10 ms·

Scottish Tech Map

140 points by jbms 10y ago

jbms 10y ago
What it is: Freely editable google spreadsheet with information on where tech is happening in Scotland. Currently lists >300 companies and 90 groups/events. What it's not: - A startup/VC map. Challenges: - getting people to add/curate existing content (current theory: I think people browse mostly on phones, and can't edit without installing the Google Sheets app), as I can't put a lot of time into it. - better quality categorisation of companies - finding dev teams within organisations like local government - identifying what's missing (my gut feel is there's easily another 300-1k companies to add, but most existing entries have come through business directories or searches on twitter for "developers/python/java/etc near me"). How it began: The wikipedia article on Silicon Glen is short and out of date. I was finding out about companies geographically near me in similar industries that I just wasn't coming across unless they were hiring. I heard of Eden Shochat, who successfully crowdsourced the Israeli startup scene in a Google spreadsheet.
- jbms 10y ago
  Google spreadsheets can't handle the concurrent users coming from HN. To add: Try this form to add a company: http://goo.gl/forms/5OEg6TahHdLrPmaG3 http://goo.gl/forms/5OEg6TahHdLrPmaG3 And this form to add an event: http://goo.gl/forms/LI36LptYhqbuudY83 http://goo.gl/forms/LI36LptYhqbuudY83
RubyWrangler 10y ago
Love it! Scotland has a fantastic tech scene which I'm super happy to be part of :)
gergderkson 10y ago
This is great. We love being part of the Scottish tech scene. There are some really great meetups around Edinburgh and Glasgow areas too.
jarofgreen 10y ago
Hello, I'm the founder of https://opentechcalendar.co.uk/ https://opentechcalendar.co.uk/ mentioned in the events tab. We are a open site listing tech events around Scotland. Open means anyone can add an event, like a wiki. We can import data from suitable open sources, and most importantly we have many Open Data feeds. Our data is reused many times by many different people and sites. We are about to celebrate our 4th birthday, and are the main listings site in Scotland. There is a great community around, and we are proud to be part of that (we are based in Edinburgh). Our software is Open Source to! Give me a shout if any questions, Thanks, James
- onion2k 10y ago
  Awesome work. Down here in England we have something very similar - https://www.techdiary.co.uk https://www.techdiary.co.uk - it might be worthwhile reaching out to that site for some sort of data sharing arrangement, especially for the London events.
  - jarofgreen 10y ago
    Think I've seen that before - I'll check and reach out. Always happy to chat - email hello at the website. We're not just Scotland, we have a lot of events listed in Sheffield to. It's an interesting one - looking at the site, we have more tech features in terms of working with events data. One of the big things we do that we haven't seen many others do is have a system where anyone with a user account can add and edit data directly. We think this is very important - if only one or a few ppl can work on events the burden on them to make sure it's kept up to date becomes very big. If this burden is spread over many editors, then "many hands make light work". (We also have several other tricks to make sure our data is kept up to date!) That said tho, for a community site like this the community is more important! It's very interesting to see the variety of approaches that are taken. If people from an area want to talk about using Open Tech Calendar in their area or have feedback, do get in touch.
- robgough 10y ago
  You only have two upcoming events in Manchester, so it's probably worth pointing out this http://technw.uk/calendar http://technw.uk/calendar for the north west.
sparkzilla 10y ago
How do we add to the list? The Companies page doesn't seem to be editable. Perhaps you should consider adding the data to a simple WordPress site. I'd be happy to set that up for you on my server.
- jbms 10y ago
  I suspect there's so many people browsing that it doesn't allow simultaneous editing by them all. They're normally all editable. It was editable a few minutes ago with ~ 77 users.
  - sparkzilla 10y ago
    I don't see the edit buttons at all, even using a different browser. I'll try later.
    - jbms 10y ago
      There aren't any - normally you click in a cell and can edit it immediately. Try this form to add a company: http://goo.gl/forms/5OEg6TahHdLrPmaG3 http://goo.gl/forms/5OEg6TahHdLrPmaG3 And this form to add an event: http://goo.gl/forms/LI36LptYhqbuudY83 http://goo.gl/forms/LI36LptYhqbuudY83
      - sparkzilla 10y ago
        I was able to get in and add Newslines. Thank you!
- jbms 10y ago
  Many thanks for the offer. I'd like it as a website (I'm recommending my spouse does that for a Scots[TBD_which_specific_branch_of_Creatives]Map she's working on) but for now I want it as easy to edit as possible.
  - sparkzilla 10y ago
    I think it would be pretty easy for people to add their info. Let me make a sample tomorrow.
s_dev 10y ago
