ScotlandIS enjoyed a fruitful 2022.

Receiving Silver European Accreditation for the second time running, punctuated with new partnerships – including with DYW Glasgow to create the Digital Critical Friends programme, which seeks to get more young Scots into digital roles – the year culminated for ScotlandIS with the appointment of Dermot Murray as the new Chair of the Board.

For over 20 years, ScotlandIS has been a mainstay organisation within Scotland’s digital ecosystem, serving to bring together the country’s tech community and facilitate collaboration, networking and recruitment efforts.

In this interview, we catch up with Murray to get an inside look at the organisation, his journey within it, as well as examining some of the issues around how industry bodies communicate and the broader concerns facing Scottish tech.

The Organisation

Murray’s been involved with ScotlandIS for years, with the last few, in particular – offering a front-facing view of the activity the organisation delivers. This long involvement with ScotlandIS is no surprise, considering Murray’s introduction to the Scottish tech scene.

“The first event I attended when my family moved to Scotland 16 years ago was ScotSoft (the organisation’s major annual tech conference),” says Murray.

He adds: “I was immediately struck by the network that was there – you could sense the community that ran through that event.”

Having been selected to become the new chair of the board following such a long association with the organisation, Murray has a unique insight into what goes on behind the scenes at ScotlandIS. It’s this knowledge that largely shapes what he wants to achieve in the role – one that further enables the good work that he sees on a daily basis.

On this, Murray says: “The ambition and the ideas that Karen (Meechan, CEO of ScotlandIS) and her team have is exceptional.

“One of the biggest shocks and surprises I found, as I got closer to the organisation, is the depth and breadth of things that they deliver across digital tech and how hugely significant they are. When I look at the role of the board, the role of the chair, my primary objective is to support and enable all of the great work that our team currently do.

“These guys are living and breathing this activity, and they have such a deep understanding of the myriad needs of the industry and the value that the organisation can deliver. So, I think our primary objective as a board is to support and enable.”

With a board that takes in a wide range of individuals from across different sectors, including SMEs, large industry, service industry, public sector and academia, there’s a diverse range of skills and support that the ScotlandIS team has drawn upon. There’s a compelling argument to be made that’s one of the core tenets that’s helped the organisation continue to grow.

The Challenges for Scottish Tech

Regardless of the quality of clusters, industry organisations or support networks, Scottish tech – like many others – is facing its share of problems.

AND Digital’s The Nature of the Digital Skills Gap report – released a few months ago – revealed that 59% of workers in Edinburgh believe a lack of digital skills is having a negative impact on their organisation.

The report, which also looked at the UK-wide impact of this shortage, estimated that over half (61%) of business growth depends on digital outcomes. Based on the report’s estimations, this equates to £50bn at risk per year across the UK economy, and more than £240bn between now and 2026.

It’s a concern that Murray is keenly cognisant of.

He says: “Skills and access to talent are huge issues. Karen and her team are trying to enable the next generation of Scottish tech talent through mentorship programmes like Digital Critical Friends, enabling industry veterans to engage with local high schools and academies to drive digital skills and drive placements of university graduates into digital organisations.”

For Murray, offering placements early is key to address the challenges around securing talent as it “cements the career path for those individuals into tech careers and gives organisations access to quality talent.”

ScotlandIS’s goals with its activities have had to evolve and change with the shifting sands of industry to the encroaching issues of skills shortages and lack of awareness around cyber-issues – the latter of which, Murray sees as a big problem.

He says: “Training and awareness around cyber for our members has been a fundamental part of the organisation for the last three or four years – making sure our member organisations are cyber-aware, cyber-trained and cyber-resilient are of critical importance.”

Should your Business Join ScotlandIS?

Picking off any random stat about ScotlandIS certainly paints a compelling picture for what the cluster achieves and why a company should consider membership – and there’s no shortage of them on their site. The story behind the stats though really isn’t the number of diverse tech companies that make up the organisational body, it’s the network and wealth of knowledge and talent that can be shared through grouped activities, spearheaded through the commonality of ScotlandIS.

It’s a sentiment expanded on by Murray, who says: “If I look at the value and benefits that membership of ScotlandIS can deliver to an organisation, it’s bringing together individuals from across different, disparate organisations with common requirements, common needs and building that network.

“I think one of the fundamental strengths of Scotland’s digital tech industry is the fact that there is that network there of individuals, facilitated through our events and networking activities.”

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Being a part of ScotlandIS also means you can have a more direct say in how the Scottish Government interacts with the country’s tech ecosystem, with the organisation very much an influential voice within industry bodies and the Government itself.

On this, Murray says: “If you look at the number of boards and partnerships that Karen and the team sit on, representing that community voice of ScotlandIS, presenting that discourse directly from members of the tech ecosystem to the Scottish Government, UK Government and all of its affiliated agencies, along with the huge amounts of activities, training, networking, events, all of which collectively, allow the Scottish tech sector to punch above his weight, then I think ScotlandIS delivers true value to the organisations in the sector.”

Scotland’s Tech Silos

ScotlandIS, Filament STAC, The Data Lab, Codebase, The Scotland 5G Centre, Scottish AI Alliance, Fintech Scotland… as much as our well-established industry bodies, organisations, clusters and incubators reflect the health of Scottish tech, it raises some concerns – how do you engender collaboration between these groups that all have a singular goal of forwarding Scottish tech?

It’s a topic that Murray has concerns around as well, commenting: “So much good has been done by these organisations over the years, and it’s critical to keep new ideas coming to market, whether it’s the tech scalers initiative, climate tech, digital critical friends, etc.

“I think one of the things that Karen and the team have excelled at over the years and continue to do is aligning those different organisations, aligning collaboration between different individuals, ensuring mutual benefit by working closely together.”

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