Visitors and residents will find themselves immersed in tomorrow’s world of technology during the 10th annual Malvern Festival of Innovation.
The festival takes place from October 4 to 10 in Great Malvern, Worcestershire, and delves into all aspects of innovation from science to space and cyber security with a series of events and talks from national and international experts.
The festival includes the ‘Next Generation Innovators’ schools’ day, which already has 600 pupils registered and will highlight the importance of science, technology, engineering and maths in the modern curriculum.
The event will also encourage engineering and technology businesses to flourish by interacting with the community. It will drive creativity in business and enterprise through networking activities and opportunities for local collaboration.
A science and technology comedy night is expected to be a sell-out show, alongside the Family Day, which features the ever-popular interactive exhibits.
Around 2,000 people are expected to attend the festival over the week-long calendar of educational and entertaining events.
Dr Adrian Burden, founder of the event, said: “The festival will bring visitors to Great Malvern to not only enjoy the events but to savour all the wonderful attractions that the town and the hills have to offer. The events will also enthuse local school students and their families about STEM careers and attract regional businesses to showcase their innovative products and services.
“Our short-term aim is to have a buzzing series of events that are interesting, engaging, and informative. Longer-term, we try to measure impact where we hear that people have won contracts, formed collaborations, changed their career plans, or even relocated to Great Malvern because they were influenced by the festival.”
Visitors will be attracted from across the Midlands and beyond and rail travel is encouraged as all the venues are within easy reach of Great Malvern railway station, which is known as the ‘Innovation Station’ for the duration of the festival.
The Malvern Festival of Innovation is managed by social enterprise Innovate Malvern, which is one of the 21 community projects to secure funding through West Midlands Railway’s Your Community, Your Fund grant.
Fay Easton, head of stakeholder and community at West Midlands Railway, said: “The fund was designed to bring life to community projects that would benefit rail customers and enhance local communities. There are 21 projects under way, all benefiting from this funding and the stories are all available on the website.
“We are proud to support this festival in its 10th year and hope that the outstanding calendar of events will attract people from all over the Midlands. We would encourage anyone with an interest in science and technology to make a stop at the ‘Innovation Station’.”
For more information about the 21 Stories project, visit www.21stories.co.uk, and for details about the Malvern Festival of Innovation, visit www.festival-innovation.com
