In this episode of the Tech for Good South West podcast, Alicia interviews Paul Forster, the Incubation Manager at SetSquared Bristol. They discuss the enterprise programs at SetSquared Bristol, investing in minorities in the tech industry, purpose-driven technology, and the importance of Tech for Good. Paul shares his passion for amplifying marginalised voices and creating tangible change. He also highlights the need for government investment in Bristol's tech ecosystem. The conversation concludes with information on how to get involved with SetSquared Bristol.
"Everybody deserves the opportunity, but we need to understand what those barriers are to optioning that opportunity for everyone."
"Tech for good is a really good way of ring fencing things that are driven by purpose."
"I want the government to invest in Bristol. I feel like we've been forgotten."
Takeaways
SetSquared Bristol runs enterprise programs to support early-stage businesses, including the Enterprising Women program for women entrepreneurs.
Investing in minorities, both in the tech industry and beyond, is crucial for creating economic and social impact.
Purpose-driven technology is at the core of many businesses supported by SetSquared Bristol.
Government investment in Bristol's tech ecosystem is needed to unlock its full potential.
Listeners can get involved with SetSquared Bristol by visiting their website or reaching out to Paul Forster directly.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Tech for Good South West podcast
00:28 Introducing Paul Forster and SetSquared Bristol
06:23 Investing in Minorities for Economic and Social Impact
10:11 The Power of Purpose-Driven Technology
14:05 The Need for Government Investment in Bristol's Tech Ecosystem
24:27 Call for Government Investment in Bristol
26:25 Appreciation for Alicia's Advocacy and Conclusion
Transcript
Tech4Good South West (00:02.894)
Welcome to the Tech for Good South West podcast brought to you by Annie, Alicia and Ariel. Tech for Good South West has relaunched and we're on a mission to build momentum for the Tech for Good movement across the South West. Our podcast focuses on conversations with charities, investors, startups and initiatives to share their stories, challenges and successes.
it's 11 11. See, these things keep happening to me at the moment. My angel numbers and an angel has joined us. Good morning, everyone. Alicia here from the Techs Good Southwest podcast. We are back and I'm really excited today to be joined by Paul Forster. Paul is the incubation manager at Set Square Bristol. Yes, you're probably thinking, what is that? That is absolutely fine because we are going to dig into.
a little bit more about what Paul's role is, a little bit more about Setsquare Bristol. And we're going to be covering some really interesting topics. Setsquare Bristol run a enterprise in women program. We're going to dig into that. We're going to dig into investing in minorities, especially within the tech industry, purpose driven technology, and a lot more in the next half an hour.
Over to you, Paul. Please introduce yourself. Tell me a little bit more, say, about your role, what it is that you do, and yeah, would love to know a bit more about SetSquared, because I know it, but not a lot of people have, so it would be great to get an introduction from you.
Thanks, Alicia. I'm apparently in my angel era at the moment, so very appreciative of that. So yeah, I'm Paul Forster. I am Incubation Manager at SetSquared Bristol.So for those of you that don't know SetSquad Bristol is the University of Bristol's deep tech, high tech incubator. So we currently have two programs doing pre -incubation and incubation. So sort of pre -growth and growth programs that currently hosts about 90 companies. And that's everything from your kind of pre to post incorporation all the way through to kind of 200 person teams that are kind of growing exponentially. So very broad.
Tech4Good South West (02:19.918)
So in terms of my role, a lot of what I do is ensuring that those businesses get the best out of the program. So some coaching and mentoring, signposting, introducing to parts of my networks, generally keeping tabs on things, ensuring that opportunities are communicated well, and sometimes having difficult conversations about what the future looks like and how to plan.
So very broad and never a dull moment because we're also doing quite a lot of stuff that's outside of our usual programs as well. So Alicia mentioned the Enterprising Women program, which is going to be in its fourth iteration launching at the end of this month for applications. And so that is a program specifically for idea stage, hobby stage, kind of side hustle. Women want to engage with something but don't necessarily have a lot of time. So it's...
High impact, low engagement. So it's one workshop per month over the course of a lunchtime. So it doesn't impact on any caring responsibilities. They get assigned a mentor and they have some coaching time with myself and with our advisors as well. And then there's quite a lot of networking involvement too. Generally at the end of that whole process, we're hoping that people will be ready to launch these hobbies into actual commercial businesses. So yeah, it's an exciting program.
