World-wide focus on Southampton for investment in digital technologies
UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) representatives from consulates around the world visited Southampton today on a fact-finding mission to help attract foreign investment in the area.
Twenty members of the UKTI from cities such as Washington, Shanghai, Istanbul and Singapore visited the Millbrook Technology Campus and The University of Southampton to learn more about the expertise and facilities in digital technologies and business incubation support this area has to offer.
The group spoke to a number of high-tech companies including Bac2, Primer Design, Reap Systems and Polymer vision at the Millbrook Technology Campus (MTC) and heard from Cascoda Ltd, specialist semiconductor designers who are based at the university’s SETsquared Incubation Centre. Bac2 is the creator of ElectroPhen™, a new plastic that's a billion times more electrically conductive than other polymers or resins and Polymer Vision is the pioneer and mobile industry leader for rollable display enabled hand-held devices.
Millbrook Technology Campus, in the Outer Shirley area of Southampton, has been recognised for revitalising six hectares of land on the western outskirts to create a business technology park, acting as a catalyst for economic and social regeneration in the deprived area of Millbrook.
The cohort also learned about the brand new facilities at the University’s Mountbatten Building. The building contains a clean room and fabrication capability which will enable researchers in the School of Electronics and Computer Science and the Optoelectronics Research Centre to make world-leading contributions to new research areas in nanotechnology, bionanotechnology and photonics.
The University has been a key strategic partner in the creation of MTC. Four technology companies that came through the University-based SETsquared Business Incubation Centre have now graduated on to MTC as they continue to grow and develop.