The Halston Group Guide to Leeds Digital Festival

It’s our favourite time of the year!

Leeds Digital Festival has gone live with their slate of events for September 22 and it’s even more epic than ever. Talk about a smorgasbord of happenings in the buzzing heart of the digital north. There’s events on business advice, marketing, networking, cyber security and data, there’s coding, and of course, no-coding and investing and who could resist the glitz of the LDF Awards??

But with so much going on how the heck do you decide which events are right for you? We’ve put together our list of festival highlights, we don’t claim to be the official guide but we do get told we’ve got pretty good taste when it comes to digital events in Leeds…

Saying that, anything anyone thinks should be added, give us a shout!

In date order, here’s our must-attend list:

👩🏽‍⚕️ 19th September 12pm – 6pm – MedTech Showcase – We’re joining our buddies from The Data Shed and kicking off the festival with this half day event where we’ve been invited to chair a panel!

🔐 19th September 2pm – 3:30pm (Ab)user Experience: How the dark side of Product and Security can be used for (ab)user stories, (mis)use cases and threat modelling – Unravelling the mysterious of “nope.”

🗣️ 19th September 5pm – 7:30pm – The Bigger Pitcher – Let’s see how we can hone our pitching skills with Meeow!

🛣️ 19th September 6pm – 9pm – Digital Roadmaps: How should SMEs invest in technology? – We’re excited to hear from Gridfox on tech adoption in SMEs

🛠️ 20th September 11am – 12pm – Digital Manufacturing: How The Intelligent Factory Holds The Key To Remaining Competitive – We have a bit of a fascination with the future of the manufacturing sector and can’t wait to see what’s next

💸 20th September 3pm – 5pm – How do you sell a technology business? – Join us Brewin Dolphin, Sentio Partners and Mills and Reeve as our Group CEO Georgia chairs this panel of experts

📱 20th September 5:30pm – 7pm – Create a Killer Social Media Campaign – The Social Media Execs at Halston B2B are looking forward to this one!

🌱 21st September 4:30pm – 8pm – Sustainable North – Halston B2B clients North Invest are launching their new initiative focussing on promoting the start-up and growth of sustainable tech businesses across the North of England

🙋🏽‍♀️ 21st September 6:30pm – 8:30pm – She Does Speed Networking – We’re super excited to see the renaissance of this awesome networking event by the guys at She Does Digital

🙌🏽 21st September 6pm – 8pm – KizzBit Live – What can we say, we’re a little bit competitive and we love a quiz!

🙋🏽‍♂️ 21st September 6pm – 9pm – James Ashford – My “overnight” success – A great opportunity to have a beer with James!

📊 22nd September 8am – 9:30am – The importance of data before, during, and after a fundraise or exit if anyone knows about data, it’s our buddies at the Data Refinery looking forward to starting the day with this session

🗞️ 22nd September 3pm – 4pm – How To Build a Successful Digital PR Strategy – The PR Team are looking forward to mixing with other PR professionals in the wild

👋🏼 22nd September 3pm – 5pm – Mediaworks Marketing Mixer – We’re excited to mix with the city’s brightest minds in media!

🎉 22nd September 6pm – 8pm – Diversity List (D-List) Launch – Changing the face of Diversity and Innovation across the region – We love seeing events supporting diversity in the tech scene in Leeds

🍸 22nd September 5pm – 12am – Trio’s Annual Leeds Digital Festival Drinks & Celebrations – Free Bar! – There’s a couple of words here in our repertoire…

🏙️ 23rd September 2pm – 4:30pm – People and property – How innovative thinking is driving the transformation in the way buildings are managed and occupied should be great to hear about the cutting edge of smart building technology

👩🏽‍💻 23rd September 10am – 11:30am – Low-code / no-code: The building blocks for tech success in 2022 and beyond – We might have a little vested interest in the No Code Movement… Can’t wait to see what we can learn here

💪🏽 27th September 11am – 1pm – Female Founders Incubator Launch – We can’t wait to see this amazing initiative go live, and there may be some familiar faces we’d love to see on that panel!

🌟 27th September 6pm – 8pm – Get to the Point – Our very own Antonia Gifford will be pitching at this fast and furious pitching event run by The Marketing Optimist

🤖 27th September 5:30 – 8pm – Titans of Tech Roundtable – What it takes to build a billion-dollar company – GP Bullhound always pull it out of the bag when it comes to big speakers and this event is sure to be no different

🤫 28th September 12pm – 3:30pm – The Secret Business Lunch – Digital & Tech Special – Not so much of a secret anymore! Hosted by the The Secret Event Service Ltd you’d better get your tickets now as these will go like hot cakes

👨🏽‍💻 28th September 6:30pm – 7:30pm – Leeds Digital Festival – ASDA Tech Threat Intel (Even Shrek had it) – Innovation in threat detection from the guys at ADSA should be an interesting one!

🥐 29th September 8:30am – 10:30am – Women in Tech Networking Breakfast – Just literally four of our favourite words

🌆 29th September 1:30pm – 4:45pm – Digital Twins: Aspiring to Create a More Sustainable World – Digital twins, sustainability, innovation? We’re there!

🏆 29th September 5pm – 10pm – The Leeds Digital Festival Awards – Who could resist a little hobnobbing with the who’s who of the digital scene in Leeds?

⛑️ 29th September 11am – 12:30pm – Cognizant & Digital Health Roundtable – Coordinating holistic patient care around a diverse set of ICS – We’re all about innovation and sustainability in healthcare

🌳 29th September 11am – 12:30 – The Road to Net Zero: The National, Regional & Sector Impacts of Net Zero – Looks like we’ll be splitting the team across these two amazing events!

That seems exhaustive but if there are any other must-visit events you think our team would benefit from, please let us know! We’ll be live posting from all the events we attend plus there will be a round-up of takeaways at the end of the month.

See you all in September!