The Scotland 5G Centre has announced appointment of Derek Waddell as interim CEO to replace the outgoing Paul Coffey.

Waddell has extensive expertise in carrying out interim roles and helping innovation centres make a step change in their growth journey.

His most recent positions include Director of Technology Transfer at University College Cork; Head of Commercialisation, Enterprise, and Investment at the University of Strathclyde; and as the Director of Converge. He also previously served as CEO of Edinburgh Research and Innovation.

The Scotland 5G Centre has made significant progress since its inception three years ago. Having moved from predominantly a research and development role, the centre has funded three ground-breaking projects which have delivered an economic return of more than £30m.

Additionally, the centre has helped create new jobs, a spin-out company, and a toolkit to support increased digital adoption.

During this period, the centre also established the S5GConnect Programme with five urban and rural S5GConnect hubs now deployed across Scotland, and two more to be announced soon.

Currently, the centre is making its next step to target support for Scotland’s industry, public sector, and communities to enable them to harness the power of digital transformation.

These innovation hubs are the focal points that will give Scottish organisations access to cutting edge 5G mobile private networks, providing an opportunity to test new 5G enabled products, services, and solutions.

In turn, the organisation believed this could lead to improved productivity, cost savings, better routes to market, better community connectivity and help to level up the digital divide.

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Julie Snell, Chair of The Scotland 5G Centre said: “The Scotland 5G Centre team has made great progress in raising the awareness for the need to deploy 5G technology with some impressive outcomes so far.

“It’s a very exciting time for the Centre as we move toward a much wider delivery phase and I’m delighted to have Derek’s expertise onboard to ensure we take the Centre into a new stage – delivering significant economic, social and skills development value through our 5GConnect hubs and testbeds.”

Derek Waddell, interim CEO at The Scotland 5G Centre added: “It’s a privilege to take on the role as Interim CEO and lead the Centre in this next stage of the journey, supporting organisations to realise the huge economic and societal potential that the deployment and adoption of 5G brings.

“Sectors like agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing, or logistics are now seeing what a game changer 5G is and the Centre will be there to make sure there is no-one left behind in this digital transformation era.”

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