull and the East Riding and are committed to sharing their experience and wisdom to help others to create wealth and jobs. A key focus is on education and inspiring a new generation of business owners, hence a series of FEO days for local schools featuring members of the group.

So to the Malet Lambert FEO day, hosted at The Exchange educational hub, created by the Hull Esteem consortium, which is transforming the city’s schools through the Building Schools for the Future programme.

I was familiar with some of Jonathan’s story but I hadn’t previously heard him talk, with such understated passion, about why he launched his own business, what he had learned and why others should follow his example.

Jonathan gave up a steady and secure job with telecoms company KC to fulfil his dream by launching The Gadget Shop in Hull’s Princes Quay Shopping Centre 20 years ago. The business grew so fast that, at one time, it was valued at £40 million, before Jonathan lost control, the business was sold and then, after he left, it collapsed.

Undeterred, Jonathan bounced back. With a business partner, he launched RED5 - billed as “the ultimate gadget shop”, with high street stores and concessions across the UK and a growing online business.

The highs and lows of Jonathan’s business career were fascinating. He admitted he just missed an opportunity to sell his Gadget Shop shares before the business began to tail down, but said he had no regrets: “I wouldn’t change a thing - the ups and downs are all learning experiences”.

But of even greater interest were his words of advice to his audience of potential entrepreneurs. He urged them to do what they are passionate about and to ignore the “energy vampires” who daren't take risks and hate to see others strive to fulfil their dreams. Success comes from having a great idea, the passion and belief to bring it to life, and the courage to act upon it. “What you conceive and believe you can achieve”, he says.

He told the youngsters he wasn’t suggesting they should all launch into business straight from education, although some might want to do just that. But he did want them to believe that they too could turn their idea into a business, at some time in their working lives.  “You can do it,” he urged. “Don't think it's for other people. Keep those ideas in your head and, when the time is right, go for it”.

His final pearl of wisdom was powerful. “Companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft were all started by young people with an idea and a vision,” he said. “They changed the world. Who’s to say your ideas couldn’t, too”.

So true and what a thought-provoking message for young people in Hull to hear. I am sure that very few, if any, of the audience will forget Jonathan’s inspiring story and his words of advice. For some, it might just be the spur for them to strike out on their own and create their own business success story.

For Entrepreneurs Only

Malet Lambert School

The Exchange Hull

Hull dispells another negative stereotype - we're a city on the up!

We've all heard them all - Hull supposedly has Britain's worst schools, fattest people and most teenage mums. In fact, none of these myths are true.

The truth is that, while Hull has many of the social issues seen in any major city - and some of the statistics are exaggerated by the very tight local government boundary - it’s a great place and getting better all the time. It's also a place where so many people are working so hard and successfully to raise standards and address issues.

There's more evidence of that today with the excellent news that Hull is no longer one of worst areas in the UK for teenage pregnancies. Congratulations to the teams from Hull City Council and the NHS who have done such great work. It is clear that sustained campaigns and activity around awareness of sexual health and contraception have achieved outstanding results.

Teenage pregnancy has huge consequences in terms of the health, education and life chances of girls who have babies so young, so the progress will have many positive benefits.

Together with fast-rising GCSE results, great new school buildings and a jobs boom from renewables on the way, it is clear that Hull is on the up.

Oh, and we've also got a great story to tell about our region's economy, courtesy of the Hull and East Yorkshire Bondholders - a fantastic network of more than 140 businesses and organisations that is the envy of cities and regions across the country.

City no longer in top 10 for teen pregnancy

Green growth, blue horizons - our economic story

The new Hull school that aims to make young people ready for work

For far too long Hull has been labelled an educational backwater, but there’s no doubt that a whole raft of initiatives are transforming learning within the city.

The most obvious change can be seen in school buildings across Hull, as a result of a £400m Building Schools for the Future programme. Schools such as Archbishop Sentamu Academy in Preston Road and Sirius Academy in west Hull are more akin to silicon valley campuses than traditional secondaries. Those academies are also among several new-style schools seeking to drive up standards of attainment in a city which not long ago recorded the worst GCSE results in England.

