A Message from Turing Fest CEO Brian Corcoran

Thursday, December 19th 2024

Two weeks from now, our little rock will have gone around the sun one more time and the New Year will have kicked off. Before that, some down time. I don’t know about you, but I am definitely ready for a break.

I have two young kids, 8 & 5, so my wife and I are fortunate enough to be able to do the whole “magic of Xmas” thing and it really is wonderfully energising. One amazing quality that kids have is the ability to live in the now, to be really present for every moment of their lives.

I could learn a lot from them!

For now, though; a little about the past, a little about the future.

Looking back at this year, our Founders Dinners series continued with dinners in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London. We normally have around 20 founders, plus two guest speakers: great fun, open sharing, inspiring stories, valuable connections. Guest speakers included Jake Jurewicz (Blue Energy; energy tech); Danae Shell (Valla; law tech); Keith Bradbury (Ember; transport tech); and Laura McGinnis (Principal at Balderton Capital).

In July, it was Turing Fest time again. 1,000 delightful tech leaders joined us in Edinburgh for a tremendous couple of days of presentations, conversations, deep learning, and of course fun! Personal highlights were eye-opening talks from Colin Burns (Apple), Emma Stratton (Punchy), Andrey Vinitsky (Graphy), and Finbarr Taylor (Shogun). As well as our now-traditional tracks of Build, Grow, and Lead, we successfully trialled a new Invest track with around 40 VCs from Seedcamp, Accel, Moonfire, Playfair, MMC, and others attending.

In November, we spun up a new event – a one-day growth summit called Turing x SYSTM, with our friends Matt Lerner & Nopadon at startup growth accelerator SYSTM. As well as seven keynotes from tremendous speakers like Sean Ellis (the Growth Hacking OG) and Joanna Wiebe (Copyhackers founder), we had deep dive roundtables with 11 growth experts from companies like Zoe, Prolific, & Airbnb. We decided to do it as a small event to test the waters a little – and it was a huge success! Of the 200 attendees, 96% told us they want to come again next time.

Looking forward to 2025, there is plenty to be excited about (I am!!).

Exclusive News incoming…

Founders Dinners kick off again in February in Edinburgh and London, and in my home town of Dublin in March, alongside our friends at Baseline. We’ll do at least six dinners – two each in Edinburgh, London, and Dublin – and maybe somewhere else if one of you wants to persuade us?!

If you want to join us, apply to the network here.

Turing Fest is back for the 10th anniversary edition. We’ve moved it forward a couple of months to May, to avoid the sweltering Scottish summer heat . We’ll have 1,200 founders, investors, product leaders, and growth leaders coming together, with an increased focus this year on connecting delegates to each other for both curated deep dive round table conversations led by industry experts, and for more 1:1 networking. The on-stage content will be as stellar as always, but the connections will be even better. Tons of side events too, of course, in perhaps northern Europe’s most beautiful city.

Super Early Bird tickets available here until 5pm today!

I told you that 96% of people who came to our growth summit asked us to do it again – well, of course, we want to give the people what they want! An expanded – but still intimate – growth summit will be back in London in October.

That’s all from me. On behalf of myself, Tannya, and the rest of the (smaller than you think!) Turing Fest team, have a great Xmas and New Year.

I hope to see many of you in 2025!

Brian Corcoran
CEO
Turing Fest