And then we're also doing quite a lot of really interesting enterprise education work within the university as well. So working with centres for doctoral colleges and other organisations within the university to kind of improve the understanding of researchers of how they can become entrepreneurs in the future or potentially spin out some of their research into a business. Wonderful. So it's the fourth. Sorry, I can't remember what you called it, but the fourth.
It's Enterprising Women 4 .0. So we're trying to make it sound relatively techy. But in my mind, it also reminds me a little bit of that second Garbage album, but that's just the way my mind works. How have the other three gone to date? I mean, they've all been incredibly different. So the first one recruited just before COVID. And so I did the whole program, like a little cottage industry alongside my normal role during COVID. Wow. So it was...
Tech4Good South West (04:41.454)
It was a lot, but all the people that came out of it were absolutely phenomenal. So it's 18 women led businesses in that first round and during COVID, which I think was really needed because during that period, being on your own in your own house, not being able to leave or do anything, just having someone there to kind of check your assumptions and make sure that you realize that all this hard work that you're doing is for a real reason. Yeah.
So that was incredibly powerful. And then the second program was kind of hybrid. So sort of tail end of COVID and then sort of came into in person, but there was like social distancing at the events that we did. And like, we had to sort of just have, I think 20 people there for one of the events and then had to live stream it.
And then the last one, Enterprising Women 3 .0, that was fully in -person and the first one that we'd ever done in -person. And so it was quite a culture shock for me. I was like, there's all these people in rooms doing things. But it was great because even though you can do lots of network curation online and you can kind of make sure that people feel connected, doing it in -person just kind of completely changed the game on that and really, really improved the connections that the people were making. And I know that quite a lot of the cohorts.
They've kept in touch, they still kind of meet each other for coffees, they kind of, we arrange socials for all the different cohorts to get together along with their mentors to have kind of like a big what's going on, what's happening kind of thing. The pride that comes from this is that, you know, we've had, you know, around about 60 women in business coming through the program so far. And conversely, we've also had about 60K invested into the program because NatWest funds the program off the back of its.
Alison Rose review into female entrepreneurship and lack of funding. And so that 60K has translated into 23 million economic impact from those first three programs. Yeah, it's absolutely wild. It's so good. Such a good number. It is a very good number. I mean, it was quite incredibly bolstered earlier on this year when KDEM raised 15 million from A16Z.
Tech4Good South West (06:50.766)
So it probably would have been closer to 11 million before that raise. But if something good happens, you add the numbers on, right? A hundred percent. And hopefully that doubles after the next one. Hey, positive thinking. Yeah. So, and KDEM, they're a 3D visual asset AI software that sells to the gaming industry. It's phenomenal. And the founder, Constantina is a real legend. I remember sort of during the program, we were sort of talking to each other. She was, she's Greek Cypriot, I think, and she was talking to me from Cyprus. I was incredibly jealous, being in Bristol, being like, yeah, we're having this lovely conversation. Have a lovely time. Yeah, just going to the beach. But, you know, now they've kind of grown out of Bristol University. They're in London, they're in San Fran, doing really great things. Amazing. What, so just for anyone listening who's interested in Enterprise Women
When's it closing? What is the criteria? What does that look like?
Yeah, that's a really good question. So it'll be the end of the month. I don't have a definite date, but by the end of this month, applications will be open. We've already got over 80 registers of interest for that information. So it probably will be quite a popular program in terms of applications. So we generally take a cohort of between 18 and 20 businesses and
From the start, I stipulated that half would be tech and half would be non -tech because a lot of the tech businesses are very, very exciting, but I feel like a lot of women -led businesses are purpose -driven. And so some of the amazing things that have come out of Enterprising Women have been some of those purpose -driven or non -tech specific businesses. So a really good example of that would be Pequell. So they are, so Hazel and Amber, have female urimals that have been getting used all over the UK festival circuit. They're amazing. They've been winning awards left, right and centre. They've been sort of generating loads of revenue. They've been getting investment. They're fantastic. And you know, that's definitely not a quote unquote tech thing, but it is something that has made a massive impact and continues to do so. And then on our second program was, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Aisha Thomas. So she's a former deputy head from Bristol.
Tech4Good South West (09:17.166)
that has launched Representation Matters, which is this amazing equality, diversity and inclusion initiative. She's launched a book as well as being the founder of this kind of consultancy training arm. And she's also been working with one of the women from our first program who has a company called Be Coco, that's Katie Donovan at a Canby. And they're doing something with so many hospitals all over the country now called Black Maternity Matters.
