Festival of Suffolk Business Expos
As part of the county-wide Festival of Suffolk, a series of Business Expos are being organised. The six Business Open Days will help create a ‘Stronger Sustainable Suffolk’ for the future, and each will focus on a different industry sector.
For two weeks from 21st June – 1st July the series of Expos are being held across Suffolk to bring together the big companies and SME’s for a day of exhibitions, networking and events, for schools, colleges and, in some cases, the public.
At the University of Suffolk, a day on ‘Education Beyond Teaching’ will look at career opportunities in education, not just teaching but also classroom assistants, companies involved with learning, education materials and so on. EDF is hosting Energy Days and Willis Towers Watson is holding a day on Financial Solutions. Vertas features Sustainability at Endeavour House and the Hold, while Abbeycroft Leisure in Haverhill will inspire young people into careers in Health, Fitness and Well-being.
The aim is to inspire the next generation to look at Suffolk employment opportunities in a range of sectors, and at the diversity of opportunity within each sector, whilst also creating opportunities for large and small businesses to connect, and work together in the future
It’s great to see businesses of all sizes coming together to create The Festival of Suffolk Business Expo, this is a really important series of headline events created for The Festival of Suffolk. We are pleased to see so many local businesses, who are already working in partnership with the Foundation, creating this opportunity to demonstrate the diversity, innovation and success of their work in Suffolk. Perhaps even more important is the commitment they are making to forge closer links and showcase opportunities for young people to find out more about the fantastic careers that are available to them in our County.
It is hoped that the Expos will create a powerful legacy of Suffolk businesses working together as well as driving and inspiring skills across the sectors with Suffolk students.
One of the businesses joining in at the Technology Day at Adastral Park is Inawisom, a leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)– essentially helping businesses uncover insights/trends/issues and opportunities in their operations from the data they already have. These insights help them make informed, data-led decisions in real time to better operate today, predict and improve the future. From Financial Services to Manufacturing they are working with companies across the globe to help them leverage AI/ML to impact areas from improving customer service to predicting the failure of vital machinery.
We are delighted to be taking part in this Tech Expo for the Festival of Suffolk to ensure that we are promoting and showcasing the innovation happening in this area. We are proud to be founded in this region and leveraging the amazing skills here. It’s a great opportunity to give students the chance to see how emerging technology is impacting multiple industries in the most positive way, improving everyday life, and we hope it inspires them to work in the sector. We will have demos of some of our AI models in action and a host of case studies to see how AI is applied in the real world.
Vertas is also delighted to be supporting the Festival of Suffolk and recognise the event as an important part of their work within our community.
To contribute to the programme of events, Vertas is hosting a sustainable solution day to inspire pupils to make the difference. Through fun activities and games, the day aims for pupils to feel connected to environmental topics and a great way to help them imagine a career within a workplace that takes sustainability seriously
We will be using our portfolio of services to inspire and educate the young people who attend. We have a fabulous range of fun and interactive activities planned to support the event which will take place in the inspiring venue, Endeavour House. By the end of the day the young people will understand that offering services to our customers in a sustainable manner is key to our future success. They will have had an opportunity to be creative and practical, learnt about recycling, sampled some unusual food and solved a puzzle to unlock the final surprise.
- There is a whole series of fantastic events and activities happening between May and October 2022. Some of these are unique to the Festival, some are the regular annual treats that we already know and love from around the county, and in our own local communities. The Festival is a celebration of Suffolk during The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee that brings all communities together in joyful celebration and creates a powerful legacy to increase the visibility of our county and improve local lives for many years to come.
- Our legacy goal is the build a Festival Fund of £5m by 2025, to be given in grants to help charities, community groups and social enterprises working in these six areas: . Opportunity and Education, Health and Well-being, Community. Enterprise, the Environment and Culture and Tourism (These are the Festival themes).