M-SParc is at the centre of innovation in North Wales and digital is at the heart of that innovation. Digital enables every industry from energy to transport, agriculture to tourism; there isn’t a sector that hasn’t been influenced by digitisation and digitalisation.
Increasingly our public services, healthcare and education services are underpinned by digital, touching both our personal and professional lives daily. Digital skills these days are essential.
The Digital team was established in 2022 to provide specialist digital support to our ecosystem and beyond. Interacting with local organisations, supporting startups and tenant companies, enabling collaborative digital projects across all sectors and into our communities.
Originally from the Ogwen Valley, Carwyn returned to the region in 2006 to work for the IT Infrastructure team at Bangor University. Prior to this he studied Software Engineering at and worked for the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Co-Founder of the local North Wales Tech voluntary community group Carwyn is passionate about bringing together, academia and industry and developing digital skills to foster opportunities for all.
Born and raised in Gaerwen, Rhodri is one of the first members of the Skills Academy. Rhodri works with tenants on data annotation for artificial intelligence, computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing, as well as M-SParc on the Road. As part of his role, Rhodri is studying BSc Applied Software Engineering at Bangor University, which includes network understanding, data ethics and writing in Java, Python and HTML programming languages.
The digital reviews cover a range of topics and are intended to look at areas of your business that could be improved by taking better advantage of digital technology. The conversation usually takes around 1-2 hours where we explore the areas you may benefit most. After the discussion a short summary is produced that offers some options for possible interventions.
The topic areas covered are:
The review explores each area at a high level before looking more specifically at the areas the company sees most potential for improvement or benefit.
Contact us to find out more and book your organisation in for a Digital Review.
Digital Design Sprints are more in-depth interactions designed to consult with several stakeholders within and possibly outwith an organisation, to look at specific areas of digital transformation. The sprints are effective ahead of activities such as:
Various versions of the design sprint process are possible suited to an individual organisations’ or projects’ needs. The process goes through 5 steps to identify potential solutions:
By the end of the Digital Design Sprint the organisation will have a much better understanding of how to develop its new product or service, or how undertake a digital transformation.
Please contact us to find out more about out Digital Design Sprints and how they can help you.
After undertaking a Digital Review or participating in a Digital Design Sprint, or perhaps you already have a digital project that needs expert and independent advice – the M-SParc digital team are here to help. With decades of experience in delivery of digital projects and connections to a plethora of local organisations, from our tenant companies and the research capabilities of Bangor University to the graduates with high level digital skills coming from our North Wales Universities and Colleges, we can gather the knowledge, skills and expertise to make sure your digital projects are in the best place to succeed.
We can also help with building your digital capacity, through advising on acquiring digital skills, and via our Skills Academi and partner organisations, helping your organisation find the right individuals to build out your digital teams.
Digital mentoring packages can be crafted to your organisations’ needs, providing ongoing digital support for your projects. Please get in touch to find out more.
M-SParc supports and nurtures our local digital ecosystem by playing leading roles in various industry clusters and groups. Read more about them below. We are also interested in supporting other digital industry groups, get in touch if you think you are part of a sector that would benefit from an industry leadership group.
M-SParc established the Agritech.Cymru cluster to develop partnerships and connections between like-minded businesses and researchers in the field. To place Wales at the forefront of the latest revolutions in agriculture. Find out more about exciting projects and opportunities in the field, our partners and how you can get involved.
The Agritech.Cymru cluster offers members:
Visit https://agritech.cymru/ to find out more.
The Welsh Parliament Cross-Party group on Digital in Wales contributes to ensuring that Wales is well placed to benefit socially and economically from the digital sector. The group takes a broad look at digital and its role in contributing to a positive future for Wales in areas such as the economy, services, skills and inclusion.
M-SParc act as secretariat to the Cross-Party group on Digital in Wales, helping to advise on topics to discuss and sourcing experts in their fields to showcase and advise the Senedd members and their representatives on important aspects of digital.
Previous Cross-Party Group on Digital in Wales meetings have covered topics such as:
You can find out more about the group including minutes of the previous meetings on the group page: Cross-Party group on Digital in Wales.
As part of our commitment to developing the digital skills North Wales needs to thrive, M-SParc are members of and currently chair the Regional Skills Partnership Digital Skills Employer Cluster Group. The group aims to develop a collaborative, coordinated and targeted approach to digital skills challenges so that the region has a clear vision and set of priorities.
