EIE20 has lined up Jacqueline de Rojas CBE and Lord Bilimoria CBE DL for Scotland’s premier technology investor event on October 14.
Jacqueline de Rojas CBE is the President of techUK, which represents over 900 tech companies across the United Kingdom. The former senior executive at CA Technologies and Sage Group, de Rojas was appointed as head of techUK in 2015, became the Chair of Digital Leaders UK in 2017, and helped to launch the Institute of Coding in 2018. British Indian entrepreneur Lord Bilimoria founded Cobra Beer in 1989, continues to hold the position of chairman at the global beer brand and the life peer in the UK House of Lords was recently appointed President of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).
Lord Bilimoria, CBI president said: “As an entrepreneur, I am greatly looking forward to seeing at close hand some of Scotland’s most exciting early to scale-up stage technology companies at EIE20.”
“Scotland has a proud tradition in innovation, research and the commercialisation of technologies, and has some of the world’s leading universities and informatics schools.”
“2020 has been a challenging year in the face of Covid, the ensuing economic crisis, and how we make a success of the ongoing Brexit process. In my new role at the CBI, I will be doing everything I can to work for the best interests of entrepreneurs and UK plc overall in the months and years ahead.”
Jacqueline de Rojas CBE, techUK president said: “Scotland’s tech scene has progressed rapidly over the last decade to become one of Europe’s most highly-rated centres for startups, evidenced by globally leading companies like Skyscanner and Edinburgh itself continues to strengthen its position as the leading UK data hub outside London. As Lord Bilimoria says, I am also looking forward to supporting so many of Scotland’s most promising tech companies and to addressing the EIE20 conference in October.”
Karen Wood, Director of Enterprise, EIE said: “Having business and technology leaders of Lord Bilimoria and Jacqueline de Rojas’ stature feature at EIE20 is a sign of how far EIE has come in recent years and their experience and insights, alongside our other fantastic speakers, will be among the highlights for our cohort companies and attendees on the day.”
Lord Bilimoria and de Rojas join other keynote speakers at EIE20 including Jarmo Eskelinen, Executive Director of Data-Driven Innovation Initiative at The University of Edinburgh; Professor Shannon Vallor, Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at The University of Edinburgh; Simon Holden Group Chief Operating Officer at CityFibre; Professor Peter Mathieson, The Principal of the University of Edinburgh; Shane Kehoe, Co-Founder of SVK Crypto, and: Councillor Frank Ross, The Rt Hon. Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh.
EIE20 goes virtual for the first time on Wednesday 14th October, featuring 50 data-driven startups to scale-up companies pitching to investors from Scotland, the UK, and internationally for seed to series A funding. This year’s event, originally intended for Edinburgh’s McEwan Hall, will be hosted by the University of Edinburgh’s Bayes Centre team on a virtual conference platform.
EIE has supported nearly 500 tech startups and scale-ups since 2008 who have collectively raised over £750 million. EIE alumni companies include FanDuel, Mallzee, Current Health, ZoneFox, Two Big Ears, pureLiFi, Float, Citruslabs, and Amiqus.
EIE is supported by partners including the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics, Scottish Enterprise, Data Driven Innovation (DDI) Initiative, Huawei, Cazenove Capital, Embark Group, Johnston Carmichael, LINC Scotland, MBM Commercial, Murgitroyd, Royal Bank of Scotland, Talent Spark powered by Eden Scott and Pentech.
