The three-day event of WMF - We Make Future, the International Trade Fair and Festival, held from June 15th to 17th at the Rimini Expo Centre, has come to an end. Organised by Search On Media Group, it brought together the world of innovation in Italy, with over 60.000 attendance from 85 countries, more than 670 exhibitors, 2.000 startups and investors, over 1.000 speakers, and more than 130 institutional, national, and international guests. This solidifies and emphasises the important role that WMF has always played as a platform for building the future and as an accelerator of education, culture, and innovation in service of global society.

With an estimated 582 million entrepreneurs in the world today, new research conducted by the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) – a non-profit membership network of 18,000+ business owners across 76 countries – shows that founders of small to mid-size companies (SMEs) are more focused on driving positive change for their local communities today compared to 2013, and nearly half feel a responsibility to support the next generation of entrepreneurs.

DigiKey, a global commerce distributor offering a large selection of technical components and automation products in stock for immediate shipment, has partnered with GroupGets to launch the “Get MADE” crowdfunding initiative, a collaboration that promotes and funds hardware creators. This program will allow startups to get hardware funded, produced and sold on DigiKey’s website.

Zopa, Banked and Smart Pension are among the winners at this year’s Fintech Awards London 2023, an annual celebration of fintech professionals and companies in London.

Freepik has announced the appointment of Jose Florido as Chief Market Development Officer, United States, effective immediately, and the opening of its first U.S. office located in San Francisco.

Canva, the all-in-one visual communication platform, has released new data and insights from the company’s Visual Economy Report, revealing the majority of business leaders are investing in design literacy and expect employees to demonstrate these skills as the world becomes increasingly visual.

Ferrero Group (Ferrero), a global confectionery group, joined forces with AstroLabs, MENA’s trusted partner for innovation and entrepreneurship, to launch a comprehensive data training program designed to enhance the data literacy and skills of over 130 talents.

TIS – Tourism Innovation Summit, the global tourism innovation forum that will take place in Seville, Spain from 18 to 20 October, has just announced Ángeles Moreno as new Tourism Innovation Global Summit Congress Curator.

The World Economic Forum welcomes 100 innovative tech firms to its Technology Pioneers community.

Technology consultancy esynergy has published brand new research identifying the challenges large enterprises are facing in implementing successful data strategies.

FundMyPitch (FMP), a platform that connects investors with investment-ready companies seeking funds in order to kickstart their ventures, has helped raise nearly £6m in funding for entrepreneurs using its platform in its first year of trading.

As an owner of a growing business, you’ll no doubt be constantly generating ideas for new business and increased order volumes. In this ongoing quest, with many novel platforms and approaches coming to the fore, it may be easy to lose sight of more traditional routes to sales. 

Nearly one in four UK workers (23%) expect to change jobs within the next twelve months - up from 18% in 2022 - according to PwC's Workforce Hopes and Fears survey, in a sign that the 'Great Resignation' is far from over.

Blueshift Memory, designer of a novel proprietary high-speed memory architecture, has signed an agreement with Crypta Labs, developer of a quantum random number generator (QRNG) for resilient encryption, to create a cybersecurity memory solution that will be capable of countering threats from quantum computing.

Finnish Earth observation company Kuva Space has been awarded a five-year commercial contract worth €5M to be the world’s sole provider of hyperspectral data services for the European Commission’s Copernicus Contributing Missions (CCM) programme.

From last weekend, a new test to detect and help prevent early signs of oesophageal cancer has been delivered to NHS patients. The diagnostic company Cyted has launched the Heartburn Health Check programme as part of an NHS-funded rollout, set to benefit more than 80 locations across the UK.

Three in five employees have stated that their mental health has declined this year as a result of workplace stress.

The tech investor, entrepreneur and AI specialist Ian Hogarth has been announced as the Chair of the Government’s Foundation Model Taskforce, reporting directly to the Prime Minister and Technology Secretary.

The six finalists of the WMF Startup Competition, the largest international startup competition competed on the Mainstage in front of an audience and jury from all over the world. Yalla - selected from thousands of applications from around the world - the winner of the Jury Award, secures the Prize offered by Pegasus Tech Ventures: access to the Startup World Cup Finals, scheduled in San Francisco (USA), with a grand prize of 1 million dollars in direct investment. The Czech startup Cyrkl and the Italian startup Wallife were also awarded.

Despite ongoing calls from business and government leaders for a reduction in working from home, employees have ranked flexible hours and working location amongst the top benefits they seek from their employers.