It's basically training midwives around how to ensure that black women are dying less and their children are dying less during birth. It's just phenomenal. So a lot of what we do, they're amazing women. I know Katie, but I don't know Aisha. my God, that sounds amazing. And you know what it's this, obviously, I am currently pregnant and it's maternal mental health week this week and yesterday was the first ever day that was just a day dedicated to maternal mental health and then people could like, therapy to support it and there was some the stats around it and especially from black and minorities sort of the issue with pre and postnatal mental health I mean the stats are absolutely insane and I'm sure she's doing some amazing work and really important work for sure.
Yeah I think she is going to be doing some amazing work and yeah just thinking about what you were saying about natal mental health is that obviously there's kind of a lot of post -natal, not necessarily depression, but like psychosis and all these things that don't get talked about that happen. So I feel like there's a lot of these things that just need to be unboxed and discussed. Definitely. Why I know that this is something that you're so passionate about and I love and why we have so much in common and why I definitely wanted to get you on the pod for various reasons.
But why is it so important that we're investing in minority people, both within tech and also let's say without tech, even though this is the tech of a good self -willed podcast, let's cover it all. But why is it so important? I mean, it would be easy to answer that question and say, because it's the right thing to do. And yes, it is of course the right thing to do. So in terms of the way that the world is structured, obviously, you know,
Tech4Good South West (11:37.294)
the people with more money, the people with more privilege end up doing and getting more. But in terms of the investing piece, so what I mentioned before about the 23 million economic impact that came from that Enterprising Women program, that's like 60K that has then made that massive impact. So that already proves that we need to invest in women in business so that they can grow these amazing businesses and have this amazing impact. So Sesquad Bristol also has another initiative that we launched.
off the back of some research that we did in 2018. And that research was into why people from the global majority weren't accessing our support. And so when that research was then brought back to us in a report, we, A, published it so that people could read it and B, enacted all of the recommendations. And the main recommendation that you are interested in, otherwise I'll be here for another half an hour, is that we introduced something called the Breakthrough Bursary.
So, because SatSquared is a membership organization specifically for tech entrepreneurs. And we wanted to open the doors and not necessarily give a handout because that was what the researcher told us is that people from the global majority don't want handouts. They just want the door opening. And so off the back of that, we've had, I think, 12 entrepreneurs that have been through that bursary. And at my last count, they had made an economic impact of around about 8 million.
But I know one of the first founders that we worked with from that was Glyn Blayes, who went on to Amdaris. And obviously Amdaris exited for six, no, eight figures last year. I haven't measured that impact in those stats, but it just goes to show that giving people a leg up and the help and the experience helps them go on to do just amazing things. So as far as I'm concerned.
Everybody deserves the opportunity, but we need to understand what those barriers are to optioning that opportunity for everyone. So I mentioned equality, diversity and inclusion before. So maybe it's more about trying to emphasize the equity angle because the game is rigged for all of us in one way or another. And it's about how do we derig that game for each individual, not for each individual based on their metrics. It's like, how do we do it for you and carry on? Love that.
Tech4Good South West (14:05.454)
Yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm snipping that bit. That's going to be the teaser to get people listening to that. If you listen to anything, it's that nugget. What, because you can just tell and your every, your passion just comes across so strongly. What really inspired you to sort of get into what you're doing now? That is a really good question. My background is in kind of,
queer DIY punk organizing. And so I sort of fell into the kind of the tech world through like event management. And that was how I ended up kind of working with with Tech Hub and how I ended up moving towards SetSquared along those different roads. And so that kind of DIY element of my life, I was also working for an organization called For Book's Sake, which is all about championing and supporting
writing by women and non -binary people. So publishing, advocacy, workshops, spoken word, what have you. And so me and my co -director worked on that together for seven years. And so I've always had a really specific and intrinsic passion for marginalized people's voices being amplified. And I think that that isn't something that just needs to be left in one industry. It's something that needs to be brought to every industry.
And it's about agitating and maybe being a bit confrontational occasionally and getting people to challenge these preconceptions that they have and to feel uncomfortable. And the main challenge there is that because, sorry men, I am a man, but still men don't typically have the emotional development to be able to do that all the time. And so they get very defensive and don't really like that kind of uncomfortable side of things. That's a lot of the reason why.
