The North-East is rapidly becoming a hotbed for leading edge technology businesses. Howard Walker finds out more.
 While few would claim that the North-East was another Silicon Valley, there is a raft of developments pointing towards a very bright future for the region in the technology sphere. Starting with the biggest first, the North-East is home to the only technology company left in the FTSE 100 Index of Britain's biggest companies. Business management software specialist Sage recently moved to a state-of-the-art £60m global headquarters at Newcastle Great Park and has seen its impressive growth speed up still further. The company broke the £100m barrier for half-yearly profits in May as its earnings grew by an impressive 16pc. Sage now provides software to 4.5million businesses across the world, with operations ranging from the USA to South Africa. Another of the North-East's leading technology plcs is Durham-based Bede, which makes X-ray devices to measure microchips. The company, which was founded in 1978 by a group of scientists from Durham University, has a clear lead on its competitors in the market to detect defects in the incredibly small parts now used to make microchips for PCs, mobile phones and other electronic equipment. The market for Bede's technology is estimated to be worth up to $1bn in the next three years and the company is confident that it can continue leading the pack in its chosen field. North-East technology is so advanced that it has been used in a Hollywood film set in the future. Fingerprint door entry devices made by Gateshead-based UK Biometrics featured in the Will Smith science fiction film I, Robot but the technology is very much here today. UK Biometrics has refined its systems to develop new "second generation" devices which can be programmed to activate house alarms and open garage doors as well as lock and unlock front doors. It is looking to crack the business market with the launch of a "biometric office" where staff fingerprints can control ICT access, attendance records, physical access to areas in the office, overall building security and alarms. And its fingerprint recognition technology is now being used in Newcastle nightclubs to crack down on under-age drinkers. The quiet Northumberland town of Rothbury may not seem like a hub of hi-tech activity, but it is home to one of the most innovative companies in the medical technology field. UK Haptics has developed a lifelike virtual hand, complete with 3D veins, which allows trainee nurses to practice canalisation - inserting a needle into a patient's hand to allow drips and injections to be administered. The virtual reality system behaves just as though the user was inserting a real syringe, giving highly-sensitive force feedback. It is already in operation at Northumbria University and UK Haptics has received other enquiries about the system from around the world. Newcastle has also become internationally renowned for its pioneering work on stem cell technology, carried out by scientists at the city's Centre for Life. In May, the researchers, led by Professor Alison Murdoch and Dr Miodrag Stojkovic, announced they had made an historic breakthrough in medical research by successfully cloning a human embryo. The team eventually hopes the science will help lead to cures for diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's Disease. Underpinning a lot of the science and technology developments in the region are the centres of excellence set up by regional development agency, One NorthEast. They form the centrepiece of a £200m plan to spin out and commercialise research undertaken in the region's universities and foster knowledge-based businesses in five areas - digital technology, new and renewable energy, life sciences, process industries and nanotechnology. The centres have already chalked up a number of successes, including securing private sector finance for a host of companies in their fields, and there are plans for a range of new facilities to be built in the North-East to further their development, including a research and manufacturing unit for solar power cells in Blyth, Northumberland and a flexible electronics facility at Wilton on Teesside. | 
100 Great Reasons...
Brian Aitken, Editor, The Journal
