Camp Digital, one of the UK’s leading design conferences, will return to Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre on 12 June 2019.

Now celebrating its eighth consecutive year, the growing event brings together the digital, design and UX communities for a series of talks and workshops, exploring the latest thinking in the industry.

The agenda is a mix of inspirational presentations and hands-on, practical sessions which focus on some of the most important topics and trends in digital, from customer experience and service design to digital inclusion, ethical design, content strategy, and accessibility.

This year’s keynote speakers include Jared Spool, co-founder of Center Centre and founder of User Interface Engineering (UIE), the largest UX consulting and research organisation of its kind in the world.

Also confirmed as a keynote speaker is ethical designer Cenydd Bowles, author of Future Ethics and Undercover User Experience Design. Previously lead designer at Twitter UK, Cenydd has established a reputation as a global leader in digital product and UX design.

They will be joined by Dana Chisnell, co-founder of the Center for Civic Design and a pioneer in government design. Dana is an expert in plain language and usability for older adults, including ground-breaking work at AARP that was the basis for several requirements in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

The day will also feature talks from content design pioneer Sarah Richards, digital government leader Janet Hughes and Snook CEO Sarah Drummond, with many more to be announced in the coming weeks.

Last year’s event welcomed 450 people to see some of the digital industry’s leading lights. It received rave reviews, with attendees praising the “high quality of speakers who really knew their subject and were generous with their knowledge”, the “beautiful venue” and the “fun and interesting mix of people.”

What’s more, 70 creative, digital and tech students across the region will be awarded a free ticket through the event’s ‘Rising Stars’ initiative, sponsored by Barclays accessibility team. The aim is to enable young people to attend the event, make valuable contacts and engage with issues currently affecting the industry.

Shaun Gomm, Sigma’s commercial director and host of Camp Digital, commented: “It’s awe-inspiring to see Camp Digital getting bigger and better every year. People tell us it’s one of the key events in their calendar and we’re working hard to make sure it continues to exceed expectations. We’ve got three brilliant keynotes confirmed, all of whom are trailblazers in the UX and design community, so we can’t wait to see what insights they will bring to the table.”

A progressive Manchester City law firm, based in Spinningfields, is relocating to 1 Ashley Road, Altrincham.

Ozon Solicitors has taken the first floor of 1 Ashley Road, comprising 3,000 sq ft of office space on a five year lease at a rent of £16.00 per sq ft.

The firm act for individuals, small businesses as well as corporations, insurers, brokers and intermediaries in all sectors of the insurance industry and financial services.

Fiona Dutton, operations manager, Ozon Solicitors, said:

“The main driving force behind the relocation from the city centre is that the majority of staff are South Manchester based.  Altrincham became the preferred location as it matched our criteria on so many levels.  The tram links provide easy access to the City centre as required but reduce the daily commute.  The town centre has a great range of local amenities to suit everyone including the excellent market, great restaurants, gyms and an array of retail options, which along with the top quality office space we have secured, makes it the ideal choice”.

Daniel Lee, director, Regional Property Solutions, who acted for the landlord EA Properties,  said:

“This high spec office space was snapped up very quickly reflecting the growing popularity of Altrincham and the demand for quality accommodation in the town, which is now becoming a rare commodity.”

A University of Manchester start-up that can quickly identify students who may be struggling with their mental health has revealed plans to expand.

Third Floor Systems Ltd was founded by Dr Andrew Markwick in 2017 and has since created its first product, ‘StudentCRT’, a software system that puts student wellbeing first.

The system uses several types of student engagement data such as attendance, reports and non-exam marking, to quickly identify students who may be struggling with their mental health. Support and pastoral staff can then personally follow-up with those students before matters escalate.

According to The Office for National Statistics up to 100 students in the UK take their own lives in any given year. In the 2016/2017 academic year 95 UK students took their own lives.

Following a funding boost Dr Markwick is looking to rollout ‘StudentCRT’ across more schools within the university and at other universities.

He said: “We wanted to be sure we were doing the best we could to protect our students using the information we collect about them anyway, and that’s why we created StudentCRT.

“StudentCRT has now been used for 2.5 academic years in the School of Physics & Astronomy, and one year in the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering (MACE). In recent times, we have had cases of suicide and attempted suicide among the student population in our school.

“These events made us consider whether we were doing our best with the data we had available to try to identify at risk individuals before things could escalate.”

“I took it upon myself to design a system that would make us confident that we were doing our very best for them and would identify at risk students. As such ‘StudentCRT’ was born.”

Dr Markwick has been a lecturer in the School of Physics & Astronomy for 13 years and is now seeking strategic partners to help see StudentCRT protect more student lives nationally.

Shortly after Third Floor Systems Ltd was formed the company landed a place on UMIP’s Innovation Optimiser (IO) Programme, which empowers innovators from across the University to create start-up businesses.

A start up award from IO followed and Third Floor Systems Ltd went on to compete in the final of the Pitch@Palace 10.0 competition at Buckingham Palace – founded by The Duke of York in 2014 as a platform to amplify and accelerate the work of entrepreneurs – towards the end of last year.

Dr Markwick said that a recent NUS report found that eight out of 10 students report struggling with their mental health.

“Our secondary goal is to improve staff workflow by rationalising the systems of attendance monitoring, reporting, and non-exam marking that we do,” he said. “This helps academics and tutors, who now only need to enter data in one place, in a consistent and intuitive manner.

“The system is a secure web application and is one that has great commercial potential. It’s clear to me that any other school, university or organization where the people ‘in charge’ have an interest in the wellbeing of the people they have a duty of care to and have the means to collect data on their attendance and performance, could benefit from this system.”