I'm so passionate about this is because ostensibly it's about injustice at a bottom layer. And then it's about how you apply your frustration and rage in a really tangible and not too destructive way. Okay. Yeah. Got it. I mean, just go for prime minister, right? There are too many skeletons in that closet. Scraping the internet.
Tech4Good South West (16:31.15)
Obviously, yeah, we're on the Tech for Good Southwest podcast today. Everything you're doing, I mean, everything that we've spoke about is in the good space. But I think in terms of the Southwest and Bristol predominantly, obviously we're very proud. I'm originally Bristolian. Are you an original? I am not. I am from the Northwest of England. I'm a plastic scouter.
Okay, you've come down south, made the good choice. But I think that we're leaders in the sort of Tech for Good arena. We've got amazing companies here. There's just so much passion to do good, whether it's within health tech, education tech, obviously our green climate, B Corp sort of community is absolutely massive. What does Tech for Good mean to you?
That is a really good question because tech for good is one of those things that some people really hate the term and some people really love the term. It's very Marmite and uncommonly as somebody tries to reject that kind of advertising and marketing, I'm kind of somewhere in the middle. I kind of love the term and hate the term at the same time. I love it because I think the tech for good is a really good way of ring fencing things that are driven by purpose.
But then I also think that sometimes Tech for Good can possibly dilute and incorporate things that maybe aren't as useful and relevant and maybe can bring people in that maybe have ulterior motives that aren't necessarily driven by purpose. Greenwashing. Yeah, exactly. But that's a little bit of a wishy washy way of approaching it. But in terms of actual Tech for Good and actual purpose -driven tech, I feel like there are very, very few companies that I work with that don't.
have purpose at the core of what they do. And one of the most important things that we do at SetSquared is that we're very market led. And so if you drill down to the market, it's always purpose driven. It might not be social purpose, but it will be purpose. However, one of the things that I'm kind of most proud of in my role over the last few years is the health tech roundables that we do on a quarterly basis. And they're open to everybody from the ecosystem. It's not just a SetSquared affair.
Tech4Good South West (18:51.822)
But because health tech is all purpose driven, but also because it's such a challenging industry for all the founders, because it's the Wild West, it's nascent, there's no roadmap of how to do things. The regulatory frameworks are insane. Traction's nigh on impossible, all these kinds of things. And yet they're still grafting away and doing it. And so many of them are doing really amazing things. So I feel like that kind of health technology.
side of things is where kind of I get really excited because it feels tangible, it feels doable and I've seen real progress from people that are in stealth mode a lot of the time that are just doing phenomenal phenomenal things as yeah I'm not going to name check any of them right now because I feel like I'd be choosing my babies. I was just about to ask you go get you to name.
I mean not you know, I mean the purpose driven one that is not currently in the incubator because I feel less bad. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's good. Okay. So you know, Zara Nanu. Yeah, of course. Gap Square exited to Expert HR a couple of years ago for, you know, a decent seven figures, eight figures even. But they were doing software specifically for analyzing and feeding back the gender and ethnicity pay gap to large corporates.
And, you know, the fact that A, she strove for investment and never got it. And B, she bootstrapped and her team bootstrapped really, really hard and then exited with no investment. That story makes me happy. But the fact that that was purpose driven, that was always from the start meant to be about real economic social change. It's just power. How does SetSquared...
Bristol compared to the other setsquare because how many is there like five? Right so there is Bristol, Bath, Surrey, Southampton and Exeter but there's also Cardiff which joined the Cableers ago as well so because of the way the universities work each different centre is governed in its own way because each university has its own way of doing things and so the setsquare partnership sits above us you asked me a question that I'm gonna have
Tech4Good South West (21:13.614)
take a long time to answer now because it's quite complicated. The Satsquad partnership sits above us and that does all of the university politicking, all the speaking truth to power and does also deliver some of their own support as well. And so Satsquad Bristol has a really robust program and we've probably diversified our programs a lot more. So I mentioned Enterprising Women before, but we also have a pre -incubation program quest, which is for that kind of just before or just post incorporation.
And then we have Propel, which is the kind of traditional set squared program, which is that kind of growth focus. So I think because we're listening to our market and figuring out where those gaps are and addressing them, we're always going to be able to help when it comes to good practice. And I think that good practice element is one of the best things about having this kind of collaboration between those universities is that when you talk to each other, you're able to understand what good looks like and.
how it can be enabled in those different organizations. And just again for people who don't haven't heard of SatSquared and might want to join the incubator obviously because it's part of the university people who don't go to attend Bristol University can join the program can't they? Yeah so originally SatSquared was conceived 22 years ago in order to commercialize the research from those part of the university. 22 years!
