Sheffield was recently taken over by directors, distributors, factual producers and documentary makers at Doc/Fest 2011! The annual film festival brought the international documentary family together to celebrate the art and business of documentary making for five intense days between the 8th and 11th June.

Doc/Fest is a film festival, industry session programme and market place, offering pitching opportunities, controversial discussion panels and in-depth filmmaker master classes, as well as a wealth of inspirational documentary films from across the globe. It is the only place in the world where you will meet sectors of the whole of the British documentary industry under one roof.

Sheffield Doc/Fest offers opportunities for experienced, debut and student filmmakers. Newcomers Day gives new filmmakers the opportunity to learn more about the industry and how to get involved. DocDay gives students the opportunity to meet up with mentors from across the documentary community to discuss their film projects. MeetMarket allows filmmakers the opportunity to pitch projects to commissioning editors, distributors, funders and other executives from the UK, Europe and the world.

RiPWiRE was asked to provide Superfast Digital Region Broadband to the event via wireless access to allow media to be streamed over the internet in to the Sheffield town hall. It will allow all taking part to Tweet, share information via blogs or social networking, and use the Internet in any way they see fit, as well as the presenters themselves benefitting from the superfast broadband connection.

For more information on Sheffield Doc/Fest 2011, visit the website – sheffdocfest.com!

Rotherham’s top entrepreneur is communications whiz kid Liam Winder.

The 27-year-old picked up the top prize at the Chamber Awards on Friday night for his forward-thinking high-tech communications business – which is the first company to have secured the rights to be the internet service provider for the South Yorkshire Digital Region super fast broadband network.

Based at the RiDO-run business centre Fusion @ Magna – Liam’s firm Ripwire is in the process of recruiting additional staff and his 20-month-old business boasts a string of impressive clients and services include wired and wireless broadband connectivity, Wi-Fi networks, cloud based computing services, mobility solutions and applications for the healthcare market.

The father-of-two from Thorpe Hesley, picked up the top prize from awards sponsor UK Steel Enterprise in front of the town’s top businessmen and women at a ceremony at the Rotherham Magna Centre.

Liam had already scooped the prize for the Best Business using IT, sponsored by Yorkshire Forward.

Ripwire provides services to businesses, consumers and public sector organisations.

Liam said: “I’m delighted to have my business recognised.  We’ve worked hard and come a long way in a short space of time.  Accolades like this help to make all the hard work worthwhile.”

www.ripwire.co.uk

Award organiser and Rotherham Investment & Development Office (RiDO) enterprise manager Geoff Link said: “Liam has shown that with skill and determination, young people can succeed at the highest level.

“Liam’s company Ripwire operates in a very competitive market but through hard work, innovation and genuine customer focus has established itself as a leading ISP in South Yorkshire .  That’s a lesson to us all.”

The Rotherham Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2010, sponsored by Rotherham Enterprise Network (REN) and UK Steel Enterprise, uncovered a wealth of talent again this year.

Other finalists included Sheffield Hallam University graduate Matthew Pennefather’s events management business Steel City Promotions – which picked up the Best New Start Up category; Bright spark Deborah Bailey’s lighting firm Aardvark Display Lighting which was named as the Business Most Determined to Succeed and social entrepreneurs Sam Oldroyd and John Leaver who won the award for the Best Established Business for their Kiveton-based not for profit community youth project Jade.

Runners up were legendary cheesecake maker Fiona Morgan, who set up Alexandra Buffet Co last year and Adam Tinsley, who’s Eastwood-based F1 Showcars mobile simulator business sprang from a purchase he made on Ebay.

The awards are part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

RiPWiRE has become the first ISP to sign an agreement to utilise the Digital Region Network in South Yorkshire. The agreement will see high speed next generation internet services from 40Mb to 100Mb brought to 1.2 million homes and 40,000 businesses in South Yorkshire.