Not sure this is relevant but it might be helpful to people looking for a similar project like this to work on: Heres a curated tech calendar for Dublin, Ireland. https://www.startupdigest.com/digests/dublin https://www.startupdigest.com/digests/dublin The Dublin startup commissioner just launched this is week as well: http://www.techireland.org/ http://www.techireland.org/ Basically a database of the Irish tech scene.
- jbms 10y ago
  That's really cool! It speaks volumes for how well connected and supported the startup scene is there that Dublin has a funded "startup commissioner". We're lagging a lot behind in Scotland at the moment.
abstractbeliefs 10y ago
Very proud to see the medical company I work for listed here, and not even by me. Optos was acquired last year by Nikon, and we're going strong and expanding into new tech for devices we're releasing this year and next. We're hiring a few positions right now if shooting lasers into people's eyes to save their sight is your kind of thing: http://www.optos.com/en-GB/About-us/Careers/Europe/ http://www.optos.com/en-GB/About-us/Careers/Europe/
mdhayes 10y ago
Really cool list. I'm founder of RookieOven - https://rookieoven.com https://rookieoven.com - a coworking space for tech startups in Glasgow based in a Victorian shipyard. If anyone is ever in Glasgow and looking to meet the local community feel free to pay us a visit.
- billybofh 10y ago
  I'm just down the road - I might pop past at some point for a nosey :-) The only things of note I'd ever spotted in Govan were Titan Props and Film City - live and learn!
  - mdhayes 10y ago
    More than welcome. We're in the recently restored Fairfield Shipyard Offices on Govan Road so not been open for too long. We also do a monthly meetup for local startups in The Raven on the first Monday of each month.
smpetrey 10y ago
Is there a list of tech companies/agencies for NYC out there? Asking for a friend.
dandrino 10y ago
Wouldn't wiki be a better format for this than a Google sheet?
- jbms 10y ago
  Any suggestions for ones that are easy and free to setup?
maaarghk 10y ago
On this topic, is anyone in the Glasgow area doing anything cool with Golang? I'm looking to dive in and wondering if there is any kind of local community around it - travelling to Edinburgh for meetups is inconvenient to say the least!
urbik 10y ago
Calendar of events for belgium: https://hackeragenda.be/?section=all https://hackeragenda.be/?section=all (source code: https://github.com/psycojoker/hackeragenda https://github.com/psycojoker/hackeragenda, fork and enjoy o/)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
archieb 10y ago
There's also a list of Edinburgh-based software companies on http://www.nobugs.org/deved/ http://www.nobugs.org/deved/, though the last update was 2015-09.
jplahn 10y ago
Very cool! I've been looking for something like this for a while in hopes that I could get a better feel for the tech industry through Scotland. I lived there for 7 years during middle school and high school and I'm always flirting with the idea of heading back. Sadly my EU residency lapsed, making it a little more difficult (not that it would help for much longer..). It would be great to have more sorting options, particularly if I wanted to get back to the Granite city :).
soroso 10y ago
What's the point of this thread? Honest question. I have the feeling it is pointless keeping such map from the perspective of Brexit. Soon Scotland will be off of Eu, and all these businesses will be facing very different realities in short time. I would refrain make business with companies with whom I'd face more taxes or red tape just because their countries would left the EU. So what are we trying to do here? Explore more the Scottish market? The soon-to-be limited UK market? I am lost. Could someone explain it to me?
- mastazi 10y ago
  > Soon Scotland will be off of Eu I have a feeling it won't
- jbms 10y ago
  The point is to raise awareness of a basic tool that tracks Scotland's tech industry. That is of interest to lots of people. Potential uses of the tool itself: - Helping people find potential job opportunities in Scotland - Helping tech companies in Scotland find other tech companies within Scotland - Getting people excited about some of what's happening in Scotland. It's a small country but it has some $1b tech companies and lots more are on the way. - Encouraging international companies to start divisions/design houses/engineering centres in Scotland due to the quantity of comparatively-cheap talent. This is happening a lot already. If things are getting harder internationally for Scottish businesses (which I don't believe or expect for the tech industry), then surely this becomes even more important as those companies will want to partner more within Scotland?
deepnet 10y ago
Great resource, thanks for posting this. Would like to see more Scottish robotics startups & meetups.
cdman 10y ago
I'm building something similar for Romania: http://www.it-events.ro/ http://www.it-events.ro/ (very early stage ATM).
- jarofgreen 10y ago
  Just saw your comment - you interested in Open Source software for this? :-) http://ican.openacalendar.org/ http://ican.openacalendar.org/

