1:02pm Sunday 18th March 2007
By Fiona Evans
A £2 million institute dedicated to sparking a digital revolution in the Aire Valley will create up to 20 jobs within the next 12 months.
Six months after the Advanced Digital Institute (ADI) was unveiled at Cottingley Business Park, Bingley, the centre is looking to employ 15 to 20 engineers.
The UK's first independent organisation dedicated to supporting the growth of hi-tech companies through the provision of research and development has just appointed a sector manager and a project engineer for embedded systems.
Now ADI chief executive Ged Powell hopes to employ a mix of electronics and computer science graduates with experience in areas such as wireless technology, home networking and Digital Signal Processing - the kind of technology that makes high speed radar for fighter jets.
Mr Powell, who previously worked in Silicon Valley, California, said: "The past six months have been about consolidation of the company's position.
"We have several lunch seminars coming up in South Yorkshire and Humberside with a view to getting the word out. We are talking to local companies to determine their immediate requirements to allow us to build a profile for recruiting teams for going forwards.
"Things are exactly on plan according to the strategic and business plans we submitted to Yorkshire Forward over a year ago. The long-term vision is to be in a purpose-built recognisable building with 50 permanent ADI staff and maybe another 50 people working on secondment from universities and other companies - providing a real flesh and blood' bridge between research development and products."
Initially funded by regional development agency Yorkshire Forward, Bradford Council and the European Union's regional fund, ADI is set to become self-financing within three years, during which time it is expected to generate 165 new jobs and to help create 25 companies.
The institute is an intermediate technology development centre helping companies identify and develop new high-value products and services.
Bingley was chosen as the home for ADI because of the burgeoning number of high-tech companies in the region.
Mr Powell said: "We are working with a combination of experienced engineers and relatively fresh graduates and encouraging these teams to engage with universities as resources."
ADI is also talking to smaller businesses and venture capitalists with a view to linking them up and growing them with ADI's business and commercial input.
Throughout Yorkshire there are an estimated 13,000 firms operating in the digital industries sector employing 130,000 people.
Yet spending on research and development in Yorkshire is only a third of the UK average and the lowest of any region.
Research also shows that just five per cent of companies are planning to invest in innovation, compared with 30 per cent in 2000, and that only six per cent of the region's firms have links with universities.
Mr Powell said: "This inevitably means that a great deal of highly-valuable creativity is not being exploited due to lack of resources - not just in Yorkshire but nationally.
"We need to change that quickly if the UK is to be a significant player in high technology product development and manufacture. Bringing that about is at the heart of our vision for the future."
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