Once again, we’re preparing for the exciting Cisco British Innovation Gateway (BIG) awards. Here’s some guidance about the on-going competition – to stimulate some thoughts around this year’s opportunity to recognise Britain’s entrepreneurs.

It’s amazing when I think back to when the BIG awards where first discussed, as apart of our legacy around Cisco’s involvement in the London 2012 Olympics. We are now into our second year, and trying to be as balanced as I can be, it has been a very beneficial journey for all concerned. Read More »

Tags: British Innovation Gateway, Entrepreneur, innovation, start ups, Tomorrow Starts Here

By Chrissy Martin, Guest Columnist

Silicon Savannah. Maybe you’ve heard this term (maybe you’ve even read why it’s a misnomer.)  It has been coined to describe Nairobi, Kenya, the unofficial capital of the rapid rise of technology innovation in Africa.

Kenya is home to M-Pesa, the mobile money transfer service that is used by over 60% of the Kenyan population.  It is also home to the iHub, an innovation and start-up incubator which appears to be increasingly like Silicon Valley in its ability to spin off successful, profitable technology companies.

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Tags: africa, economic development, Kenya, MEDA, start ups, technology entrepreneurs, Zambia

By Akshay Thakur, Cisco UKI

The National Virtual Incubator (NVI) is one of the four pillars of Cisco’s British Innovation Gateway (BIG) programme. As you may have noticed, the hard work on BIG has begun and our three key partnerships are already producing results. These programmes are a continuation of our London 2012 Olympics legacy.

The NVI aims to create a community and a platform for collaboration between clusters of innovation throughout the UK. Such clusters of innovation are in various stages of their lifecycle and most are renown as a centre of excellence of a given sector, industry, or vertical.

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Tags: British Innovation Gateway, digital business ecosystem, National Virtual Incubator, start ups, UK

Cisco WebEx has joined the Startup America partnership — an organization to help accelerate the growth of America’s young companies.

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Tags: start ups, Startup America, sxsw, video conference, WebEX, White House

Being born and bred in Britain I have obviously adopted the typical British way of thinking – avoid failure at all costs.  This mindset is being echoed by start-ups in the UK who are seeking funding from British venture capitalists (VCs) – apparently, they’re risk adverse in their investments, when compared to their U.S. counterparts.

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Tags: Digital Britain, Failure, learning, start ups, venture capital