We Went to Listen

05-Sep-2026

Yesterday we attended Meet the Buyer North in Aberdeen with a slightly different objective from usual. Rather than looking for a particular procurement opportunity, we wanted to speak to buyers from major public bodies and tier 1 suppliers about some of the practical challenges around sustainability and decarbonisation and, importantly, find the right people inside their organisations to learn more from.

The response was heartening and extremely useful to us.

We spoke to thirteen organisations. Nine gave us a direct contact for someone working in sustainability or environmental management, usually the lead, another offered to forward an introduction internally, and the remaining three gave us a route through their procurement teams, saying they would look out for our message.

So every conversation gave us a next step. Not what we expected.

What encouraged me most was how willing the buyers were to understand what we were exploring and help us get to the people who actually experience these challenges day to day. That is really valuable when you are still at the early stages of listening, testing assumptions and trying to understand the problem properly before deciding what the solution should look like.

Thanks to the Supplier Development Programme Scotland team behind Meet the Buyer North, and especially to the buyers who took the time to talk to us.

Now for the follow-up conversations!

Growth Marketing Workshop

04-Sep-2026

Our CEO, Mike Gill, spent yesterday morning in a Growth Marketing Workshop with Sid Kathirvel at the ONE Tech Hub in Aberdeen with a group of fellow founders. Sid gave the founders an eight step view of how buyers view their buying decisions and gave them a toolkit to help their product fit. Mike found the Go-to-Market section particularly useful and used that learning the next day. He said it really worked well.

December Unfiltered

03-Dec-2025

A big turnout for the December Unfiltered at the ONE Tech Hub where we have our offices. Unfiltered is a national programme run by Codebase for the entrepreneurial ecosystem. In Aberdeen it is supported by the ONE Tech Hub and Barclays Eagle Labs.

Risk to Resilience: Managing Cyber Threats

27-Nov-2025

Every year, 4MS Network Solutions and Cisco put together a seminar in Aberdeen for their customers. The 4MS team give us an update on what they've been working on and Cisco tell us a bit about their product roadmap. This year, they also had a guest speaker from the Cyber and Fraud Centre Scotland who led us thorugh a workshop on what happens when you have a ransomeware attack. That was scary!

As usual, the team at the Chester Hotel put on a great effort, supporting the seminar.

AI, Ethics and Society

26-Nov-2025

This evening was the second meeting of the resurrected Aberdeen branch of the British Computing Society at the ONE Tech Hub. Our CEO, Mike Gill, who has been MBCS for a while, attended and thoroughly enjoyed the two talks.

Eyad Elyan, Professor of Machine Learning and Computer Vision at Robert Gordon University, gave us a rollercoaster ride through the Existing AI Lansdscape.

Dewei Yi, Associate Professor of Embedded and Affordable AI at the University of Aberdeen, walked us thorugh Embedded AI in Healthcare Sustainability with some really interestig case studies.

A big thanks to the Aberdeen BCS Committee for putting on this talk.

Inaugural Venture Café, Edinburgh

20-Nov-2025

A brand new network concept for Scotland was launched at the Futures Institue in Edinburgh. The Venture Café is a global community of innovators which came out of Boston. Our CEO, Mike Gill, went along to this inaugural event to hear what they had to say.

Welcome to Venture Café Edinburgh

Claudia Cavalluzzo, Director of Venture Café Edinburgh, kicked off the evening with opening remarks. She shared the vision behind the initiative and highlight how people and organisations can get involved in shaping the community.

The Venture Café Global Community

Kristen Plymale, Global Growth Director at the Venture Café Global Institute, talked about how the Venture Café brings innovators together and fosters a global community — in the UK and beyond.

Remarks from Edinburgh Futures Institute

Marion Thain, Director of the Edinburgh Futures Institute, talked about how they hoped the Venture Café and the EFI will act as a focal point for Scotland’s innovators.

Introduction to ARIA

I'd heard of the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) at the Future of Digital Tech in Aberdeen earlier in the month. Pranay Shah, Product Manager at ARIA, talked about ARIA’s mission and how the scientific and technological advances can be applied.

Powering the Future: Why Supercomputing and AI Infrastructure Matter

The next session was a panel discussion which was talking about the impact of the UK’s £750m National Supercomputer being based in Edinburgh as part of the AI Research Resource network, and what this means for AI development and scientific research. The panel were:

• Alice Pettitt - Frontier Specialist, ARIA
• Julien Sindt - Commercial Manager. EPCC
• Nora Ammann – Technical Specialist AI, ARIA
• Alice Pettitt - Frontier Specialist, ARIA

Call To Action

Programme Manager Arielle Vetro, Venture Café Edinburg, walked us through how to get involved with Venture Café and and introduced us to how to build connections within the community.

