Towards the end of last week James Burke, posted a very interesting article on his blog. The post entitled Digital North East – a regional #digitalbritain strategy for the digital sector , concerns a draft copy of a development strategy, that lays out plans for expanding the North East digital sector and stimulate the regions economy through digital technologies.

The underling objectives of the strategy are :

• For the North East to be a European centre for digital sectors; using the region’s active network of sector support agencies and it specific sectoral strengths to drive growth & innovation, enhance the region’s profile and attract skilled workers and new businesses
• For North East business use of digital technology to overtake the UK average

I have included the entire draft strategy below and would encourage anybody in the North East digital sector or indeed in any business in the North East to have a read and see what is being proposed.

One North East, appear to be leading on this project and working with a number of other regional bodies on the delivery side of the project. A full list of the delivery partners is available on james blog,  as are a number of useful comments on the draft strategy (including a couple from me).

I’m impressed that as a region we are forward thinking enough to create a ‘digital strategy’, however I believe that in order for the project to succeed it is really important that not only the regional development organisations and supporting bodies get involved, but that every business (especially those in the digital sector) take it on board and use this opportunity to help shape our regions digital future.

With the recent release of the digital britain report and all of the discussion around Milo Yiannopoulus ‘grim up north’ post for the telegraph and his follow up for Tech Crunch, there are already calls for some form of debate to discuss how we as a region can take this forward.