The importance of engineering to the UK economy
British engineering leads the world in fields ranging from engineering design to aerospace and nanotechnology to plastic electronics. The work of engineers across all sectors contributes over £481billion a year to the UK economy, with engineering firms employing over 5.4million people across the UK.
This strong global position, however, cannot be maintained by technical expertise and world-class training alone. We need to ensure that the innovation pipeline is in place to transform exciting technology ideas into successful businesses and inventions that can further benefit the economy.
The UK has always produced young talent with outstanding technical ability, but we must encourage those with entrepreneurial ambitions to think more commercially at an earlier stage.
Communication, marketing and team management skills are vital to this process, but must often be acquired outside of the formal education system.
This is one of the reasons why I've helped establish the new Launchpad Competition with the Royal Academy of Engineering's Enterprise Hub – to provide much-needed advice and support for ambitious young entrepreneurs in the technology field.
The winner will receive £15,000 to help catalyse their start-up business, as well as money-can't-buy mentoring, support and the opportunity to pitch to a number of leading UK business angels and angel groups, with a view to securing further interest and investment.
If you know of anyone that you think is worthy of the prize, or would like to enter yourself, please go to www.raeng.org.uk/launchpad.
All applicants will be judged purely on their merit. What we want is to enable a budding entrepreneur to start a new business and maximise the chances of its successful growth.
David Gammon is the CEO of Rockspring and the competition's primary benefactor.
