Helping the high fliers get off the ground

Jan 8 2008 by Sarah Judd, Evening Gazette

NEXT month will see the global digital art-fest Animex return to Teesside University followed later in the year by a North-east tour of the BBC’s innovation labs, which gives creative contributors to the Beeb an insight into working for the corporation.

Under its graduate enterprise scheme, the university is also providing much-needed accommodation, mentoring and training to a growing number of talented entrepreneurs.

Dr Jim TerKeurst, director of the University’s Institute for Digital Innovation said: “We are offering graduates and students the opportunity to set up in business and support for two years until they realise they can fly and that is a fantastic thing to do.

“They have the opportunity of becoming part of a wider cluster that reaches out across the world.”

Laura Woods, director of academic enterprise said the creative sector was essential to economic development and job creation: “From a North-east point of view, we have got to generate 22,000 businesses and create 73,000 jobs over the next five years and traditional industries like the process and chemical industries, which are critical to economic wellbeing in the region, are not going to make that sort of step change.”