Business and public sector leaders will hear at our huge conference in June just how important a role the Silverstone Technology Cluster can play in helping them to hit growth targets for the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford Corridor (CMKO), as laid out by the National Infrastructure Commission.

Silverstone Technology Cluster (STC) Director Roz Bird will be a guest speaker at the Oxford Cambridge Corridor Economic Growth Conference and will underline the cluster’s capabilities and skills which are already impressing tech figures globally.

The STC is the region within an hour’s drive of Silverstone and comprises around 3,500 high tech companies specialising in areas such as automotive (electric and hybrid), defence, energy efficiency, light-weighting, marine, nuclear, electronics and software.

Crucially its location puts it at the heart of the CMKO’s geography.

Roz, also Commercial Director at rapidly growing high-tech business estate Silverstone Park, said: ”The government’s CMKO initiative offers two opportunities, as I see it. Firstly, for UK plc, it brings together a highly capable geography of high-tech talent which can be promoted on a world stage because the CMKO creates a mass of activity. And, with close proximity to London in the south and the Midlands Engine in the north, it’s already world class.

”Secondly, companies within the STC and the wider Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire high-tech clusters offer high-tech expertise and capabilities that can be applied to the issues that the public sector is grappling with in the corridor, in terms of housing and mobility.

”Companies in our cluster are already developing new apps supported by IoT and big data which could help manage traffic, heating, or whole energy systems and they are developing sensor technology and light-weighting technology that can be used in autonomous vehicles, for example.

”The question is: ‘what should the future look like?’ and the answer lies with the companies that reside in the CMKO.”

Roz will be joining the Industrial Strategy session, sponsored by Transport Systems Catapult, at the Oxford Cambridge Corridor Economic Growth Conference. The panel, which also includes Northampton Borough Council, Oxfordshire LEP, Oxford City Council, Oxfordshire County Council and the Department for Education, will discuss how we build a Britain that is fit for the future, and how we utilise new technologies to ensure we capitalise on the potential opportunities before us.