The Unsung Heroes of Scottish Tech

The Scottish tech industry is getting more and more recognition. Traditional press is often featuring the exploits of our biggest success and there are now even outlets focused on Scottish tech but they don’t paint the whole picture.

Throughout the Scottish tech ecosystem, there are individuals and teams that make huge contributions to making a more vibrant, cohesive and successful technology industry in Scotland but they often go overlooked.

That might be a typical ‘Scottish thing’ where we don’t like to boast so I’ll do it for them. Here’s my attempt at applauding the unsung heroes of Scottish tech.

Kyle Bremner

Kyle is a talented software engineer now part of the team at Skyscanner. Previously he founded Defining Technology and worked at Streamba and Linn Products.

Over the past couple of years, Kyle has organised the no-profit Glasgow Tech Christmas Party. Each year he’s put his neck out and organised a gathering for all the meetup groups, communities and incubators in the city.

It’s a thankless task to organise food, drink and entertainment for ~100 people on a shoestring budget while also getting on with the day job but its massively valuable. It helps us, as a community, celebrate our achievements in the year and look ahead to the upcoming year. Through 2018 I’ve had conversations and collaborations that I can trace back to the Christmas Party. Thank you, Kyle.

Kyle has also organised other community-focused events such as the Glasgow Chapter of the Global Day of Code Retreat and has supported many other meetups, events and startups in the country.

James Baster

One of the most long-standing and important meetup groups in the country is Tech Meetup. James has been a long-standing support of the group but his contribution to the community doesn’t end there. James is the founder of Open Tech Calendar.

As the name suggests its a calendar of tech events that is open data. It has become the go-to resource to find out what’s happening in Scotland and so many people rely on James’ contributions to the community yet it's often overlooked and not given the recognition it deserves.

Thanks for all the effort James, we use the calendar a tonne for planning and promoting events.

CodeCraft Team

Eva, Caroline, Joe, Gary and Keith are the organisers of CodeCraft. A monthly meetup and annual conference for the community to discuss, demonstrate and debate how to write well-structured, malleable software.

The events have now been running for at least 4 years and are a pillar of the local tech community. A real vibrant cross-section of attendees, from corporates to startups, attend and learn.

Again the team organise this as volunteers and I bet good money you won’t see the mainstream press feature their successes and shout about their success but I can say with confidence their contributions have made our ecosystem much stronger and improved our ability to produce digital products.

Pat Cassidy/Govan Workspace

This is one close to home. RookieOven started life as a blog in 2011. Yup, a crappy Wordpress site. Nothing more. In the years since it’s grown to be more and, I hope, provide useful contributions to our ecosystem.

A large part of what RookieOven is in 2018 is the collaborative space in Glasgow. Our coworking space is based in the Fairfield Shipyard Offices in Govan that was once the heart of Glasgow’s engineering industry. Thanks to Pat Cassidy and the team at Govan Workspace it’s a home to engineering and innovation again.

In 2011 we partnered with Govan Workspace to open RookieOven. We had no capital so almost every other landlord in the city turned us away. Pat and his team saw the opportunity, Fairfield was newly restored and empty. Now RookieOven is home to many exciting companies and the Fairfield building is full of tenants such as Caseblocks, Base and Firecrest Films.

Who else is an unsung hero of Scottish tech? Contribute your own suggestions