This Year at Wired Sussex - 2022

Thanks so much to our members for all your support, we know that 2022 hasn't been an easy year, but we're so proud of all that our community and members have accomplished. We'd like to take a moment to reflect and thank you for your support.

Your membership has made a significant impact on our sector and community, and we couldn't do our work without your support and positivity. We’d also like to thank our partners for their support and resilience this year.

We hope you all have a peaceful and relaxing festive break.

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Here’s a look back at 2022

We're so proud of the impact we've made this year:

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Events

This year, it was brilliant to see even more in-person events at The FuseBox. We led a bumper programme of events, with regular Lunch + Learn sessions for our members exploring a range of topics - from sustainability to leading your marketing strategy with impact.

Thanks so much to our sponsors, Plus Accounting for supporting these Lunch + Learns, check out our youtube channel to catch up if you missed them.

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5G Festival

In March, we worked with Brighton Dome, the Digital Catapult, and national partners, including Warner Music, to deliver the world’s first 5G-powered music festival. 5G is a wireless mobile technology that is incredibly fast, very stable, and with very low latency; a technology that can unleash game-changing digital products and services.

Building on panel events last year exploring 5G in the music industry, we curated the ‘Alternative Stages’ experience in collaboration with Platform B at the 5G Festival held at Brighton Dome, with over 500 attendees. Guests could experience music from local artists in various virtual venues across the city, including the Green Door Store, Brighton Dome and St. George's Church.

And, in the summer, we hosted a new event in the Alternative Stages programme – a live 5G-powered virtual gig at our innovation hub, The FuseBox, with a live performance by emerging spoken word artist Priss Nash. This audience could connect with others in the virtual Brighton Dome and experience Priss’s performance on their devices. Read more about the experience here.

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Talent Fest ‘22

In November, we held Talent Fest ‘22 - a five-day event to boost our region’s thriving digital industry; helping businesses hire, nurture and keep the most talented people – the people we need, to grow and deliver great work.

It was a blast! We hosted community groups, including Codebar Brighton, a charity that facilitates the growth of a diverse tech community by running free regular programming workshops for minority groups in tech, as well as The Farm - a local meetup for digital freelancers. From confidence-boosting workshops to CV clinics, it was great to see so many of our job seeking community getting involved and discovering digital careers.

We closed the week with the Wired Sussex Skills Summit - an intimate one-day peer-to-peer conference, where CEOs, creative leads and start-up founders join inspiring leaders and thinkers for a conversation about our sector’s biggest business challenges.

We'd like to thank everyone who joined us for the Skills Summit this year, especially our fantastic speakers and our sponsors, Plus Accounting. It was incredible to bring our community of leaders together to discuss their challenges and share best practices. Catch up on the talks of the day.

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Supporting the Creative Technology Sector beyond Brighton

This year, Wired Sussex worked closely with East Sussex County Council and West Sussex County Council on different projects to support the digital, media, and tech sector here in Sussex. Helping our region’s County Councils understand our sector’s needs and deliver the right activity and investment to support it is vitally important.

We have just completed a detailed report for Locate East Sussex, which provides data and business insights on the creative technology sector across the county, including a section that compares the clusters in Eastbourne and Hastings. Read the report and findings here.

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New funding for our region

We’re delighted that this year, Wired Sussex, bidding as a part of a South East consortium, has been successful in securing funding from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to deliver the Create Growth programme across the region, which means that Sussex is one of a small number of areas in England set to benefit. 

The programme will provide support for businesses in the creative industries with high-growth potential to scale, including through developing the knowledge and skills they need to access private sector investment. Additional grant funding will be available nationally to creative businesses in the region. Find out more about the programme and how your business can benefit.

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'Game-Changing' Creative Project Given Green Light

We’re also delighted that a project that will seek to grow an advanced creative economy and bring investment and skilled jobs to the region between Chichester and Brighton has been given funding.

Coast to Capital has approved an application for £97,700 from the Coastal West Sussex Partnership, in collaboration with Adur and Worthing Councils, Wired Sussex and the University of Chichester, for the Coastal Creative Technologies project.

The project will also include a CreaTech (Creative Technologies) Open Innovation Network to support existing businesses, as well as a skills and training programme to ensure local people can take advantage of employment opportunities – ranging from animation to set building.

To meet its aims, the project will require around £100 million in investment. Find out more

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Team News

This year, you might have seen the news that our long-time CEO, Phil Jones moved to a new role within the organisation after nearly 15 years at the helm. Phil assumed a new role as Director of Innovation and Projects, allowing him to develop the innovation and projects aspect of the operation while creating space and continuity for a new generation of leadership to step in and take over in 2023.

We also welcomed two new additions to the Wired Sussex board of non-executive directors: Emma Wakefield, co-MD of Brighton-based independent TV production company Lambent Productions and Amanda Murphy, Senior Executive Producer at the UK’s national centre for immersive storytelling, Storyfutures Academy. Find out more about them here.

We look forward to connecting with you in the new year and wish you a peaceful Christmas.

All the best,

The Wired Sussex Team

About the author

Anna Bagley

Hi, I'm Wired Sussex's Events & Marketing Manager, I help to promote our range of services to support our members and the local digital sector, as well as helping to create inspiring events for the community.

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