Innovation crucial to the future success of the economy, in these challenging times, conference told

Thames Valley Innovation Conference attracts more than 550 attendees

Record numbers attended the Thames Valley Innovation Conference 2008 yesterday at GreenPark, Reading. The event, now in its third year, brought together around 600 businesses, advisor's and investors who wish to achieve greater levels of commercial success from their ideas, innovations and investment. 

The key message from speakers representing leading Thames Valley-based innovative businesses including Oracle, Cisco, and QinetiQ, was that in todays challenging g economic climate success is driven by innovation, creativity, enterprise and knowhow.

These elements are critical for longer-term business success and most business leaders agree that in an increasingly competitive global economy, companies that fail to innovate or be innovative will not survive. 

In the challenging economic climate there is a positive correlation between innovation and wealth creation, Ian smith, Senior Regional Vice President of Oracle Corporation UK explained that innovation in the customer experience and product evolution resulted in a 2.2 billion pound revenue at the and of fiscal year 2008. Sighting that ‘innovation remains integral to Oracle’.

This was further reiterated by Sir John Chisholm, Chairman of QinetiQ who said ‘The innovative company is the financially successful company.’

 Phil Smith, Vice President and Managing Director of Cisco UK and Ireland said "Innovation is one of the key challenges for all companies. The ability to generate, capture and fully capitalise on innovation is what differentiates great companies from the rest. The TVEP Innovation Conference provides an excellent opportunity for companies in the Thames Valley area to understand what the current landscape looks like for innovation, how they can capture best practice and use it to differentiate themselves.  It is a real opportunity for the region to continue to lead in the future"

Shaun Whittaker, CEO of the Thames Valley Economic Partnership, which organises the event said “in these economic times it is doubly important that the Thames Vallley leads in economic growth and this is in no small measure due to innovation. We are really excited that we have been able to create another showcase for the people and businesses driving innovation in the Thames Valley.” 

Delegates were able to enjoy the conference free-of-charge thanks to generous sponsorship from SEEDA, Cisco Systems, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thames Water, Technology Strategy Board, Thames valley Enterprise Hub, the University of Reading.

This year 25 Thames Valley companies were given the opportunity to showcase their innovative products and solutions in a dedicated area. The business exhibition, featuring companies that support innovation and innovative companies was sold out.

The innovation conference 2008 heads up a three week festival of events hosted by partner companies as part of the inaugural iFestival Thames Valley 2008. For more details on the conference and festival events visit www.ifestivalthamesvalley.net