A visionary tourism champion who has spearheaded innovation of The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo has been unveiled as the keynote speaker at The Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards 2017.

Brigadier David Allfrey MBE will give delegates a flavour of the exciting developments and innovations the globally renowned military spectacular has adopted – including technology, design, taking the event overseas for the third time in its 66 year history, and growing its international event business.

The Tattoo has a programme of innovation as part of its growth strategy – it has been a sell out for the past 18 years at the Edinburgh Castle Esplanade, and reached out to its overseas audiences in 2016 when it was taken to Australia and New Zealand, with ambitions to stage further events in the Gulf and China over the next four years.

Collaborating with leading Scottish academics, the Tattoo organisers explored available and future technologies, such as real time digital augmented reality and how these could be adopted to the spatial requirements of temporary outdoor venues, such as the Castle Esplanade and equivalent venues throughout the world. The overall aim was to further enhance the audience experience at this prestigious and world renowned event.

The Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards promote and celebrate knowledge exchange in Scotland encouraging more businesses to consider Scotland’s universities and research institutions as a service provider to stimulate innovation and further positioning Scotland as a CAN DO nation.

A panel session on working in partnership with academic expertise will see previous award winners share their experiences.

Delegates will be able to choose from a selection of innovation sessions led by businesses which have worked with Interface to connect to university or research institutions and take part in a question and answer session.

Mr Paul Wheelhouse, MSP, Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy, will give an address before presenting the awards in five categories:

Innovation of the Year Award, for an innovative product, process or service that has been developed with a university or research institution;

Building Skills through Knowledge Exchange – recognising Postgraduate students or Knowledge Transfer Partnership [KTP] Associates who have worked within a business on a specific project to increase innovation within the company;

Sustained Partnership – for a partnership that has demonstrated long term benefits to both the business and the academic teams;

Multi-Party Collaboration – recognising groups and consortia across all industry sectors that demonstrate innovation and impact through working together while also having a significant benefit for each individual party;

Outstanding Contribution to Knowledge Exchange – recognises an individual who has played a pivotal role in knowledge exchange in Scotland.

This year’s event will take place on Tuesday 21^st February 2017 at Royal Bank of Scotland Gogarburn, Edinburgh, from 10.30am – 5pm.