Building Early Investor Connections

19-Nov-2025

As part of the ONE Tech Hub's Finance for Founders programme, our CEO, Mike Gill, went along to a breakfast conversation with Craig McGill of Maven Capital Partners and experienced founder Chris Martin of Waracle, called Building Early Investor Connections.

Mike found the advice they gave very inciteful and useful to early stage companies. Chris and Craig represented the "poacher and gamekeeper" of the startup investment game so their sometimes agreeing and sometimes differing advice gave a brilliant balance.

Unfiltered - November 2025

05-Nov-2025

As winter starts to roll in, this month's Unfilter Event at the ONE Tech Hub in Aberdeen was a very busy one. Because it's grown in size, they've moved the event into Studio 1 to help accomodate everyone. Great to see everyone there given it was such dreich start to the day.

The Future of Digital Tech

04-Nov-2025

On Tuesday 04 November, a new event came to the P&J Live in Aberdeen The Future of Digital Tech. Organised by The Times and sponsored by Opportunity North East Limited, The Scottish National Investment Bank and CodeBase. The event promised a fantastic agenda with a great line up of speakers.>

• Professor Andy Pardoe, Professor of AI and chair of Deep Tech Innovation Centre, University of Warwick, on navigating the digital decade ahead.>
• Zehan Wang – the Paddington Robotics co-founder who previously co-founded Magic Pony Technology, a pioneering AI startup acquired by Twitter in 2016 for around $150 million, where he became Head of Applied Research at Twitter Cortex, advancing the company’s machine learning capabilities - on AI and robotics reshaping how industries operate.>
• Wordsmith AI co-founder Ross McNairn on building trust in AI for high-stakes sectors.>
• Serial entrepreneur, former PolyAI COO, and Point72 Ventures advisor Yan Zhang shares the playbook on transforming innovation into commercial success.>
• Emily Arnold, Noema Studios founder and former Founders at the University of Cambridge senior associate, Jennifer Craw MBE, CEO of Opportunity North East Limited, Stephen Coleman OBE of CodeBase, and Alisdair Gunn of Glasgow City Innovation District on building ecosystems to unlock regional digital tech growth.>
• Theo Health CEO Jodie Sinclair on the founder journey.>
• Firstbase founder Chris Herd on scaling a tech company.>
• Serial entrepreneur and fractional CMO Maya Moufarek on smart scaling in challenging markets.>
• Octopus Ventures partner Edward Keelan on how founders shift from “doer-in-chief” to company builder.>
• Antonia Jenkinson, CFO and COO at the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA), and Ana Stewart, Chief Entrepreneur at The Scottish Government on creating the conditions for growth.>

Our CEO, Mike Gill, was at the event and posted this on LinkedIn the next day:>

As the Future of Digital Tech came to a close yesterday, I left with an upbeat feeling about the state of play of digital tech in Scotland and the North East in particular. I’d been impressed with the quality of speakers, both in their presentation and content.

As you would expect for a UK based innovation conference, it wasn’t all upside: we’ve got to have our downsides too. There was criticism of certain areas, more in a “this is what needs to change” tone.

This morning, I went over my notes from the day and collected a few reflection points which I’ll share with you.

There were a few comments on some choke points on the innovation tunnel. That’s been covered in the Government’s Innovation Strategy Evidence Paper, on the back of the Logan Report. The Government’s evidence paper called these “collapse points” which is a bit harsh.

It does make you realise that the innovation funnel does not have straight edges like the diagrams show – no surprise to any Founder. In reality, there are many hurdle points, such as the funding desert between £100k and £250k for scaling businesses. A few of the speakers touched on this during the day.

Another hurdle centres around talent. The speakers showed that this isn’t just about getting talent out of education but it’s about retaining people in the region and attracting the talented people who would benefit from living in the region. One speaker talked about the fact that Scotland sees lower churn in startups than other countries. Again, the speakers reflected some of the Logan Report’s points but I saw the report as a pan-Scotland view and some of the Founders from the region hinted at the local nuances of this problem.

Because of the hiring policies of the Oil & Gas industry, the North East has a plethora of contractors, despite the brutality of IR35, compared to other regions, both in engineering and digital tech. Given the failings of the energy transition, is this an untapped talent pool or even an untapped innovation pool, waiting in the wings? Or will be continue with a diaspora of talent to Dubai? One speaker cautioned that people who have worked in a “normal” company often find the transition to the flexibility required by a startup demanding.

It was good to see investment interest in Aberdeen. I spoke with some VCs who represented London based companies with offices in Edinburgh. They’d been instructed to look at the Aberdeen innovation bubble for investment opportunities. It was also refreshing to see Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) blowing away the funding red tape.