140 points by jbms 10y ago

jbms 10y ago

What it is: Freely editable google spreadsheet with information on where tech is happening in Scotland. Currently lists >300 companies and 90 groups/events. What it's not: - A startup/VC map. Challenges: - getting people to add/curate existing content (current theory: I think people browse mostly on phones, and can't edit without installing the Google Sheets app), as I can't put a lot of time into it. - better quality categorisation of companies - finding dev teams within organisations like local government - identifying what's missing (my gut feel is there's easily another 300-1k companies to add, but most existing entries have come through business directories or searches on twitter for "developers/python/java/etc near me"). How it began: The wikipedia article on Silicon Glen is short and out of date. I was finding out about companies geographically near me in similar industries that I just wasn't coming across unless they were hiring. I heard of Eden Shochat, who successfully crowdsourced the Israeli startup scene in a Google spreadsheet.

jbms 10y ago
Google spreadsheets can't handle the concurrent users coming from HN. To add: Try this form to add a company: http://goo.gl/forms/5OEg6TahHdLrPmaG3 http://goo.gl/forms/5OEg6TahHdLrPmaG3 And this form to add an event: http://goo.gl/forms/LI36LptYhqbuudY83 http://goo.gl/forms/LI36LptYhqbuudY83

RubyWrangler 10y ago

Love it! Scotland has a fantastic tech scene which I'm super happy to be part of :)

gergderkson 10y ago

This is great. We love being part of the Scottish tech scene. There are some really great meetups around Edinburgh and Glasgow areas too.

jarofgreen 10y ago

Hello, I'm the founder of https://opentechcalendar.co.uk/ https://opentechcalendar.co.uk/ mentioned in the events tab. We are a open site listing tech events around Scotland. Open means anyone can add an event, like a wiki. We can import data from suitable open sources, and most importantly we have many Open Data feeds. Our data is reused many times by many different people and sites. We are about to celebrate our 4th birthday, and are the main listings site in Scotland. There is a great community around, and we are proud to be part of that (we are based in Edinburgh). Our software is Open Source to! Give me a shout if any questions, Thanks, James

onion2k 10y ago
Awesome work. Down here in England we have something very similar - https://www.techdiary.co.uk https://www.techdiary.co.uk - it might be worthwhile reaching out to that site for some sort of data sharing arrangement, especially for the London events.
- jarofgreen 10y ago
  Think I've seen that before - I'll check and reach out. Always happy to chat - email hello at the website. We're not just Scotland, we have a lot of events listed in Sheffield to. It's an interesting one - looking at the site, we have more tech features in terms of working with events data. One of the big things we do that we haven't seen many others do is have a system where anyone with a user account can add and edit data directly. We think this is very important - if only one or a few ppl can work on events the burden on them to make sure it's kept up to date becomes very big. If this burden is spread over many editors, then "many hands make light work". (We also have several other tricks to make sure our data is kept up to date!) That said tho, for a community site like this the community is more important! It's very interesting to see the variety of approaches that are taken. If people from an area want to talk about using Open Tech Calendar in their area or have feedback, do get in touch.
robgough 10y ago
You only have two upcoming events in Manchester, so it's probably worth pointing out this http://technw.uk/calendar http://technw.uk/calendar for the north west.

sparkzilla 10y ago

How do we add to the list? The Companies page doesn't seem to be editable. Perhaps you should consider adding the data to a simple WordPress site. I'd be happy to set that up for you on my server.

jbms 10y ago
I suspect there's so many people browsing that it doesn't allow simultaneous editing by them all. They're normally all editable. It was editable a few minutes ago with ~ 77 users.
- sparkzilla 10y ago
  I don't see the edit buttons at all, even using a different browser. I'll try later.
  - jbms 10y ago
    There aren't any - normally you click in a cell and can edit it immediately. Try this form to add a company: http://goo.gl/forms/5OEg6TahHdLrPmaG3 http://goo.gl/forms/5OEg6TahHdLrPmaG3 And this form to add an event: http://goo.gl/forms/LI36LptYhqbuudY83 http://goo.gl/forms/LI36LptYhqbuudY83
    - sparkzilla 10y ago
      I was able to get in and add Newslines. Thank you!
jbms 10y ago
Many thanks for the offer. I'd like it as a website (I'm recommending my spouse does that for a Scots[TBD_which_specific_branch_of_Creatives]Map she's working on) but for now I want it as easy to edit as possible.
- sparkzilla 10y ago
  I think it would be pretty easy for people to add their info. Let me make a sample tomorrow.

