WM5G launches 5G bootcamp to support businesses in the creative sector

Published by

Peter Davison

West Midlands 5G (WM5G), the organisation responsible for the UK’s largest 5G testbed, is hosting an industry-first bootcamp to demonstrate how creative businesses can lead the way in a digital-first future.

Targeted to new businesses and innovators in creative sectors such as gaming, live events, production, arts and theatre, sports and broadcasting, the first event of its kind will take place virtually across two days, on Wednesday 9th and Thursday 10th March.

Featuring a range of talks and demonstrations from creative industry experts alongside WM5G’s team, the 5G Bootcamp for the Creative Sector will showcase how 5G can provide SMEs focused on optimising customer experience with an edge over competitors, regardless of their level of technical expertise.

Day one of the event will set the current scene of 5G technology, featuring talks from companies and organisations including the 5G Connected Forest – a world-first project assessing the potential for 5G applications in Nottinghamshire’s Sherwood Forest.

Guests can hear from an industry leaders panel including The NEC Group and Nonsensical, discussing the future role of digital and 5G in the entertainment industry.

Day two will showcase 5G in action at WM5G’s innovative testbed at iCentrum in Birmingham. Innovators including Taran3D will demonstrate their metaverse collaborative learning environment and mobile augmented reality solution for museum artefacts, using the unique capabilities of 5G. Immersion will demonstrate how their virtual worlds make doing business easier and better.

The event is fully funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and free to attend for qualifying SMEs based in England, and participants attending the full programme will be awarded ‘5G Ready’ certificates.

According to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport1, creative industries contributed £115.9bn of value to the UK economy in 2019 alone, a figure greater than the automotive, aerospace, life sciences and oil and gas industries combined.

James Hunter-Jackson from The NEC Group said: “The next generation of mobile technology, 5G, will support the industry regeneration by virtue of lightning-fast speeds, seriously low latency and almost endless capacity compared to its predecessors.

“5G provides the perfect foundation for the development of immersive technology and wide scope for innovative business propositions including AR, VR and AI – all of which rely on the simultaneous transmission of large amounts of data to succeed in delivering real-time experiences for customers.”

Robert Franks, Managing Director of WM5G said: “The creative industries have long been the backbone of the UK economy, but technological advancements and an increased consumer appetite for fully immersive experience means that new SMEs are being left behind due to a funding gap and little support, despite being critical to the UKs recovery post-pandemic.

“We are looking forward to supporting new innovators and businesses to understand how 5G can benefit them through our 5G bootcamp - to help to drive growth and innovation both in the region and the UK.”

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.