Barclays Cyber Spine

Last month, I had the pleasure of being invited to the first Barclays Eagle Labs Manchester/London Cyber Spine event.

The purpose of the events is to promote understanding amongst people in Manchester and London about how collaboration between companies in the two cities is worthwhile.

My panel - where I was joined by Elliot Fullerton of zally, Alsa Tibbit from the University of Manchester and David Levine from DigitalBridge - was hosted by the wonderful Slobhan Gurrie from DiSH, and was on the topic of "What's Going on in Manchester's Growing Cyber Ecosystem". We talked at length about the tangible and intangible elements that make Manchester an incredibly exciting place to be when it comes to tech generally; not just cyber.

The subsequent panels were all really engaging, and the networking opportunity in the margins was incredibly useful. It was great to see so many people of all walks of life, either decades in to, or aiming to soon enter, a career in Cyber.

In short, I highlighted:

• The "supportive energy" that exists around DiSH and the wider ecosystem generally, where everyone wants you to succeed and is willing to put themselves out, and give up their valuable time, to help you do that
• The underdog spirit that drives a lot of Manchester's passion. We're a city that is very much on the up, and that's hugely invigorating for the region and the people with in it. Energy breeds energy and so on.
• The "dense" network topology of Manchester means that you're generally never going to be too many degrees of seperation away from someone who can make a game changing impact on your business and your ambitions

I also made some comments about how having a sub-£5 pint is crucial to business success, but I don't quite have the economic authority to back that up quite yet.

Thank you to Barclays for inviting me and thank you to everyone who came out and asked such thoughtful questions!