Putting the North East on the creative map

THE impetus behind DigitalCity is to create jobs and enterprises while putting the North East on the creative map.

The initiative, which is started in 2005, is a partnership between stakeholders including the University of Teesside, Middlesbrough Council, ONE, Teesside Unlimited and other partners including the European Regional Development Fund.

It is building on the university’s strong reputation as a centre of excellence for animation and computer games design.

The Institute of Digital Innovation (IDI), based on the university campus, has nine units to house growing hi-tech businesses. It is currently landlord to website developer 13 Strides, which moved across from the university’s business incubation centre.

New business manager Neil Hannah said IDI is currently considering applications from a number of potential new tenants: “It could be any digital businesses locally, nationally or internationally that can see a value of working with the university.

“We have an ability to house and grow businesses throughout their development.”

Work on the BoHo Zone - the other element under the DigitalCity umbrella - started last month. Based between Middlesbrough town centre and Middlehaven, it aims to develop a ‘creative quarter’ for businesses in a mixture of new and redeveloped property due to open in a year’s time.

Like IDI, it has been funded by a partnership approach - the project received £10m from Middlesbrough Council, Erimyus Housing and the European Regional Development Fund, plus £7.5m from ONE.

Mr Hannah said the two wings of DigitalCity would not be in direct competition with each other and graduates of IDI could well move on to the BoHo Zone once they had outgrown its facilities.