Science Park facility brings the world to Birmingham

ENTREPRENEURS in the West Midlands could soon be pitching to ‘dragons’ from around the world via a new service at Birmingham Science Park, it was announced yesterday.

The Park – formerly Aston Science Park – has linked up with global IT giant Cisco to create ‘The Ideas and Communications Suite’ which will use the latest teleconferencing and other technology to make communicating and collaborating across the world simple. The suite opens in January, and will make available to start-ups and SMEs the kind of facilities tha usually only the largest corporations can afford.

The move was announced by city council leader Mike Whitby at a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference last night.

Dubbing the move a ‘virtual science park without walls’, the Park’s chief executive David Hardman said: “Science parks represent the coal face between universities and the industries that can move the economy forward. We now have to be more than just landlords of the buildings and become catalysts for innovation and growth.

“It will be today’s online-savvy generation that creates the businesses of the future, and science parks therefore need to be fit for purpose.”
Birmingham Science Park Aston has announced a UK first by installing state-of-the-art technology to pioneer its ‘science park without walls’ concept. Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and start-up businesses will be able to communicate with leading innovators, academics and investors from across the world as if they are sitting in the same room.
 
 BSPA’s sSuite will include two 52 inch screens to enable real time, interactive meetings to take place around the clock. The new technology will use the Park’s advanced broadband facility, which it claims is as good as the best and fastest available anywhere in the UK.  
 
The suite is also supported by JANET (UK) – a publicly funded initiative that connects 18 million end-users across UK education and research institutions – the University of Warwick and Tata Communications.