M-SParc have coordinated digital skills events in collaboration with the Regional Skills Partnership such as our 2022 Digital Skills and Careers Expo which was a significant success.
Initiatives such as the skills Expo bring together those who have the skills and ambitions face-to-face with the very employers in the digital sector across north Wales that are looking to hire them. To focus on all the fantastic opportunities in the region for people to work in digital or design.
To learn more about the Digital Skills Employer Cluster Group see the relevant sections on the Regional Skills Partnership website.
With both a Digital and Low Carbon innovation teams, delivering digital services and products sustainably is a key focus area for M-SParc. Digital will increasingly play a central role in reducing carbon emissions and helping organisations achieve their Net Zero goals.
One example of this was the Tech Net Zero discovery undertaken for the Centre for Digital Public Services (CDPS) in collaboration with digital consultants Perago. This was a 12-week project investigating how digital can support Wales’s Net Zero climate aims. The digital discovery looked specifically at:
You can read more about the project in Tech Net Zero discovery and the end of project summary: Tech Net Zero discovery report.
M-SParc have also partnered with North Wales Recycle I.T. CIC to run events in our M-SParc on Tour locations, to re-purpose old personal computer hardware while also developing digital skills. Addressing the challenges of e-waste will be another area M-SParc hope to lead by example.
With close links to the Language Technologies Unit at Canolfan Bedwyr, part of Bangor University, M-SParc have supported and enabled several Language Technology projects. These are not only important to ensure the sustainability of the Welsh Language, and other minority languages, in the digital age – but also present global commercial opportunities to export Language Technology skills.
Some examples of the Language Technology products that M-SParc have supported:
If you are interested in Language Technology you can learn more about the resources available at The National Language Technologies Portal – https://techiaith.cymru/ – which is provided by Language Technologies Unit at Canolfan Bedwyr. Please do get in touch if you have an idea for a Language Technology project we can help you with.
How we manage our buildings and other spaces has a significant impact on the carbon footprint they contribute to. This also has bearing on the level of comfort and productivity of those spaces and how it influences human behaviour. Digital is already a central part of how larger building facilities are managed and is increasingly used to better understand building stock for housing associations and in the tourism industry. With the advent of SMART homes and SMART towns, digital is literally everywhere.
To explore the possibilities, and building on the Tech Net Zero discovery we did with CDPS which highlighted the potential of digital in this space, we are working towards turning our own M-SParc building into a Living Laboratory. This fits well with our stated goal of becoming a Net Zero Science Park by 2030.
Our SMART-SParc project is looking to better understand, by doing it ourselves, how building energy efficiency can be improved through the use of digital. Very importantly, we want to do this in such a way that is a positive experience for our community of tenant companies, visitors and the public.
Tourism is a significant component of the economy of North Wales. Millions of visitors come to the region each year with over 500,000 visiting the summit of Yr Wyddfa (formerly known as Snowdon) each year. This popularity poses challenges for managing resources while providing the best experiences for visitors and residents alike. Digital can help provide some of the solutions.
An example Digital Tourism project M-SParc was at the heart of is the Stori Mon Augmented Reality mobile app built by Animated Technologies. The app uses cutting edge video game technology to tell the story of some of Anglesey’s historic figures with over 100 points of interest across five towns on Anglesey. The points of interest are deliberately spread out to encourage visitors and residents to visit parts of Anglesey they may not overwise visit. The hope being to bring more visitors and trade to less frequented parts of the Island.
This project formed part of Anglesey Council’s UK CRF Adfywio Môn Renewal Programme funded by the UK Government Community Renewal Fund.
Agriculture is another prominent industry in North Wales with a wide range of produce on offer from artisan and speciality foods to highly regarded beer, whiskey and gin. Digitalisation of these industries will be essential to ensure they can flourish in ever more competitive global markets.
M-SParc founded the Agritech.Cymru Cluster group to support and bring together companies, public sector organisations, skills providers and research to explore opportunities in Agritech in North Wales and beyond. Already we have seen interactions as a result of introductions through the cluster and projects initiated from our Agri Hacks.
One of the Agritech projects M-SParc directly supported was phases 1 and 2 of the Green Eagle project that brought together two of our tenant companies Aerialworx and 42able. The project produced a proof-of-concept aerial drone and artificial intelligence solution to scan fields and then use precision delivery of treatments to manage the issue of unwanted plant growth – weeds!
You can read more about the Green Eagle project in The Green Eagle has taken flight!
