trade mission

Last call. Interested in European expansion? Is your company scaling up? Focused on Fintech / Cybertech / Datatech? Read on, for a trade mission that might be just the ticket.

The Mayor of London's International Business Programme (yup, quite a mouthful, but also very useful for London firms) is running a short European market visit in June. As the name suggestions, for fast-growing London-based tech firms.

The Digital Mission series is back for 2016. Our first adventure will be the Digital Mission NYC to attend Social Media Week NYC, 22-26 Feb 2016.

This week-long trip, organised with UK Trade & Investment USA, features a programme specially designed for both tech startups and agencies covering media, marketing, content, mobile and social media including AdTech, MarketingTech, MediaTech, analytics and, of course, social media.

If you're a startup looking at the US market, there's plenty of hurdles. High on the list is immigration and which visa will be the best fit...if you can get it.

Today's morning session of the Robotics Mission, organised by Chinwag for the Technology Strategy Board and UKTI, visited Squire Patton Boggs who put together a very handy slide from immigration expert Beth Seal that summarises the options.

For the least three years, over 150 companies have taken part in Digital Missions to the tech centres of the US. The week before last, we met with a group of companies interested in heading East, to South East Asia and China.

Gathering at the offices of our hosts, Pinsent Masons, we talked through the outline plans that have been brewing at Chinwag Towers and had an in-depth discussion about the priorities for a potential Digital Mission™ to Singapore and Hong Kong including the primary objectives, timings and possible companies to meet on the trip.

Here's a quick summary of the discussion and an outline of the plans for what happens next and how to get involved:

UK Trade & Investment, the government agency responsible for helping firms develop their export potential and encourage foreign investment has announced a number of trade missions taking place this Autumn.

The six trips include five to the USA focused on cloud computing, app developers, 4G, mobile communications and digital media. An additional trip to China is planned to coincide with the UK/China Internet Forum with the delegation led by DCMS Minister Ed Vaizey.

Not long now until a group of digital government and social innovation geeks pack their bags and head over to the US with FutureGov and the Digital Mission gang to learn how things are done on the other side of the pond – and hopefully show them a thing or two as well with the best of UK digital innovation. 

But before all of that, I thought I’d fill you in on a good few reasons why we thought a Digital Mission to DC would be such a good idea…

35 digital companies head out to SXSWi in Austin this March on the next Digital Mission. Their presence at the event is highlighted in this new ad featured in SXSW World, the official conference mag.

Here's the ad which is also available to download in various sizes from the Digital Mission press page.

PRESS RELEASE: London, UK, Thursday 8th January 2009

30,000 Feet up in the air feels like a very odd place to be writing a blog post, but it is curiously appropriate. I'm halfway between London and New York as I type this. Around me are representatives from the Digital Mission companies. Already, just a few hours into the mission, there have been discussions about the challenges and opportunities of business between the UK and the US .

Big Apple here we come! The Web 2.0 Expo in New York is less than four days away and the Digital Mission calendar is now looking good and poised to host some serious action...