We received some fantastic news this month. Ceri Shaw and I have been building programmes to tackle the challenges we see every week across start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs. We wanted something to genuinely solve the problems people bring to us, with day-to-day support, practical upskilling and knowledge-sharing that helps unblock success. Again and again our research pointed to a bigger gap in the ecosystem we work in, a lack of diverse founders and leadership, and too few environments designed to address the issues highlighted in the Pathways report. 🎉 🎉 🎉 Today we are proud to launch our first programme, Spark The Connection 🎉 🎉 🎉 We’re privileged to have been awarded funding from the Scottish Government Ecosystem Pathways Fund, which means places will be free for participants. Spark brings open, accessible and welcoming entrepreneurship to regions across Scotland: local roadshows, hands-on workshops and curated introductions that help people find co-founders or senior team-mates