Overall, this was an excellent conference which I got a lot out of and I’d like to thank the sponsors Opportunity North East Limited, The Scottish National Investment Bank and CodeBase for helping to bring this high-quality event to Aberdeen.

𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗟𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 - 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽

17-Sep-2025

This morning, with other Tech Founders based at the ONE Tech Hub, we were treated to the second of a seminar series on Founder Led Sales, given by Sid Kathirvel.

Another great session which led us through a very practical view of positioning your startup for growth, sprinkled with useful techniques, tips and advice. I was surprised how much GenAI is changing the landscape for marketers.

Many thanks to the ONE Tech Hub for organising these brilliant sessions and to Sid Kathirvel for such useful advice.

Meet the Buyer North 2025

10-Sep-2025

The Supplier Development Programme Scotland returned to Aberdeen with Meet the Buyer North at the Music Hall in Aberdeen.

It was a chance to meet procurement teams, buyers and supply chain partners with upcoming projects and opportunities in the North of Scotland. There was representation from the public and private sectors, including NHS and local authorities.

We had several very worthwhile interactions with some of the public sector procurement teams there, building on some of the training we’ve had from the Supplier Development Programme.

Agentic AI in Action

10-Sep-2025

The ONE Tech Hub has introduced a series of AI-themed events for digital tech founders. Today was a panel discussion on Agentic AI in Action: What It Really Takes to Build and Deploy Agentic Systems.

The invite to this session set a high bar and I think we all were impressed by the calibre of discussion and engagement.

• Real-world examples from NE founders developing agentic AI products
• Candid insight into product design, and deployment challenges
• What’s working, what’s hard, and what’s next
• Peer to peer learning and connection with other founders at the forefront of applied AI

Steve Aitken from Intelligent Plant chaired the panel which included Kenny Steele from Pinnacle, Rajesh Kumar Plamthottathil from TrackGenesis, David Jamieson from Salus Technical, and Ben Bamford from CairnAI.

It was a very insightful discussion that touched on some of the concerns of using agentic AI agents with and without guard rails, good and bad data, the sometimes destructive role of the well-meaning but unconstrained end users, how LLMs deliver words but don’t learn like we do, and success in genAI generally means simple.

Looking forward to the next session…

Weavecentrix certified as a Living Wage Employer

07-Aug-2025

When we heard about Living Wage Scotland, it made absolute sense for us to commit to paying our employees the real Living Wage.

We believe it is our duty to society to pay our emplyees a wage that accurately reflects the cost of living. This commitment also enhances our reputation as an employer.

July Unfiltered

02-Jul-2025

Every month, at the Weavecentrix office, the ONE Tech Hub, CodeBase run a monthly coffee catch up called Unfiltered for the local entreprenurial ecosystem.

There's always lots of information shared in the Shout Outs and it's always good to catch up with people there. This month it was a big suprise to run into Debbie Mackenzie as our MD, Mike Gill, knows Debbie from the 1990s!

See you in August!

Unleashing the Power of ChatGPT and AI

01-Jul-2025

Mike Gill, our CEO, attended an AI seminar on Tuesday at the ONE Tech Hub where we are based. He came back full of ideas about how we can apply generative AI in our business. Here's what he said about the seminar.

On Tuesday, the ONE Tech Hub hosted an AI event, Unleash the Power ChatGPT and AI to Grow Your Business, deliver by Stephen Whitelaw.

To be honest, I’d thought this was going to be yet another AI event. I was very wrong in a good way.

Stephen delivered a tsunami of information about generative Ais and how they can be used to help you. He started with a how LLMs process information into token and build neural nets. The implication of that is they are both dumb and brilliant at the same time. Stephen likened them to a 2-year-old who knows everything, touching on the lack of right and wrong on those neural nets.

Throughout his presentation Stephen use ChatGPT to illustrate how the AI models work. He also touched on the other common ones like Gemini, Copilot, Claude and others, as well as some of the lessor know ones.

After that initial run through – it was fascinating with my notebook full of illegible scrawls of things to follow up – Stephen then took us through use cases of how you can apply these models directly and, surprisingly, how those models are used in the background by companies we deal with everyday - that was an eye opener. There was everything in there from photos and video using MidJourney and Flux, how to use chat prompts to get the best use out of ChatGPT, audio deepfakes (very scary) and generated music, and the use of generative AI in software development.

A real feast of generative AI for us.

Meet the Buyer 2025, Murrayfield

20-Jun-2025

Meet the Buyer 2025, at Murrayfield in Edinburgh, was hosted by the Supplier Development Programme Scotland and was targeted at suppliers who currently or wish to engage with public bodies in Scotland and some UK nation organisations too. Through the impact of the 2023 Procurement Act, you are seeing a desire to make it easier for suppliers and buyers to go through the public procurement process.

