Freelance business consultant Roger Hiscott is backing Newport – and, as he explains, he’s in good company.

TECHNOLOGY plays such an integral part in our lives every day, whether that’s accessing your bank details online, using your phone to maintain contact with friends and family or watching TV on IPlayer or Netflix.

But where does the city of Newport play a part in all of that?

If we start with education, Newport is at the forefront.

The National Software Academy is in the city centre, soon to have its own home, and this year was oversubscribed with applications – next week 60 students will commence a three-year degree in software engineering and the hope is that next year it will be an additional 100.

This successful model is being replicated to start a cyber security academy at the USW campus in the city centre, a market so short of skilled people that PricewaterhouseCoopers recently announced that it will take on 1,000 people in the UK alone this year.

Once qualified The Alacrity Foundation offers all of those young people, and others, the opportunity to start their own technology business in Newport and have already successfully spun out a number of fledgling companies.

Underpinning the infrastructure required for this, Europe’s largest data centre, Next Generation Data, sits on the outskirts of the city providing the “home” for a variety of well-known national and international websites from their 750,000 sq ft premises near Tredegar Park – but what about non-technology organisations.

Exploiting that technology helps companies grow and that is the case for emerging Newport companies Bedroom Athletics and Tiny Rebel Brewery.

Supplying to more than 20 countries, Bedroom Athletics’ range of trendy slippers and loungewear has drawn national attention through its website presence and has been featured in the national press being worn by the likes of Radio 2’s Chris Evans.

Tiny Rebel Brewery started in a garage and used its unique brand to take social media by storm and create a company that now produces more than 500,000 litres of beer per year, owns two pubs in south Wales, wins award after award and has just announced the construction of a new brewery.

And all of this activity produces more data than we have ever had before, and Newport is set to become a national hub for data scientists.

The Office of National Statistics has confirmed a £17 million investment in the city to create a data science campus on its site at Tredegar Park.

This investment does not only deliver jobs for the experienced though, with its recently announced apprenticeship programme offering salaries in excess of £20k during training.

This online activity needs protection and Newport has some of the world’s specialists in this arena.

They range from Airbus, which provides cyber security solutions for national infrastructure, including the Ministry of Defence and UK Parliament through to start-ups like Wolfberry, one of only three organisations in Wales certified to provide the Cyber Essential Plus certification for companies.

So there is no doubt that for those who have chosen to be educated, start a business or to locate their established organisation here, that they are making a decision to back Newport.

* Roger Hiscott is a Newport-born freelance business consultant, who returned to the city with his young family 10 years ago.

He advises a number of prominent local businesses, has hosted the last two city summits, is on the board of the Newport Economic Network and was part of the initial Digital Tuesday movement for 18 months.

He can be contacted via Twitter @rhncafc or on Linked In at uk.linkedin.com/in/rogerhiscott