Join future of hope

Feb 15 2005 By Helen Logan Evening Gazette

It sounds like the stuff hi-tech dreams are made off - paper thin computer and television screens than can be rolled up and put into a briefcase.

In fact just such a futuristic concept starred in the Tom Cruise film Minority Report.

But now thanks to Teesside know-how and a £2m investment, fiction could soon become a fact.

The local economy has changed beyond all recognition with many traditional heavyweight industries withering away.

And there has been much criticism that many of the well-paid jobs of the past are being replaced with less well rewarded positions in the service sector.

So the news that the Wilton-based Centre for Process Innovation has secured £2m to be at the forefront of developing such landmark technology is heartening news.

We need to put the area back on the industrial map with such pioneering projects which have the potential to bridge the gap research and development and getting a product into the marketplace.

My wish is that the area will be able to capitalise on the initial work being done here. For the display sector is a lucrative one, and is valued at tens of billions of pounds.

The Centre for Process Innovation is proving to be a job creator itself with plans to increase its workforce from 25 to around 50 over the next two years.

CPI is one of five centres of excellence established as part of regional development agency One NorthEast's strategy for success to build on the region's knowledge base in the process industries.

Let's hope that its work to make roll-up computer and TV screens become a reality in the long-run has an employment spin-off locally - with a significant amount of well-paid high quality jobs.