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According to a survey by Market Business News published on the 5th April 2018, the number of new tech companies launched in Scotland in 2017 was 77% up on the previous year. The UK average was 59% up on 2016.
http://marketbusinessnews.com/surge-tech-startups-uk-2017/176601/
This increase is explained by RSM and reported in Insider, as:
‘These figures show very clearly that despite the fears of a post-referendum slowdown, Scotland’s tech sector is growing at a healthy rate. There are a number of reasons for this. Scottish universities are playing a key role in developing and nurturing exceptional talent and we continue to attract the world’s brightest and best.’
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/technology-start-ups-scotland-surge-12304009
Other reasons have been reported here, such as:
Glasgow University aims to be UK’s second ‘5G technology demonstrator’
Aberdeen University makes ‘step-change’ advance in MRI scanning
‘University of Dundee is UK’s highest ranked institution for influencing innovation’
Reasons to be cheerful?
Talking-up Scotland 
If only the Ignorant Tory Gov realised its not Rich kids who possess all the Talent& Innovation, its a gov that encourages Talent wherever it is?Rich or poor??
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SCREAMINKIND,
Of course the Tories realise that the ability to be entrepreneurial and innovative is not restricted to their social class, but, through their policies and ‘selective’ procedures – grammar schools, for example – they seek to control the emergence of talent and seek to recruit the chosen few into the fringes of their class.
It is a dreadfully wasteful process and stifles the potential for widespread inventiveness within society, but, they are not greatly worried about society in general, only in the small section of society of which they are members and whom they represent.
In the years during and after The Second World War, many influential people, including Tories like RA Buter realised that for the economy to be developed to sustain them in their lifestyles they had to provide education and 1950/60s, many Tory politicians were as strongly in favour of comprehensives as Labour. Indeed, when attempts were made in parts of England to reintroduce selection in secondary education, the rebellion was often most effective in affluent, and generally, Tory voting areas.
The Tories are always trumpeting about the benefit of competition and the need to be able to survive in the harsh winds of international markets ….. but, competition is only for the rest of us.
Sociologists describe comprehensive schools as providing for what was called ‘contest (social) mobility’ – that is, that it would allow the smartest, the most able, The most talented, etc to ‘emerge’. Grammar schools (and private schools via scholarships) embody what is called ‘sponsored mobility’, that is, that some would be chosen (on the basis of ‘the Qualy’ in Scotland and ‘11Plus’ elsewhere) to benefit and to be removed from their social origins. Of course, the weans of the high head yins would automatically be selected, either for the grammar schools (by hook or, mostly, by crook) or just go into the private sector.
The latter represented a huge squandering of potential, which is why, to their credit, some Tories opposed selection and favoured a comprehensive system. Labour was more disposed to the comprehensives, but there was a significant tranche who preferred the selective system, but just wanted entry made a bit less biased against working class children. Many heid bummers in Labour sent their children to private schools, such as St Aloysius in Glasgow.
A large proportion of those who are responsible for the technological innovations referred to in the article, will be products of the comprehensive secondary education system in Scotland and of the fee-free University education system, as well as the flourishing FE sector, which many from less economically affluent backgrounds use as a route into HE or, directly into skilled employment.
The current Scottish Government programme to ‘close the attainment gap’ is a significant attempt to improve the life chances of all Scots and to facilitate a more creative society. They are right to focus on the early years, indeed, from birth, with the baby boxes, which is why the BBC has the Call Kaye programme try to kick the scheme to bits.
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Yes, absolutely true.
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This is precisely why the Scottish Govenment is setting up the Scottish National Investment Bank. There will, of coursw, be money spent on ideas that don’t come to fruition, and when that happens, our nay-sayers who have nothing else to offer, will squeal. But it is desperately needed because our banks are only intereste in making money from money, not from stuff, things or ideas
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