GLASGOW entrepreneur Andrew Duncan has hailed his invitation to speak at a major Silicon Valley conference on app development as evidence of Scotland's growing global reputation as a location for developing cutting-edge mobile and web technology, writes Ian McConnell.
Mr Duncan, who founded Glasgow-based SwarmOnline six years ago, will be talking to an estimated 700-strong audience at the SenchaCon event in San Francisco this week about how they can improve the performance and stability of the apps they build for their clients.
The 28-year-old entrepreneur said: "It is actually quite humbling to know that our expertise is in demand even in a place like Silicon Valley, where they're not exactly short of technical know-how. We have been working with major companies including E.ON, Veripos, ScottishPower and Vodafone, and that is why we have shot to international prominence."
And the head of ScotlandIS, the trade body for the digital technology industry north of the Border, welcomed Mr Duncan's latest speaking engagement.
Scotland IS chief executive Polly Purvis said: "ScotlandIS is delighted that Andrew has...been asked to speak at the prestigious SenchaCon event. SwarmOnline is a fast-growing company with a blue-chip customer base and a dedicated team, representing all that is great about the industry in Scotland."
SwarmOnline, which specialises in mobile and web technologies and is based at Pacific Quay, said its recent growth had been rapid.
It noted that, just 18 months ago, it had been Mr Duncan plus one other person, working from the entrepreneur's home. The company now had 10 full-time staff and was set to hit its turnover target of £1million this financial year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.Â
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.Â
That is invaluable.Â
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article