Wick Hill founder departs Nuvias and sets up STEM not-for-profit business

Ian Kilpatrick’s new venture is designed to encourage children into STEM subjects at an early age

Wick Hill founder Ian Kilpatrick has departed Nuvias and set up a new venture designed to encourage children into STEM careers.

Kilpatrick co-founded Wick Hill in 1978, with the firm going through a number of guises before eventually being sold to Rigby Group as a $150m-revenue cybersecurity VAD in 2015.

His new not-for-profit involves selling science workstations into primary schools to encourage investigative science and presents a strong business opportunity for channel partners, he added.

By his own admission Kilpatrick stumbled into the IT world, having previously run a financial management consultancy that counted a Saudi prince among its customers.

One of his assignments in the late seventies was to help a group of HP employees acquire a company so that they could develop complementary software for HP's minicomputer system, the HP 3000, which had just launched.

At this time there were only around 5,000 machines in the market, owned by large enterprises that would not trade with a brand-new company, Kilpatrick said.

The business went on to expand into other markets, including the likes of IBM and Unix, and went into distribution in the early 1980's and moved into Germany in the early 1990's through acquisition.

As the connectivity market started to decline Wick Hill pivoted to the cybersecurity space, which is what it was best known for over recent years.

Kilpatrick said that the firm has been able to expand its reach under the ownership of Rigby Group, which has seen it merge with Zycko, be renamed Nuvias and expand out of the two markets it played in (the UK and Germany) - which its vendors had been demanding.

He explained this is a key reason why Rigby was the right fit for the Wick Hill business.

"In many cases the vendors wanted us to give them pan-EMEA footprint but that wasn't a challenge I was particularly motivated by," he said.

"That has given us the opportunity to take the next step for the great team at Wick Hill; it just wasn't a step I wanted to take because it wasn't the right personal step for me.

"I've been very fortunate to have had a really enjoyable time and been surrounded by a great team of people."

Kilpatrick has now stepped away from his role at Nuvias but will stay connected to the cyber community through his consultancy business.

His next venture is designed to encourage young people into STEM careers, with a focus on primary schools and particularly getting more girls and minorities involved in science and engineering.

The business in called STEM Generations and will sell workstations (mobile labs) into primary and secondary schools to encourage adoption of STEM learning into curriculums, where Kilpatrick says where investigative science has lagged since it was removed from SATs in 2009

Kilpatrick has launched the business in partnership with Keith Atkins, an ex headmaster, Ofsted Inspector and government advisor, who designed the STEM workstations.

The firm currently has six employees and is looking to recruit further.

"There is a sharp need for science trained applicants in industry, and by definition in schools for more science but most schools don't have the facilities or the qualified staff - and there are 22,000 primary schools," Kilpatrick said. Currently we are failing our rising generations and our future staff!

"The STEM workstation can be rolled into the classroom and it has a Bunsen burner, electrical connectors, a sink, lab equipment and a teacher programme that goes with it.

"It's not high-tech science, but it's not supposed to be. We're trying to get schools to introduce investigative science into the curriculums so by the time children go into secondary schools they have already had exciting experiences in science."

The firm will also place emphasis on encouraging a more diverse range of students into STEM.

Kilpatrick has been a judge for the Women in Channel Awards it started in 2017 and noted that when nominees were asked what should be done to encourage more females in the IT industry, STEM involvement at a younger age was a common answer.

He added that there is a tangible business opportunity for channel partners.

"Partners can make 20-plus points," he said. "There's ongoing annuity revenue and at a channel development level, you take your message to your community via a positive route, and recruit more customers.

"You make money selling it, but also if you aspire to engage with your community your profile will rise; this is a great way of doing it.

"It has got good news written all over it."