Dave Waller on how business in the county is less arrogant

Ten years ago I moved from running a charity with 500 staff in 20 of Africa’s most fragile societies, to working on economic development in prosperous Oxfordshire.

Initially the role was just for six months; 10 years later and I am still here, so it’s perhaps a moment to reflect on what has changed and what hasn’t; what has improved and what still needs to be done. Throughout most of that time I have been involved with Venturefest, an event set up with the support of Lord Sainsbury and running since 1999.

It brings together innovators looking for the investment to commercialise their innovation or technology, the investors looking for the next big thing to invest in and the entrepreneurs looking to put the ideas and money together to create new or growing businesses.

On arrival I soon discovered that business leaders in Oxford and Oxfordshire were worried that the county was seen — often with good reason — as ‘arrogant, insular and complacent’. With low unemployment and considerable prosperity, the aim of many was to keep further economic development at bay in order to preserve Oxfordshire’s beautiful environment.

In 2006, this began to change. For the first time there was a recognition that just because the county’s economy had been robust for hundreds of years, didn’t mean it always would be. As the Chinese, Indian societies developed, it was no longer clear that their students would continue to pay top dollar to come to Oxford.

Would Oxfordshire be left as a theme park for hoards of visitors marvelling at an ancient centre of learning that failed to evolve with the times?

As Oxfordshire started to open out more to the outside world, so it became clear that it didn’t know what it wanted to say to it.

Its story has been disputed by the different communities that see the county very differently and hidden by the complexity of the exciting technologies and industries that it could talk about. The audience, both local and global, has often fallen asleep or moved on to other things well before even half of it has been explained.

The new county-focused leadership of the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership and the combined effects of the recession and changed funding opportunities have helped concentrate minds on the need to collaborate more and prioritise job creation. This has led to a gradual change in the culture and practice of working relations between organisations.

A culture that works with the strengths that everyone brings to the table rather than getting stuck on their faults is beginning to have an impact as the recent success of the county in attracting City Deal funding has shown.Meanwhile, Venturefest has become Venturefest Oxford and is still going strong. On Tuesday, the 16th Venturefest Oxford will take place at the Said Business School in close collaboration with the Technology Strategy Board.

Once again, 1,000 or so people drawn from Oxfordshire and the surrounding area’s innovation community of innovators, investors, entrepreneurs — along with public and private sector service providers — will come together for an intensive day of workshops on funding, business leadership and innovation to make and renew the connections that are a key part of embedding this collaborative working culture throughout the year.

To learn more and register for this free event go to venturefest.com Following the recession, thinking has focused on the priority of creating wealth and jobs. More recently the challenge of how to address the needs of those losing out from this period of revolutionary economic change have again coming to the fore.

The question of how to ensure that the medicine of wealth creation doesn’t destroy the local, national and international societies that it is supposed to be curing remains to be addressed. Something to work on over the next 10 years perhaps…

Dave Waller is national director of the Venturefest Network