s_dev 10y ago

Not sure this is relevant but it might be helpful to people looking for a similar project like this to work on: Heres a curated tech calendar for Dublin, Ireland. https://www.startupdigest.com/digests/dublin https://www.startupdigest.com/digests/dublin The Dublin startup commissioner just launched this is week as well: http://www.techireland.org/ http://www.techireland.org/ Basically a database of the Irish tech scene.

jbms 10y ago
That's really cool! It speaks volumes for how well connected and supported the startup scene is there that Dublin has a funded "startup commissioner". We're lagging a lot behind in Scotland at the moment.

abstractbeliefs 10y ago

Very proud to see the medical company I work for listed here, and not even by me. Optos was acquired last year by Nikon, and we're going strong and expanding into new tech for devices we're releasing this year and next. We're hiring a few positions right now if shooting lasers into people's eyes to save their sight is your kind of thing: http://www.optos.com/en-GB/About-us/Careers/Europe/ http://www.optos.com/en-GB/About-us/Careers/Europe/

mdhayes 10y ago

Really cool list. I'm founder of RookieOven - https://rookieoven.com https://rookieoven.com - a coworking space for tech startups in Glasgow based in a Victorian shipyard. If anyone is ever in Glasgow and looking to meet the local community feel free to pay us a visit.

billybofh 10y ago
I'm just down the road - I might pop past at some point for a nosey :-) The only things of note I'd ever spotted in Govan were Titan Props and Film City - live and learn!
- mdhayes 10y ago
  More than welcome. We're in the recently restored Fairfield Shipyard Offices on Govan Road so not been open for too long. We also do a monthly meetup for local startups in The Raven on the first Monday of each month.

smpetrey 10y ago

Is there a list of tech companies/agencies for NYC out there? Asking for a friend.

dandrino 10y ago

Wouldn't wiki be a better format for this than a Google sheet?

jbms 10y ago
Any suggestions for ones that are easy and free to setup?

maaarghk 10y ago

On this topic, is anyone in the Glasgow area doing anything cool with Golang? I'm looking to dive in and wondering if there is any kind of local community around it - travelling to Edinburgh for meetups is inconvenient to say the least!

urbik 10y ago

Calendar of events for belgium: https://hackeragenda.be/?section=all https://hackeragenda.be/?section=all (source code: https://github.com/psycojoker/hackeragenda https://github.com/psycojoker/hackeragenda, fork and enjoy o/)

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

archieb 10y ago

There's also a list of Edinburgh-based software companies on http://www.nobugs.org/deved/ http://www.nobugs.org/deved/, though the last update was 2015-09.

jplahn 10y ago

Very cool! I've been looking for something like this for a while in hopes that I could get a better feel for the tech industry through Scotland. I lived there for 7 years during middle school and high school and I'm always flirting with the idea of heading back. Sadly my EU residency lapsed, making it a little more difficult (not that it would help for much longer..). It would be great to have more sorting options, particularly if I wanted to get back to the Granite city :).

soroso 10y ago

What's the point of this thread? Honest question. I have the feeling it is pointless keeping such map from the perspective of Brexit. Soon Scotland will be off of Eu, and all these businesses will be facing very different realities in short time. I would refrain make business with companies with whom I'd face more taxes or red tape just because their countries would left the EU. So what are we trying to do here? Explore more the Scottish market? The soon-to-be limited UK market? I am lost. Could someone explain it to me?

mastazi 10y ago
> Soon Scotland will be off of Eu I have a feeling it won't
jbms 10y ago
The point is to raise awareness of a basic tool that tracks Scotland's tech industry. That is of interest to lots of people. Potential uses of the tool itself: - Helping people find potential job opportunities in Scotland - Helping tech companies in Scotland find other tech companies within Scotland - Getting people excited about some of what's happening in Scotland. It's a small country but it has some $1b tech companies and lots more are on the way. - Encouraging international companies to start divisions/design houses/engineering centres in Scotland due to the quantity of comparatively-cheap talent. This is happening a lot already. If things are getting harder internationally for Scottish businesses (which I don't believe or expect for the tech industry), then surely this becomes even more important as those companies will want to partner more within Scotland?

deepnet 10y ago

Great resource, thanks for posting this. Would like to see more Scottish robotics startups & meetups.

cdman 10y ago

I'm building something similar for Romania: http://www.it-events.ro/ http://www.it-events.ro/ (very early stage ATM).

jarofgreen 10y ago
Just saw your comment - you interested in Open Source software for this? :-) http://ican.openacalendar.org/ http://ican.openacalendar.org/