Callsign, the digital trust pioneer, is launching the inaugural ‘Social Mobility Startup of the Year Award’ as part of the UK Social Mobility Awards (SOMOs), challenging startups to make the advancement of social mobility a key part of how their organisation operates.

Business leaders invited to join journey to £10bn sector with opportunities for all. GM Mayor Andy Burnham brought the curtain down on the inaugural Manchester Tech Week 2022 with an inspiring keynote to a packed main stage stating that this was our place and our time, calling for full collaboration on a major digital journey.

STEPN, a move-to-earn Web3 running app, recently joined forces with ASICS to release a limited edition “STEPN x ASICS NFT Sneaker'' Mystery Box Collection. The NFT sneakers were hosted and minted on the BNB Chain, and the collection was launched exclusively on the Binance NFT Marketplace. 

The great technological festival will bring together startups from Central and Eastern Europe. On 24 May, startups, investors, and everyone involved with technology, innovation, and finance from Central and Eastern Europe will meet in Wrocław and online at Wolves Summit, a huge technology festival with a new formula, lasting 4 days. This is a unique opportunity to establish business relationships and grow your business, as well as support startups from Ukraine and other countries in the region.

The coronavirus pandemic has hastened digital transformation across the board. Simultaneously, the war on tech talent continues to accelerate at pace. Industry body techUK estimates that there are now 100,000 unfilled tech vacancies across the country every month. With this shrinking talent pool comes significant economic costs with industry analysts estimating the UK economy to lose £6.3 billion annually.

Business and IT leaders from across the Northern tech community have come together on the third day of Manchester Tech Week 2022, to address the UK’s growing digital talent shortage and call for an active response to make bridging the digital divide a reality.

Research suggests employers are not taking the opportunity to automate workflows and upgrade office spaces as part of their hybrid work strategies – despite employee calls to digitalise manual processes.

Challau, the metaverse platform which enables users without a VR headset or high-end computer to enter immersive 3D environments, has raised a pre-seed round from 7percent Ventures, whose team first backed Oculus VR.

Collaboration between Derbyshire Councils and SafetyCulture provides free use of iAuditor to help local government officers carry out property inspections for the Homes for Ukraine scheme

Volume, the transparent checkout startup, has closed a pre-seed round of $2.4m, in an oversubscribed deal led by firstminute Capital and joined by SeedX and Haatch Ventures. Other participants include angels Christian Faes (LendInvest), Russ Carroll (ex-Klarna), as well as angels from MADE.COM, Mastercard, Visa and American Express. Volume improves on current open banking capabilities to reduce the long checkout process, while simultaneously killing hidden fees charged by payment intermediaries.

Employers are being warned about selecting employee benefits that are too inflexible in the way they support the health and wellbeing of employees. RedArc, the nurse-led health wellbeing service, believes that although employers are doing the right thing in proactively providing health and wellbeing support for staff, they need to be cautious about overly prescriptive benefits that may not give staff enough of the right kind of support.

The businesses and their 60 employees will continue to operate from its HQ in Donacaster, south Yorkshire, and five other UK and Ireland sites, and ambitious plans are in place to create further job opportunities across their commercial, delivery and support functions.

The Tech Trailblazers Awards welcome entries from enterprise IT startups that help companies or data centres save money while saving the planet. The Awards are open to entries from 27th June until 11.59pm PT on 31st August 2022.

Implementing digital transformation into your business is essential for success. But with technological advancements dominating the business world, it’s important to assess the digital additions within your company to discover if they are making the expected improvements.

57% of employees say feeling recognised would reduce the likelihood that they would take a call from a headhunter, according to the latest State of Recognition Report from Achievers Workforce Institute, the research and insights arm of Achievers.

Flow Your Money (Flow), the money management app for freelancers and consumers has raised a €3.5m seed investment round led by Eleven Ventures. The round was joined by RockSalt, the venture arm of SaltPay, as well as Silverflow co-founder Robert Kraal (former COO Adyen), Hristo Borisov (founder and CEO of Payhawk), Marnix van der Ploeg (Booking.com) and Travel Health Group’s owner Arnoud Aalbersberg. The investment will enable Flow to scale up its platform, which makes it possible to automatically distribute incoming and outgoing money flows, taking the step towards 'self-driving money': smart, fully autonomous money management. Flow now also can expedite European expansion plans as it sets out to become the largest player in this fast-growth market. 

As the IPCC announced its final warning that the coming years are critical in saving the Earth’s depletion. However, the road to achieving Net-Zero seems unclear, as nearly one in three (30%) say their company is not doing enough to combat climate change.

Creator Fund, the early-stage VC fund investing in deeptech emerging from universities, has announced a $20m fund.

AWS has announced it has committed more than $30m to early stage startups led by black, latino, LGBTQIA+, and women founders as part of its AWS Impact Accelerator.

Every day, millions of contracts are drafted, however, due to poor and manual contract management processes, companies a reportedly losing as much as £10m in inefficiencies. Recognising this as a widespread problem, Niels Martin Brøchner, Jarek Owczarek and Viktor Heide founded and developed Contractbook, an automated contract management platform that is now used by over 150,000 businesses, including NHS Trust, TED, The Student Hotel, Mutebox and Eon.