Leeds Digital Festival 2018.

Running between 16th-27th April, the Leeds Digital Festival is an annual celebration of all things tech in this brilliant Yorkshire city, so here’s our list of the top digital events we’re excited about!

Leeds is a great city buzzing with tech startups, big design agencies, and a hub of digital activities and events. It’s also where our Beacon design and development studio is based and we love to get involved with the various digital events, tech gatherings and activities that surround us.

Photo credit: http://blog.threefaces.co.uk/

ODI Leeds Showcase

The ODI (Open Data Institute) are a great organisation who to innovative things with open and big data.

“In its glorious third year, we will be kicking off our schedule of Leeds Digital Festival events with our always popular Showcase – a day dedicated to celebrating open data and the people who do great stuff with it!”

Why You Should Be F**king With Video

Flaunt Digital are a data-centric marketing and development agency based in the heart of Leeds.

“There’s no debating that video has been one of the hottest marketing tools out there over the last few years. Believe it or not, but this is only the very beginning. Did you know that video will make up 79% of internet traffic by 2020?”

Digital Mental Health: Where Are We Now And What’s The Future?

mHabitat provide people-centred digital innovation, with a focus on health, social care, wellbeing, and digital inclusion. They use tech for good.

“Over the last 10 years use of digital technology in every part of our lives has increased dramatically. Most people carry smartphones which give them access to huge amounts of information instantly. Wearable technology provides information about our personal health direct to our phone, increasing our ability to manage our physical and mental health. Add access to Wifi and 4G across Leeds and you have almost unlimited potential. So how is the NHS taking advantage of this potential, where is Leeds and York Partnership NHS Trust and where do we want to be in the near future?”

Digital Citizens: The Leeds Ambitions to be 100% Digital

This event is hosted by Pete Nuckley, a Service Delivery Manager for the NHS Widening Digital Participation programme and Good Things Foundation

“Despite the assumption that we live in a super-connected and smart-phone obsessed society, it is still the case that many of us remain at the margins of the so-called digital revolution. As health and care services increasingly move online, what impact will digital exclusion have on the way people experience care? Who will benefit and who will be left behind?”

Last years’ Code In Dark event. Source

Twentysix Rules For Digital Survival In 2018

Twentysix are an award-winning full service digital marketing agency with offices around the globe.

“Hear from some of the best in the industry as they give you ‘twentysix rules to digital survival in 2018’. This interactive session will cover the full digital spectrum, from consumer insight and campaigns to web development and SEO. And from 1.30pm to 2.00pm the team will be bringing back their popular ‘digital clinic’, answering your questions on all things digital.”

Java4Women: A Presentation & Panel Discussion About Women In Tech

This event is chaired by Virtual Pair Programmers, providers of Java e-learning courses.

“Virtual Pair Programmers are excited to announce that Bita Jabbari will be joining us from Lexicon, Sweden on Monday 23rd at 6pm. Bita will be sharing with us how they successfully delivered a Swedish Government contract with TNG Digital to pilot a scheme aimed at getting more women into technology roles (Java4Women). She will discuss some of the challenges and lessons learned during the process.”

Why Does Digital Curation Matter? – Filtering The Noise On The Internet

This event is hosted by Global Digital Week, their goal is bring people together to make digital more accessible to all.

“Every day a staggering amount of data is uploaded to the internet. We are drowning in a sea of information. Never has digital curation mattered more. Join Ash, technology consultant and content curator, as he highlights the opportunities for digital curation careers and shares a tool for saving the content that matters to you.”

Code In The Dark

Epiphany are an award-winning, search-lead, digital marketing agency based in Leeds.

“Come down and support (or berate) our brave contestants as they take on this challenge. We’re welcoming a large audience of developers and non-developers alike to join in – you’ll be able to review the code and the design as it evolves in each heat, you’ll even know the outcome… but the contestants won’t.”

Founders Friday

This event is hosted by FutureLabs, a not-for-profit tech hub providing coworking, events and mentoring for Startups.

“Founders Friday is an open and informal tech, creative and digital networking for those running or thinking about setting up a tech company. The network is held on the last Friday of each month at Platform powered by Futurelabs.

This month we have George Pepper from ShiftMS, Matt Gaffney from Infinity Works and Zandra Moore from Panintelligence followed by networking with Leeds Digital Drinks.”

Know Thy Visitor – Understanding the Mindset of Your Social Visitors

Beacon (hey, that’s us!) is a website analytics engine built specifically to measure traffic from social.

“Our Technology Director Stewart, will be sharing some knowledge on how social media visitors differ from visitors who find your site from search and direct links. Our talk will be useful to agencies and marketing teams who want to measure website visitors from individual social posts, and gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of online marketing.”

The list doesn’t end there! There are two full weeks of back-to-back events, workshops, talks and seminars.