And the initiatives keep coming. The latest is a studio school, pioneered by Hull College, one of only 12 in the UK and due to open in September at the college’s Queens Gardens site.

The studio school will be very different from traditional schools, or even the new academies. I heard about those differences during a presentation by the college’s Deputy Principal Gary Warke and Director of Young People’s Learning Lynne Richardson at the latest meeting of the One Hull Business Forum.

It was an appropriate audience, as the studio school is focused on developing young people to be ready for the world of work. Enterprise and employability are the key words, as the schools strives to address the often-heard criticism from businesses that school-leavers are not equipped with some of the basics - such as punctuality, professional appearance and communication skills - required of today’s workforce.

The studio school will take pupils aged 14-19 and be comparatively small, with a total of 300 pupils. The target is to enrol 120 in September - 60 aged 14 and 60 at 16.

The school day will run from 8am to 5pm and the emphasis throughout will be on practical work. Students will spend a significant proportion of the week in the workplace - those aged 14-16 will be on unpaid work placement for up to four hours a week, while the 16-19-year-olds will have up to two days paid employment.

The curriculum will focus on the core subjects of English, maths and science, alongside a choice of vocational qualifications. Education will be taken out of the usual classroom setting, with students learning primarily through project work.

The school will also employ what it calls “personal coaches” to support students and help to link them to employers, while the college says the new school’s disciplinary and reward systems will be based on those “commonly found within the workplace”.

And, in perhaps the most obvious difference from traditional schools, students will wear what is described as “business attire”, rather than uniforms.

I suspect much of the above will be warmly welcomed by employers, who often complain that young people lack the core skills, focus, attitude and, sometimes, sheer common sense to make a valuable contribution. Too often, a re-education process is required when young people join a business. The studio school aims to remove that process, by producing youngsters who are familiar with the expectations and demands of the real world of work.

The studio school will face many challenges, among them convincing sufficient parents to interrupt their child’s education by moving them from a traditional secondary, or academy, to the studio school at 14.

It also seems to me that the expectations for work placements and paid employment are ambitious, for both the students and employers. The studio school will certainly have to ensure that bringing students into their businesses is not unduly demanding for employers, in terms of supervision or health and safety requirements. The school will need to make it easy for employers to come on board and also demonstrate to them that their students can make a real contribution - that this isn’t old-style “work experience” under a new guise.

However, it is interesting to hear Hull College say they have the backing of more than 100 businesses already. P&O Ferries and Rollits are featured in the promotional literature.

The studio school is a certainly a brave and bold initiative, which deserves success. Employers will applaud Hull College’s faith in the concept if it delivers to them young people who have the inter-personal qualities, discipline, core skills and enterprising spirit to add value to their businesses.

It also adds another facet of innovation to the rapidly-improving education facilities and provision in Hull, as the city’s young people and, of course, their parents have access to greater options and opportunities than ever before.

Those improvements are now feeding through into raised attainment. As I write, newly-released statistics show Hull - once rooted to the bottom of the GCSEs league table - has climbed to sixth  from bottom. A long way to go, but progress nonetheless.

Of course, the studio school’s focus will not be purely on academic achievement, but on producing young people ripe for the workplace and, potentially, the entrepreneurs and wealth creators of the future. Academic ability and practical skills are both important - developing a better educated, more enterprising workforce will be vital to unlocking Hull’s economic potential.

·    Potential business supporters of the studio school are invited to attend a launch event at Queens Gardens on Thursday, 2nd February, from 4.30-5.30pm, with guest speaker David Frost CBE, Chair of the Studio Schools Trust and a former Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce. Attendance should be confirmed by e-mail to ebarker@hull-college.ac.uk or by phone on 01482 598817. This will be followed by an information event for parents and students from 6pm-7.30pm.

·     For more information about the studio school, contact Lyne Richardson at lrichardson@hull-college.ac.uk or 01482 381928. Further information on the studio schools concept can be found at www.studioschoolstrust.org