COLIN MARR: Highland's rising stars in business created a buzz
So, we’ve just come to the end of Highland Business Week – and what a brilliant week it was.
As always it ended with the Highland Business Awards, but it was a full week with a total of 11 different events.
Businesses could learn everything from how to present their business story with confidence to what the chief economist at RBS thinks the financial trends over the coming months are going to be. They could learn how to harness the power of “digital twins” or what action we can take locally to help combat climate change.
We hosted a couple of invitation-only events. At one, some of our largest developers met with Highland Council to discuss how they could work together to make the planning system easier from both sides, and at the other some of our region’s largest exporters met with Scottish Chamber of Commerce to discuss barriers to international trade.
But what stays in my mind most is hearing from young entrepreneurs about their businesses. Highlands and Islands Enterprise’s food and drink tech hub event showcased three young businesses at different stages of development and the challenges that they are overcoming.
And at our own business-to-business exhibition, Highland Spotlight, we set up a young entrepreneurs zone – Rising Stars – for the first time. We helped to showcase nine young businesses working in everything from geodesic domes, to spa treatments to sweets and catering.
There’s always a tremendous buzz at Spotlight but the Rising Stars zone was definitely the loudest part of the room.
In a region with a lot of legacy and family businesses it’s so important that we support young entrepreneurs at the start of their journey and over the next few months, at Inverness Chamber of Commerce, we’ll be working out how we can do that better.
For those of you that have been counting, that final event of the week was provided by one of our young entrepreneurs. Vivid Roots Theatre Company led a mindfulness workshop – it was my most relaxing 45 minutes of the week.
