The first lesson to be drawn from 2020, and undoubtedly the biggest lesson, is that the future is unpredictable. All of us in our personal and business lives try to predict the future to some extent, as this is what enables us to lay plans for the future.

Startups Editor Anna Flockett talks to Murata’s Mitch Nozaki, EMEA facilitator for their Open Innovation website, about why the electronics company is looking to collaborate with startups.

Despite not feeling safe to socialise with anyone for the last six months, I've understood 'community' in new and wonderful ways.

Saturday 10th October is World Mental Health Day. It arrives during the strangest time we’ll ever likely face in our lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Each year’s theme is set by the World Federation for Mental Health, and this year’s is 'mental health for all'. This encourages us to think of different demographics and communities of people and how they are faced with issues and problems in their lives.

It baffles me that some 16,000 who had tested positive for COVID-19 did not have their information uploaded to the Test and Trace system because it was reliant on a 13-year-old legacy IT and, as it turns out, a complicated Excel sheet.

One of the significant demands resulting from the Coronavirus crisis of 2020 has been the need for new and novel ways for voluntary support to be facilitated. The ability for assistance to reach the most vulnerable or living in isolation or quarantine in safe ways is vital to saving lives and mitigating the spread of the pandemic. 

As with every sector, the sports industry has been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The after effects will no doubt continue to reverberate for some time to come even once we emerge from this global health crisis. However, sport is unique in that it plays a different role to many other activities in life; it provides a space for people to come together for rituals and traditions, often harking back for generations.

Collaboration involves people working together to attain a particular goal or to complete an allocated task. Some of the greatest ideas are born through this process. When you think about innovation, it is a collection of ideas either from the past or present.

Hopefully, it goes without saying that women are vital members of any team in business. The best ideas are conceptualised and executed by groups with a variety of backgrounds, skills and opinions - homogenised teams will lead to unexciting products.

In my previous blog, I considered the steps necessary for business leaders to close the gap between rhetoric and reality on racial equity at work. This time, I wanted insight on what is actually happening on the frontline. I sat down with award-winning business strategist and founder of The Black British Business Awards, Melanie Eusebe. She has risen to the upper- echelons of the corporate world, and in our broad conversation offered her perspectives on corporate responsibility, solidarity, and how we sustain the current momentum.

Opening a new business during a period of economic and social crisis, such as the current pandemic, may seem like a risky venture and for certain sectors this may certainly be true. However, for those looking to launch a new tech project, particularly one that supports remote working or artificial intelligence, then there may have never been a better opportunity.

Some people are doing very well out of the pandemic - the fraudsters. That’s because the chaos COVID-19 has caused makes it far easier for them to operate. Have you increasingly been asked to provide personal data to strangers since March? Have you changed any of your habits? Gordon Ramsey himself couldn’t have created a more perfect recipe for rising fraud. How can you make yourself as safe as possible and if you have been a victim, what should you do next?

With societies across the globe still some way off returning to the ‘old normal’, many businesses are set to continue suffering from the impacts of COVID-19.

Applying for jobs, let alone during a pandemic, can be an extremely time-consuming and stressful job in itself. It’s crucial to ensure that amongst a sea of other applicants, you tailor your CV for success - especially now that employers will likely be hiring remotely.

At Relative Insight, we’ve always held the conviction that language provides a critical source of insight that’s often overlooked, and our mission is to help our customers drive value from all those language data sources that they’ve got floating around in their organisations, not doing much.

The startup world is no stranger to fleeting fads. We’ve seen an influx of monthly subscription boxes, e-commerce savings communities, and even a rise in nostalgic games like Pokemon Go. While those were all fun and games while they lasted, users eventually lost interest and moved onto the next shiny thing.

Online conferences and events aren’t new, but the coronavirus pandemic has brought them from a niche activity to a mainstream channel. In the absence of in-person events and conferences, online ones are providing one of the best ways for startup founders to meet one another, learn from each other, and gain inspiration for building their businesses in a safe, socially distanced manner. 

For years now, there has been a huge demand for developers, all with different skillsets, from coding specialisations to full-stack backgrounds. And this is unsurprising, as until recently, many startup accelerators and incubators were hesitant to accept companies without technical co-founders or a built MVP.

This week saw the national final of Santander's Emerging Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship Awards 2020. Since May, 81 businesses from Santander’s network of 85 partner universities have been put through their paces during a series of expert-led online workshops and webinars, covering a range of topics under four key themes – money, management, marketing and motivation.  

Attending an online event feels novel for many but since the outbreak of COVID-19, it’s becoming mainstream. As an organiser of in-person, and now online conferences, I have found that there is an art to attending and maximising an online event, which is quite different to the in-person experience.