I know. Wow. Okay. And there's like a caveat to that. Also, when it started, one of the reasons why they started was to stop the next dot com bubble from bursting. Okay. So if you want to feel old, random. But okay. Let's talk about that. Yeah. So now anybody can join the program. So it's maybe not.
20 % come through the university spin out process and then maybe another 10 % are ex -students. But that means that 70 % are just businesses that come to us for the support. And the majority of them are in the Bristol or the West of England region. But we also have people that join us from other places in the UK as well because the program's all accessible virtual. And obviously we've got a great reputation. Just going to slide in a nice little bit of PR that we got.
Tech4Good South West (23:29.198)
a couple of weeks ago. Some of you might have seen, but those of you that didn't, the Financial Times named SetSquared the number one incubator in the UK and number three incubator in Europe, which is quite exciting. Huge. Love that. So in terms of change, like you've made, obviously, so much impact, both personally and SetSquared has in the tech industry and non -tech, but...
If we had to say like one change that you'd love to see, what would that be? one change. I don't like one change. I like constant change. I'm a big believer in like the wheel kind of just constantly moving forwards. But the change that I want to see is I want the government to invest in Bristol. I feel like we've been forgotten. I feel like Manchester's got tons of cash. The Northwest has got tons of cash.
So much of the Bristol ecosystem has been built on the back of the people of Bristol. And I feel like we need some money to imagine what we could be if we had the money that Manchester was given, right? We're like, we've seen this like the second or third tech hub in the country. You know, it's madness. And I love Bristol for its tenacity and I love Bristol for its ability to do this, but it just feels like a massive oversight. So yeah. And it only takes, yeah, I think some...
Sometimes you can feel the tiredness and people like, come on, help us out a little bit. Why do you think that we are forgotten about maybe? I mean, I'm not here to talk politics. Be here all day. Maybe, yeah, we won't get, we just won't get into that. But a great change, yeah, that me and you, and I'm sure a lot of people would like to see.
So in terms of obviously people listening, if they want to get in touch or how do they get involved in set squared? How do, how do people find all the good stuff that you're doing? So obviously you can go to our website, which is set squared hyphen Bristol .co .uk. you can follow us on socials, which should always be set square Bristol. That's mainly, LinkedIn and Twitter. I am not going to call it X. I'm sorry.
Tech4Good South West (25:55.182)
And then you can get in touch with me directly if you want to. So paul .forster at setsquare .co .uk. Lots of information out there, lots of different things happening. Generally, my diary is a bit of a bin fire at the moment, but I do try and make time for anybody that is looking for early stage advice and support so that I can do some signposting. But maybe just be patient at the moment. Fair. Everyone be patient. And is there anything else that we haven't spoken about today that you really want to speak about?
I mean, I kind of just want to say thank you to you as well, because like, you are such a like conduit for like change and good and joy as well. So, you know, this has to be like a two way street. You can't just be like, aren't I amazing? You know, you have to kind of recognise that you, Alicia, are also like a mad powerhouse for change and good as well. Thank you. No one ever thanks me. So, that's nice. I'm going to take it. I actually did get the MVP, which is the most valuable pineapple at my own company.
Yeah, we do MVP every single month and you get a massive pineapple and you get a massive pineapple and you get 50 quid to say and you've got to get voted for nothing work related just that you've been a bit of a legend and I got it for the first time ever in my own company last month. So maybe it's the pregnancy. Maybe people are just feeling a bit sorry for me, not joking. I mean, maybe it's your ability to just like, still be alleged while currently carrying a giant baby inside you. Yeah, let's say that because that sounds a lot better. Well, Paul, we are going to leave it there. But thank you so, so much for joining me today.
So excited to just hear about the Enterprise Programme 4 .0. Hopefully that 23 million looks more like 50 million.
By the end of this year, end of next year, or definitely very, very soon. I think it's definitely possible to have done 23 million on a 60K investment. I mean, yeah, it just shows what's possible. And I think we just need more people like you advocating for all the good stuff. And yeah, hopefully everyone else will get behind all of that and yeah, more power to Bristol, more power to you. Thank you so much.
Nice one.
Thanks everyone. Thank you.