Our MD, Mike Gill, attended and fed back to us that he found it bit overwhelming as a first-time SME visitor due to the size and the sheer volume of people there, but he found the organisations he spoke to very helpful, pragmatically honest about their processes and there seemed a genuine desire to want to do business with innovative companies like Weavecentrix.

I have a Learning Habit

16-May-2025

Our CEO, Mike Gill, wrote an article on LinkedIn this week. We thought it was a very insightful reflection on learning in a professional environment so we've reproduced it here.

Since it’s Friday afternoon, what better time to reflect on the week. When I looked back at what I did this week, one thought jumped out at me: I have a learning habit.

Thinking back 15 years ago, I was working at a company which didn’t provide any training, despite me repeatedly asking for it at my annual appraisals. I was having a general moan about not doing any training in the 5 years that I had worked there when a colleague pointed out something profound.

She said that I did more personal training that anyone else she knew.

Now, at the time, I said that this was because I had to record Professional Development Units (PDUs) for the various certifications and qualification I hold. She also pointed out that I far exceeded the mandatory PDUs by watching webinars, going to seminars and conferences, speaking at them, and doing bite sized training.

It didn’t stop me moaning but I did start to be more selective about the personal training I did. I began to think about the outcomes I wanted out of the training.

Flash forward to this week, and, from a distance, my choices look like I was a caffeinated kid in a sweetshop, frantically pulling random sweeties out of jars:

• AI webinar - part of DataFest 2025
• Prop Tech webinar on how OS data can help unlock insights about buildings
• LLMs webinar – understanding business opportunities and readiness
• Public Procurement – a webinar guide to an event next month
• Webinar on geospatial node analysis and mapping
• Data science – course on machine learning
• French language course
• IET Magazine arrived – read a bunch of articles on the progress of the UK’s electrification

That doesn’t even count the reading and videos I watched related to a couple of hobbies I have. Nor does it include the numerous YouTube videos on a Honda GCV160 4-stroke lawnmower engine (I’ll get back to that one later).

However, there is a method to my madness.

Each of these webinars and courses are specifically related to personal learning objectives that I have set.

Over the year, I have learnt that learning has to give you personal gratification. That often means mixing up the content, so it doesn’t become a slog. I’ve learnt what works for me and I stick to that mix because it gives me spectacular results.

I’ve also learned to choose wisely: make sure it is relevant to my objectives and that it is quality educational material (even those lawnmower YouTube videos).

However, the hardest thing to learn and the most important is reflection. You do need to sit down and think about what the training means. How can I use this in my job and in my life? What new tools do I now have in my toolbox and what processes can I use them in?

So, 15 years ago this week, despite having a massive moan, I was working up a presentation for a conference in London I was a speaker at. It was the first time I had applied a storyboard process for presentations by a company called Articulus that I had learned on their course, Corporate Storytelling for Leaders.

10 years ago, I was doing an executive MBA. We were doing the Strategic Management class. Coincidentally, I referred to the course textbook (JOHNSON, G. et al., 2013. Exploring Strategy. 10th ed. London: Pearson Education. – sorry, can’t stop doing that) from that course this week, using a technique to set business objectives linked to strategy. Helpfully, the book was still on my bookshelf behind me and the relevant page was still bookmarked.

5 years ago today, I had just attended a Digital Catapult event as an industry expert, to discuss challenges with startups. Ironic that 5 years later, I am now at the startup side of the table.

You are probably wondering how I know what I was doing all that time ago. Well, it is recorded in my PDU history – all 27 pages of it.

So, the ability to reflect on what you’ve learned and how you can use it, and the forward focus on learning objectives, really deliver value from a life-long learning habit.

Oh, the Honda GCV160 4-stroke engine?

Well, it has a compression problem, so despite the advertised “easy start”, it means you have to have 7 or 8 goes to get it started. The current micro project on fixing that has seen me pouring over manuals, and watching far too many YouTube videos.

Objective: fix it myself.

Reflection: I may be some time…

Unfiltered Innovation Ecosystem Event

07-May-2025

There was a very vibrant Unfiltered event this morning at the ONE Tech Hub in Aberdeen where Weavecentrix have our offices. It's a great opportunity for our tream to network with new people and catch up with friends and colleagues. Lori Wilson from CodeBase was doing the shout outs about innovation ecosystem events and funding from the coffee bar in the picture here with Paul Clelland from CodeBase and Nick Bansal from Barclays Eagle Labs, waiting on their turns next to her. As always, a thank you to Techscaler North East Scotland, Barclays Eagle Labs, and the ONE Tech Hub for sponsoring this monthly event.