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What We’ve Been Working on to Support You During the Crisis

By Phil

Posted on 09 Sep 2020

Whilst we get back to some sense of normality, we thought it would be a good time to update you all on what we’ve been working to support you, our members, during the ongoing crisis.
 

Lobbying the government

Right at the beginning of lockdown, we conducted a survey into the impact of the pandemic on businesses and freelancers in our digital, media and tech community. This was designed to understand the immediate effect of the crisis on our members and lobby national and local government on your behalf. You can read an overview of the survey results here.

Following this, we co-signed Brighton & Hove City Council's call to government, to allow them to distribute unused grant funding to local businesses under threat due to Covid-19, providing much-needed additional support to the wider business community.

More recently, as part of the UK Tech Cluster Group, we participated in a conference that brought ministers, mayors and industry leaders together to discuss the impact that digital technology clusters can have in helping the recovery of local communities and regional economies.

The UKTCG published a report capturing learnings from the day and, in response, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport's Secretary of State, Oliver Dowden, announced a new national digital strategy.
 

Helping you adapt to remote working

We’ve been running a series of virtual Breakfast Sessions to help members get to grips with the different aspects of remote working. Starting with recruitment and onboarding, most recently we’ve been looking at how to adapt your business and infrastructure for a long-term remote model. Take a look for advice and guidance:

Reopening the FuseBox

We reopened our home and innovation hub, The FuseBox, welcoming residents back to a clean and controlled environment. We introduced measures such as heat sensors to check temperatures, multiple sanitising stations, dedicated and distributed desk space, and more; making sure all visitors and residents feel safe and comfortable in the space.

If you’re a digital entrepreneur, tech visionary or creative technologist wanting to turn your ideas into successful innovations, find out more about residency.
 

Improving our website

In response to the influx of virtual events and meetups, we have adapted our Events calendar to make it easier to search for online (On-line) vs physical (On-site) events taking place in our local sector. Check it out.

And if you’re running an event or meetup in Sussex for the digital, media or technology community, add it to our website for free to reach a wider audience.

We are continuing to look for opportunities and ways we can support you through this crisis. In the meantime, here’s a reminder of some of our core serves that you can benefit from:

As always, feel free to get in touch with us by phone (01273 692888) or email if you have any questions.

For past updates, read our previous blog posts: Update 1 | Update 2

About the author

Phil Jones

Hi, I'm the Director of Innovation and Projects at Wired Sussex, I deliver our portfolio of regional creative technology projects and support our innovation hub, the FuseBox.

View more posts by Phil