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AI is the defining technology of our times. It’s augmenting human ingenuity and helping us solve some of society’s most pressing challenges.
02Our story
HUBIQ’s story is shorter than it has felt, and simpler than we expected: three questions we keep coming back to.
Colin Earp, Founder
01 Situation · 2023–24
Could AI help one person with a good idea compete with the titans of their industry?
Understanding a problem deeply may be worth more than the biggest team or budget. That was where HUBIQ started.
Video · Unlocking the potential of AI
Whenever we develop a new medium, we tend to fall back into our old habits…
02 Situation · 2024–25
With so many UK digital start-ups failing, how do we improve an innovator’s odds, from first signal to a business that scales?
Eighteen months of research into innovation and AI became our 5Di framework, the backbone of how we work.
Video · The importance of first followers
Here’s the first follower with a crucial role, he’s going to show everyone else how to follow
03 Situation · 2025–26
What would it take to build a community of like-minded people that keeps compounding value?
A shared hub where each initiative benefits from what came before and adds to what follows, built on People, Purpose and Profit.
Video · The power of collaboration
A little island of cooperation can emerge and spread… and eventually take over
01 The impact of AI on the individual
If digital disruption is rewriting the rule book on commercial success, could AI really help individuals compete with the titans of industry if their idea was good enough?
After years as a global partner in infrastructure innovation, I left consulting to immerse myself in the then relatively nascent world of AI and explore what happened when the capabilities once reserved for large organisations became accessible to people with practical experience and a different perspective.
The idea that understanding a problem deeply might be more valuable than having the biggest development team or the largest budget was the starting point for HUBIQ.
02 How to defy the innovation odds
With the failure rate of UK digital start-ups so high, how do we improve the chances of success for innovators, from the first signal of an idea to a business they could scale?
More accessible technology does not, on its own, make an idea successful. We needed a way to help innovators to identify genuine needs, test their assumptions, build useful solutions and establish a commercial foundation, that combined industry insight, digital capabilities and experienced support.
An 18 month research project to gather as much information and data on innovation for AI to help synthesise into our 5D Innovation Methodology: the backbone of our approach.
03 Building a collaborative community
What would it take to build a community of like-minded people who could not only bring this vision to life but be a flywheel that would continue to deliver compounding value?
For us, the opportunity became about how digital delivery connects people whose experience, capabilities and ambitions complement one another. A shared hub of capabilities, available across a community, each initiative benefitting from what came before and contributing to those that follow.
Central to the Hub is a belief that People, Purpose and Profit helps us build worthwhile businesses, that share in their success and achieve more together than we could alone.
03
We are a purpose built, people powered collaboration network that helps “everyday entrepreneurs” to develop simple solutions to real world problems, working in partnership with deeply experienced, industry relevant individuals to leverage disruptive digital capabilities.
But… it is our goal to make the development of exponential innovation, accessing relevant insight from world class experience, available and affordable for all.
Disruptive innovation is not a breakthrough that makes good products better. It’s a process that makes things simpler, more affordable, and accessible to many.
04Different by design
People bring the power. Purpose means it matters. Profit makes it last.
In partnership with our people and their passions
A connected community
We work in partnership, aligning passions, where a connected culture lets us build relationships that cross traditional contractual boundaries.
More on people ↓In service of a better world
A sustainable business
Commercial success and positive impact are not mutually exclusive. Profit attracts the finance and funding that fuels growth, and growth sustains the ability to keep adding value.
More on purpose ↓Not just to survive, but to thrive
Shared success
To attract the right people as everyday entrepreneurs, the experience has to be professionally inspiring, personally enriching and financially rewarding.
More on profit ↓05Bonus level
It’s not rocket science: our success depends on attracting the right people to our business. But we believe that by getting the mix of people, purpose and profit right we unlock a truly differentiating business bonus level:
Although passion might be intangible, its effect is very real. It is the momentum that keeps the “innovation flywheel” turning long after the business need has been met. It’s what turns good into great… fun!
A flywheel in three parts. People produce profit, profit funds purpose, and purpose ignites people. At its centre: passion unlocks potential, through inspiration, insight, ideas, innovation and ingenuity.
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The passions that underpin our business.
Digital could level the playing field. Too often it serves corporate interests instead, and leaves people behind.
We build for real-life challenges: helping an ageing population online, opening up affordable legal support, bringing education to underserved communities. People first, so technology works for everyone.
Business has long favoured competition over collaboration, and customers pay for the waste. The future belongs to those who collaborate.
