Cobra Beer founder and CBI president Lord Bilimoria and techUK president Jacqueline de Rojas have been signed up as speakers at technology investor event EIE20.
De Rojas has been a senior executive of CA Technologies and Sage Group, became the Chair of Digital Leaders UK in 2017 and helped to launch the Institute of Coding in 2018. TechUK represents more than 900 tech companies.
Lord Bilimoria founded Cobra Beer in 1989 and remains chairman. He was appointed president of the Confederation of British Industry in June.
He said: “As an entrepreneur, I am greatly looking forward to seeing at close hand some of Scotland’s most exciting early to scale-up stage technology companies at EIE20.
"Scotland has a proud tradition in innovation, research and the commercialisation of technologies, and has some of the world’s leading universities and informatics schools.
"At the same time, in common with the rest of the UK, 2020 has been a challenging year in the face of Covid, the ensuing economic crisis and how we make a success of the ongoing Brexit process. In my new role at the CBI, I will be doing everything I can to work for the best interests of entrepreneurs and UK plc overall in the months and years ahead.”
De Rojas said: “Scotland’s tech scene has progressed rapidly over the last decade to become one of Europe’s most highly rated centres for startups, evidenced by globally leading companies like Skyscanner and Edinburgh itself continues to strengthen its position as the leading UK data hub outside London.
"I am also looking forward to supporting so many of Scotland’s most promising tech companies and to addressing the EIE20 conference in October.”
EIE20 was originally to take place at Edinburgh’s McEwan Hall but will now be hosted by the University of Edinburgh’s Bayes Centre team on a virtual conference platform on October 14.
Fifty data-driven start-up to scale-up companies will pitch to investors all over the world for seed to series A funding. Previous EIE success stories include FanDuel, Mallzee and Current Health.
Karen Wood, director of enterprise at EIE said: “Having business and technology leaders of Lord Bilimoria and Jacqueline de Rojas’ stature feature at EIE20 is a sign of how far EIE has come in recent years and their experience and insights, alongside our other fantastic speakers, will be among the highlights for our cohort companies and attendees on the day.”
Other speakers at EIE20 include: Executive Director of Data Driven Innovation Initiative at The University of Edinburgh, Jarmo Eskelinen; Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at The University of Edinburgh, Professor Shannon Vallor; Group Chief Operating Officer at CityFibre, Simon Holden; Principal of the University of Edinburgh, Professor Peter Mathieson; Co-Founder of SVK Crypto, Shane Kehoe, and The Rt Hon. Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh, Councillor Frank Ross.