SOUTH YORKSHIRE’S TRANSFORMATION CONTINUES APACE AS DIGITAL REGION ANNOUNCES BROADBAND SERVICE CONTRACTS
Business connectivity services now available over DRL’s super-fast next generation network, consumer and healthcare offerings to follow

Digital Region Ltd (DRL) and Thales UK today announced the first two contractual agreements with regional Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in South Yorkshire, in a move that represents an important milestone in the region’s digital transformation: the availability of end user fast broadband services to South Yorkshire’s business community.

Business telephony and video conferencing services are now available on DRL’s next-generation network, delivered by RiPWiRE and DRBSY Ltd. RiPWiRE already provides public sector services and plans to introduce consumer products very shortly.

“This is great news, and a significant step forward for the region’s digital presence,” comments David Holt, CEO, Digital Region Ltd.  “We’re extremely pleased that our first partner organisations are local to South Yorkshire and that they feel Digital Region can give them such a strong portfolio of services for both businesses and consumers. There has been tremendous interest in providing services over the network from South Yorkshire’s private sector. RiPWiRE, the first service provider to sign, is already an established service provider in the area and will introduce new services to capitalise on the opportunities the network offers. Despite being less than five months from when the core fibre optic ring went operational, the project is already creating jobs and opportunities for the region.”

The Digital Region network, built and managed by Thales UK, is designed to support a potential revolution in the delivery of wholesale broadband services to South Yorkshire, delivering consumer and businesses related services across the region together with enhancing social care, health and education services.  Thales UK, in partnership with DRL, commenced the construction works in 2009 and is scheduled to complete the building of the ‘fibre-to-the-street cabinet’ network to over 1500 locations across the entire region by 2012. In addition, Thales UK is responsible for operating the network and for developing and selling the wholesale services to service providers.

“We are delighted to be able to provide access to the Digital Region network for our existing and prospective new customers in South Yorkshire. Improving the quality and speed of their connectivity will enable them to take advantage of more of our cloud computing services and improve their business performance,” comments Liam Winder, Managing Director, RiPWiRE. “The Digital Region network will also enable more customers to take advantage of our applications that require high-quality bandwidth. We are particularly excited about the opportunities that this creates for both public and private customers in the healthcare sector.”

“As the network build continues we will see more and more service providers sign up to develop, trial and roll out services across a range of vertical markets,” adds Holt.  “The next few months will be very exciting for us and for South Yorkshire in general.”

The Digital Region project will bring continuous 25mb+ broadband to over 97% of the region, including 550,000 homes and 1.3 million people. The project is financed by European, regional, local and private investment of over £90 million, including £30 million from the European Regional Development Fund

RiPWiRE is pleased to announce the launch of its own MVNO platform – RiPWiRE Mobile. The platform uses the 3 (Three) network to deliver voice and 3G data solutions. The introduction of these services is a response to the growing number of students and independent business travellers coming to the UK that are in need of voice services at reasonable rates and also the ability to access the Internet.

“This deal will allow us to provide affordable mobile solutions for travellers to this country that are unable to obtain a PAYU SIM card due to having no credit history in the UK despite having strong ratings in their home country. RiPWiRE has recognised and responded to this issue and are happy to report that we secured our first major deal that will see 20,000 new users on our network in 2010” reports RiPWiRE MD Liam Winder.

As well as providing services to end users RiPWiRE also intend to use 3G connectivity to open up new opportunities in M2M (Machine to Machine) and mobile data including tracking technologies.

RiPWiRE’s MD Liam Winder discusses the impact of wireless with HRH Princess Anne on her recent visit to Rotherham.

During her recent visit to Rotherham HRH Princess Anne met with RiPWiRE at the official opening of their office building Fusion@Magna where Liam Winder got the chance to discuss the impact of wireless technologies on the country’s communications infrastructure. HRH was very familiar with radio spectrum and the two discussed at length the role that wireless will play in the future of our communications industry. HRH also praised RiPWiRE for their success despite the current economic climate.

“Princess Anne had a great understanding of wireless technologies and the communications industry in general; it was a very welcomed opportunity to meet Princess Anne and a real compliment that she understood our business so well”