UK & Colorado – Partnering to Rise to Global Challenges

Denver Startup Week is a great way for us to celebrate the thriving Denver and UK relationship, and this year is no exception!

The most memorable moments of my work building bridges between London and the US have been made in Colorado – from being lucky enough to meet the British Red Arrows team that performed over Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport to Colorado – UK collaborations formed at Denver Startup Week and Denver’s most exciting companies coming both in person and now virtually to London Tech Week.

London & Partners and the British Government are massive supporters of all things Colorado, and you can certainly see why when you look at the stats – the UK is, by far and away, the largest foreign investor in Colorado. There are more than 200 British companies here (the latest being London speech recognition company Speechmatics, which launched this year), employing over 18,000 Coloradans, whilst UK exports to Colorado fuel an additional 10,000 jobs in the State, and these numbers keep growing.

This year has once again raised the bar on proving how Colorado and the UK can lead the world in reacting quickly to global issues, especially those issues that are impacting us all in the UK and US.

Last week saw incredible Denver companies come to London Tech Week to showcase the best of Colorado innovation to a London audience. Leaders joined us from companies including Etta Epidermis, an AI solution aiming to eliminate skin cancer fatalities by 2025, to Sistahbiz, a business accelerator for Black women entrepreneurs, to BitsBox, a learning system teaching real coding with crazy fun projects for kids. These leaders from Denver are putting social purpose at the heart of business and we couldn’t be more pleased and proud to showcase these companies, representing the best of Colorado, to London.

And with typical great timing from the Denver Startup Week crew, this week we were able to return the favor and bring the UK to Denver!

A particular highlight of Denver Startup Week 2020 was the session on “Innovation in a Global Pandemic – the UK and Colorado Rising to the Challenge”.

Hearing leaders such as Denver’s Eric Drummond (Innovation Corridor), Sarah Tuneberg (Geospiza & State of Colorado Innovation Response Team) and Rob Lubeck (BurstIQ) speak on how business and government in Colorado are responding together to COVID-19, and how this will lead to change in how we deliver services and solutions to all in our society was incredibly thought provoking. During the session we also heard from Dr. Mark Mawson from the UK’s Hartree Centre on how they’re providing supercomputing power to assist in global computational drug discovery efforts, whilst Nigel Hutchinson explained how his company, UK headquartered Kainos quickly pivoted to provide new solutions to their clients in the healthcare industry – no surprise that Kainos has found a home in the US in Denver.

And earlier this year, London & Partners worked with the cities of Denver, Toronto and Sydney to bring together the most exciting edtech companies in each city to share their experiences and opportunities in their respective markets. The conversation focused on equity in edtech, and how COVID-19 has led to new opportunities for young people around the world to utilize new platforms, but also highlighted the problem of equity in remote learning; the conclusion being a commitment from the group to work together to develop solutions for all in our society.

There are a host of incredible UK and Colorado partners working to create, curate and celebrate this transatlantic success story. The British Government office in Denver, led by the brilliant Erin Kuhn, the British Consulate-General in Chicago, London & Partners, the City & County of Denver and so many others are eager to work with you to continue this bridge building.

We hope that the Free Trade Agreement, which is currently being negotiated between the US and the UK, will increase trade even further and help both the American and British economies recover.

We invite you to join us in this journey, and ensure that the best of Denver and the best of the UK brings the best out in all of us.