Hightop Hub

21/10/2026

Meet the speakers at TechTides Youth 2026 ✨

Introducing Precious Obasohan, founder of SHE Health, women’s health advocate and biochemistry graduate from Queen's University Belfast.

Through SHE Health, Precious is making women’s health information and resources more accessible, online and in person. She also founded the SHE Women’s Health Forum 2026 at Stormont, bringing together policymakers, healthcare professionals and advocates to advance women’s health policy.

At TechTides Youth, Precious will share how she got started, what it takes to build a movement and what’s next for SHE Health.

📅 Monday 23 November 2026
🕙 10am to 2pm
📍 Foyle Theatre, Foyle Building, North West Regional College

Register to attend 👉 www.hightophub.com/apply-today

20/10/2026

Calling all 16-21 year olds in Derry~Londonderry, Strabane District, Limavady and Donegal. TechTides Youth is at North West Regional College on Mon 23 Nov 2026. You are invited to attend and compete to win up to £2,500 of cash prizes. For more info please click on https://techtides-youth-event.vercel.app/ and register at https://luma.com/1i67tp4t North West Regional College TechTides The AMP Growth Incubator

16/10/2026

Got a problem worth fixing? 💡

The Tech for Good Competition is inviting 16 to 21 year olds across the North West to take an issue that matters to them and explore how technology could help solve it.

You do not need a finished product or any coding experience. To enter, simply submit four short answers and a 90 second video explaining your idea. A phone camera is all you need, and you can enter individually or as part of a team.

🏆 £2,500 in prizes, sponsored by North West Regional College (NWRC) West Regional College, with £1,500 for the winner and £500 each for two runners up.

Finalists will be selected from the video entries and invited to answer a few questions on stage at TechTides Youth.

👉 Entries close at 4pm on Thursday 12 November 2026.

Find out more info and apply, visit www.hightophub.com/apply-today

15/10/2026

TechTides Youth is BACK! 💫

Bringing young people from across Derry, Strabane and Limavady together for a day of technology, innovation and entrepreneurship! Designed and hosted by young people, the event will feature inspiring speakers, exciting technology, fresh ideas and opportunities to explore careers in tech.

📅 Monday 23 November

⏰ 10am to 2pm

📍 Foyle Theatre, Foyle Building, North West Regional College (NWRC)

There are two ways to get involved.

👉 Come along: Join us for a day of inspiring speakers, exciting technology and opportunities to explore careers in tech.

💡 Have an idea? Enter the Tech for Good Competition and show us how you would use technology to tackle a problem that matters.

To learn more, visit www.hightophub.com/apply-today

29/09/2026

Hightop Founder Jennifer Neff will be chairing the Innovation Spotlight at on Wednesday 7 October, bringing together five Northern Ireland innovators developing solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing health and social care.

From improving access to care and supporting addiction recovery to advancing cancer detection and research, the session will showcase innovation being developed here in Northern Ireland for use locally and across the world.

Joining Jennifer will be:

🤝 Karen McCormick, inCharge Ltd: a lived experience-inspired digital innovation helping people, families and support teams coordinate person-centred care.

💊 Stephen Toland, ConsultTed: taking pressure off GPs by helping community pharmacies triage and treat everyday illness.

🧠 Daithi Conlon, MindTrack 360: VR support for addiction recovery, wellbeing and behaviour change.

🔬 Sean Macfarlane, Biomarx: cost effective, scalable liquid biopsy for early lung cancer detection.

🧬 Catherine K. and Michael Conwell, LifeCellsNI: building NI's own cell and tissue storage, so advanced therapy research can happen here.

Each innovator will have five minutes to demonstrate the value of their solution to health and social care and share a specific ask with the audience.

Stay tuned as we introduce each of the five innovators and their work over the coming week.

If you're a clinician, commissioner, patient, Trust lead, researcher, community and voluntary sector leader, or work in procurement or social care, this is a session worth attending. Grab some lunch, bring a colleague, share your insights and make connections that could help drive innovation forward.

📅 Wednesday 7 October 2026
🕐 1pm
📍 Riverview 1, La Mon Hotel & Country Club

Thank you to Heather Moorhead, Lorraine Acheson and the NICON team for making this a priority, and to The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) for sponsoring the session.

24/09/2026

Loved watching these students test what they’d built at MIT on a sunny day in September. They even get a round of applause

12/07/2026

Lots going on this summer in the NW for all ages thanks to Kippie - check it out

07/07/2026

EVENT FOR 7-12 YEAR OLDS ON WED 08 JULY @ North West Regional College SPRINGTOWN CAMPUS

Rockets, robots, and bridges 🚀🤖🌉

Joanne Sweeney and the team at GEMX North West are bringing local engineering companies together with the next generation for a day of hands-on STEM.

Young people will get stuck into:
🚀 Launching a rocket
🌉 Building a bridge
🤖 Coding a robot
..plus loads more interactive STEM stations, all facilitated by some brilliant local companies.

This is what happens when local companies open their doors and let young people get hands-on with real engineering.

29/03/2026

29/03/2026

30 young people aged 16-25 from across the region were given the space, tools and support to build solutions that matter to them and guess what? They weren't all tech or business studies students.

They're into art, gaming, sport, music, social activism, media etc. Some of them also work and see the problems in the areas they work in.

They care about their communities, people, places, their futures and they have ideas and solutions.

They built fully working prototypes using AI tools. This is tech for good and responsible building:

🚀 A better way to ensure students get their first choice for A level subjects.
💚 A solution that ensures better mental health and wellbeing for teachers and teaching assistants.
🌟 A student led movement that keeps the learning environment alive and thriving when teachers are off sick.
🎇 Ways to connect artists and paying customers for a stronger creative industries sector.
🎥 An easier way to find the crew you need for productions so that young people get practical experience and paid work.
🟥 Gaming tools designed by young gamers for the gaming community.
🌎 A solution that clears the barriers to employment in gaming by creating informed pathways into skills development, experience and paid employment.
🏅 An injury management solution that ensures young people can still train safely for their sports through customised training programmes and nutrition plans.
⚡A cross-trade platform that enables better planning and workplan scheduling across all relevant trades on the job.
👯 Tackling social isolation in young people by collating live feeds on the things you can do in the region into one place and calling for specific things that young people want.
📰 Better information around media content, from whom and from what angle and a solution to track what politicians say they're going to do in their manifestos and what they actually do.

This wouldn't be possible without:
The young people themselves- thanks for having the confidence to turn up
Thanks to you all for sharing the posts and news about the Build Day
Ava McGurk & Lucy Daly for hosting and driving the whole design and flow of the day
Claire Halliday (Illuminate Labs) Aoife Heaney Eimear Kerlin (The AMP Growth Incubator) the powerhouses that sourced and provided the space, tech, food, swag, prizes that created the best environment to build
Our volunteers who supported, challenged and inspired the teams on the day Shaughan Dowds Katherine Rowlandson Declan McDonough doherty Patrick Curran Stephen McCrudden Carolyn Perkins MRCVS

We'll showcase and celebrate this, AND MORE, at TechTides in the autumn!

Thank you to our incredible partners - Patch Illuminate Labs The AMP Growth Incubator KIPPIE C.I.C. Pebble (PBL) LTD Young Social Innovators TechTides