Manchester’s new future technology conference TMRW, takes place this Wednesday and About Manchester talked to its founder Tom Cheesewright.
First a little bit on Tom. He is the founder of Book of the Future and the hub of the network. Tom followed a degree in Mechatronic Engineering with 12 years in the tech industry, working with global brands such as BT, EE and IBM, and subsequently founded a series of technology-driven companies. Tom is a frequent presence on TV and radio, appearing across the BBC from the Breakfast sofa to World Business Report, and as a regular contributor to 5live’s Saturday Edition. He is Xfm’s ‘TechCheese’ and has shared his thoughts on the future with Kiss, Kerrang and Channel 4′s Sunday Brunch.
The sum of Manchester parts is greater than the whole says Tom when it cones to technology, a few that he is certainly not alone in.
“Manchester has lots of good organic growth, start ups for example, but bringing the creatives into the world of the big consumer is not happening.”
This is the original idea behind this week’s event, the answer to the interminable question as to why the region can’t connect. No city region, he tells us is perfect but three things stand out as missing across Manchester.
Firstly the lack of so called philantropists, the successes of the business world who have made their fortunes and are looking almost in a semi retired capacity to help with new ventures.
Secondly the funding model is all wrong. Tom points to the North East of the country as a example of a coherent structure where an idea can smoothly ramp up through its differing funding stages. On this side of the Pennines chasing investment he likens to being shoved from pillar to post.
And thirdly the need for events like to events like that taking place this week where the creatives are linked with the consumers of that technology.
‘‘The majority of business owners simply don’t have the time to think about how future technology will affect the very core of their company. The rapid growth in technological developments we have seen over the last few years is awe-inspiring but it brings challenges and threats that we can’t always imagine.
The event was created to bring together the people defining our future to discuss the effects these technologies will have on our everyday lives. On how we interact with businesses, utilities, public bodies and, of course, each other.”
So to that big question ,what happened to all that leisure time that we were promised as we embraced technology.Well the answer may not be what you want to hear.
Through history, disruptions have caused pain, the industrial revolution being a prime example but at the end, it created a more equal,society and for a time full employment.
Tom says that there is every indication that the technology revolution won’t do that. Indeed the signs are already there, forget the squeezed middle, the middle class professionals could in the future simply no longer exist.
Writing recently he says the hourglass economy taken to its natural conclusions: a handful of wealthy individuals, their capabilities augmented by technology, sit at the top. The many, unemployed or under-employed, are locked permanently out of the upper echelons.for as firms merge.
Tom predicts that future jobs will be in the three areas that technology can’t compete with at least at the moment, the Three C’s curating, creating and communicating.
The risk, though he adds, is that dividing lines are not overcome and a fracture between rich and poor, a subject that came up when we talked about a future Manchester
Not wishing to echo the chancellors words, Manchester could become that northern powerhouse, a place that a few years ago BBC employees were reluctantly forced to go to, is now a place where everyone wants to come , the second biggest European city when it comes to creativity and digital, it is generating a gravity of its own now as we stand at the end of the age of steel, and enter a new era of maybe as yet undiscovered materials,
But all that creativity needs to diffuse down and that is a problem that future societies will need to face warns Tom.
With keynote speeches from Professor Brian Cox and hacker and entrepreneur SamyKamkar, the TMRW conference has a packed schedule of discussion panels in which business leaders, technologists and futurists will examine how the digital and physical are coming together to change our world.
Professor Brian Cox, said: “Manchester has always had an atmosphere, and I’ve watched it change over time. There has always been the music, which began for my generation with Factory Records. The music is still here, but now there is a resurgence of Manchester’s historic excellence in science and technology. There are start-ups all over the city, and the universities are making huge investments in next generation technologies. And next year the European City of Science is here.
“TMRW is a great opportunity to bring together people from all over the world and get them talking and thinking about science and the future. How do we help each other to innovate, to transform our city and our economy.
About TMRW
When: Wednesday, May 20
Where: Manchester Central, with an after-party at the Blackdog Ballroom from 6pm
How: Tickets are £195+VAT
To buy tickets, please visit http://tmrwconf.org
