UK: Professional services group EY has agreed to host the HackTrain railway technology start-up business accelerator at its offices near London Bridge station, EY Infrastructure Leader Malcolm Bairstow announced at the HackTrain 2016 conference in London on June 1.
HackTrain will relocate to EY’s Open Innovation Hub from its current home near Old Street in London. The agreement runs for six months from the start of June, at which point HackTrain will move to be hosted by the Department for Transport for a further 18 months.
This is the first time that EY has hosted start-ups at its offices, and it hopes there will be two-way benefits from the arrangement. It will provide the rail tech companies with business experience and advice as well as introductions to rail industry customers, and hopes in turn to benefit from being close to innovative technology companies and their culture.
- HackTrain is looking to expand its programme of hackathons and rail technology development hubs outside the UK, with a launch outside Europe to be announced this summer.
