FROM THE INDUSTRY
And you’re keeping people in the area instead of taking on debt at university elsewhere. The impact of all this has been surprisingly rewarding. We found that subsequently other Cornish companies who are in a similar boat are also starting to think, right, we need engineers, we need to grow them ourselves. Cornwall could eventually end up being one of those places where good engineers come from. Is there anything left you want to achieve with Wildanet? I’ve got a long list, and we are not done yet by any stretch of the imagination! I would like to leave us in a situation where we’ve got a really top-grade network that lasts for 40 years. I like to focus on doing one thing at a time well. Once we finish Cornwall, we’d like to consider extending our Devon network. I think the Tamar is ready for us to cross! Other than geography, what else are you looking at? We’ve been helping people recycle kit back into the community under our Kit24 scheme. We pick unwanted business IT kit up from businesses, recondition it with our partners including The Good Things Foundation, strip it and send it back to the
people who need it. Most IT departments have cupboards full of stuff; in the UK we’re one of the largest producers of this type of waste in the world. We are also passionate about digital confidence, which is not so much about skills as it is about how you feel about using technology. When we’re talking to customers, often they admit they are a little bit nervous, and it’s normally around things like safety and parental controls. “Should I turn it off at night? How does it work?” There are different levels of understanding. It isn’t age or education specific. People lack confidence in digital and I think increasingly that could hold us back as a country. How does confidence stop us all using this technology? Because people talk, for instance about AI or quantum telecommunications, these are big things, but if people aren’t confident using them, don’t understand them, they aren’t going to take off. People don’t know what they don’t know until you show them the way. Education and confidence take people to new heights and the sky really is the limit.
infrastructure we cannot always rely on it. In Wadebridge we had to pump out three swimming pools of water before we could do anything, because it’s below the water table, that’s the sort of challenge we face daily. If we didn’t have Project Gigabit behind us, Cornwall’s broadband would never get built. You’d be talking about a smattering of small towns and nothing else. It allows us to do other good things on the back of that, all the good elements of the B Corp. So, there is a virtuous circle around that provision. Cornwall should be transformed in terms of connectivity, and it’ll last at least 30 to 40 years. That’s a good reason to get out of bed in the morning, isn’t it? You have a lot to be proud of! How many homes are now passed in Cornwall? At the moment we are 50% through Project Gigabit on the two type As, and we started building our type B in November alongside delivering our commercial build plan at the same time. Are there any places that you just can’t get to in Cornwall - PLACES THAT need Starlink for example? There is a tiny handful; normally the challenges are human - accessing the land, for example. In a minority of areas and there are lots of different technologies you can use at the edges. This is where wireless or satellite technologies can have a part to play. Tell us about your training academy and your apprenticeship. Our cohort of young apprentices are doing really well. There is a certain joy about a young open mind that wants to learn, wants to be the best they can be. They’ve got their whole career ahead of them. Doing something positive to help them get that first step on the ladder really matters. We have had some older apprentices too, who are going back to work and want to be re-educated. We are supported by Truro and Penwith College in Bodmin who manage the programme for us, who leave me speechless at the quality work they do.
https://wildanet.com/
DECEMBER 2024 Volume 46 No.4
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