Small businesses can act like multinationals when they work together. That is what the Hub is for: shared platforms, shared partners and cooperation in place of rivalry.
Climate change is the challenge of our generation, and innovation holds the key to real change.
We back solutions that cut waste and energy use, from building energy efficiency, where ATOMIQ works, to circular economies and renewables. Sustainability is designed in, so progress never costs the planet.
The biggest barrier to generosity isn't cost; it's inertia.
If technology can make giving effortless, why not build it into the way we live and work? Donation prompts, resource sharing, partnerships that amplify impact: small acts, done by many, create waves of change.
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In partnership with our people and their passions
Core
Spent a career turning services into businesses, mostly in places where the technology was the easy part. Started HUBIQ to do it repeatedly rather than one at a time.
Core
Twenty years of design leadership across regulated and consumer markets. Responsible for how an initiative feels to the person using it, and for the experience architecture that makes it hold.
Core
Runs the operating side of the portfolio: how initiatives are stood up, staffed and governed, and how an initiative gets from a gate decision to something people can actually work in.
Core
Most recently Director of Learning and Organisational Development at Mitie, Carl has over twenty-five years’ experience in the Facilities Management and Construction sectors in FTSE 250 organisations. Expert in all aspects of human dynamics management, change, business integration and organisational development. Carl has strengths in senior level stakeholder engagement, cross divisional project management and is able to plot the way through complex challenges with a focus on actionable plans for change. He is a Chartered Member of the CIPD and Fellow of the RSA.
Founder
Lawrence is an experienced business professional with a strong background in property, consultancy and entrepreneurial ventures. He works as a Consultant for Queens House London and is a Partner at TENANTIQ, bringing a commercial, strategic and relationship-led approach to his work. Lawrence is passionate about identifying opportunities, developing innovative propositions and building successful business partnerships. With a focus on creating long-term value, he combines commercial insight with a practical, forward-thinking mindset to help businesses grow and realise their potential.
Advisor
Pedro is a Senior Associate at E3G, where he established and led the Place-Based Transitions programme, advancing a coordinated, ambitious and fair approach to clean heat, cooling and energy efficiency investment. He has worked closely with the Clean Cooling Collaborative and the Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group, and advised the Electrify Heat, Better without Boilers and Clean Heat Forum initiatives. Previously Research Director at the Association for the Conservation of Energy, he holds degrees from Imperial College London and the LSE.
Advisory board
Terry is a Solicitor with over 45 years’ experience as a Construction, Development and Commercial lawyer in-house with major construction and development companies and in private practice as a Partner Consultant with leading City and International law firms. Terry has advised clients on major projects and transactions in the UK and internationally. He has practised in London, in the UAE and in the KSA. As an advisory board member, Terry brings a wealth of pragmatic business experience.
Advisory board
John is a qualified Chartered Quantity Surveyor with fifty years’ experience working on major and landmark projects across all sectors both in the UK and overseas. The projects involved a wide variety of public and private sector clients and working as part of major bid teams for competitions with consortia. He has also worked on various overseas projects as part of a consortium including hospitals and schools in Nigeria, and commercial projects in Poland and Romania, together with retail projects for overseas clients. John also worked in-house for Burton Group/Debenhams, and IBM Real Estate, selecting Architects and Designers for a variety of projects throughout the UK.
08
We believe that commercial success and positive impact are not mutually exclusive: profit attracts the finance and funding which fuels our growth and a continued ability to add value.
Profit should be the applause for doing the right thing well.
01
We are building a community where staff, contractors, suppliers, associates and clients work in partnership to align agendas for the optimum outcome.
We believe that by promoting a truly collaborative culture based on a common innovation language we can build trust and foster relationships that cross commercial boundaries.
02
Finally, when we think differently about how we use the new leverage digital disruption now gives us, we can break outdated commercial conditions and deliver value in different ways, because of the different ways we can get paid.
09Getting involved
First and foremost this is a community. Staff, contractors, partners, suppliers and clients, collaborating for shared success. It works because people join in, so there is more than one way through the door.
You know a market and the problems in it, and you want to run something rather than advise on it. Several initiatives are waiting on exactly this. You do not need a technical background: that is what the hub is for.
Senior sector and initiative people, lending experience across the lifecycle. Deep enough to be useful, light enough to fit around whatever else you do.
Invest in the hub, or in a single initiative within it. Commercial success and positive impact are treated as the same job, not competing ones.
Technology, delivery and market partners. We integrate, orchestrate and govern rather than build everything ourselves, so the right partner matters.
