Welcome to the September 2025 edition of Vikela’s monthly technology & business development newsletter. This past month has been packed with exciting developments—from new partnerships and industry engagement to product milestones and community highlights. As we continue building momentum into Q4, we’re thrilled to share what we’ve been up to.
We hope you enjoy this month’s updates and, as always, thank you for being part of the Vikela journey! 🚀
SME Entrepreneurship Co-Design Group
Our founder Peter Gilleece attending the first meeting of the SME Entrepreneurship Co-Design Group today at Invest Northern Ireland’s Belfast HQ as co-chair.
Alongside Georgina Grieve (The Workspace Group) and with support from the Department for the Economy NI, they brought together voices from government, academia, finance, and business support to shape the future of entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland.
Entrepreneurship is a key driver of growth. Their focus now is to map the ecosystem and propose practical actions for a new SME Entrepreneurship Action Plan—so founders can start, scale, and succeed here at home.
Action Coach NI Growth Club
We had a fantastic day attending a Growth Club day with ActionCOACHNI at The Merchant Hotel. Stepping back to look at our 90-day plan for Q4 gave us clear priorities on production scaling and new product development.
Guest speaker Rob also shared practical insights on AI—real use cases we can start applying now to improve content, customer insight, and decision-making. It was a useful reminder that AI is a tool for today, not tomorrow.
From here, we’re focusing on simple disciplines: weekly priorities, fast feedback and protected time for deep work. We head into Q4 aligned, energised, and accountable. 🚀
DESI London
We recently attended DSEI London, and it proved an invaluable few days of engagement and insight. Being on the ground allowed us to meet face-to-face with key stakeholders, customers, partners, and suppliers, to align on priorities, share progress, and explore where we can collaborate more effectively across upcoming programmes.
Across the exhibition halls, the theme was clear: defence innovation is accelerating. Our takeaway is the opportunities to deliver better outcomes faster have never been greater. Over the coming weeks we’ll be following up with partners on refining our roadmap to leverage technology, prioritising solutions that enhance readiness and resilience for our end users.
In Other News
DSEI UK Private Reception
Last month, we were thrilled to attend Pillsbury’s DSEI UK Private Reception, co-hosted with HSBC Innovation Banking. We had great conversations with defence-innovation leaders about dual-use tech and capital pathways. We were grateful for the connections and the opportunity.
Welcomed our Placement Student
We’re delighted to welcome a placement student to Team Vikela for the next few months, joining us from the Belfast Metropolitan College Queen’s doing a Foundation Degree in Mechanical Engineering.
During his time with us, he’ll support real projects across design, testing and working closely with the team to build practical experience and a strong portfolio. Investing in early-career talent is core to how we grow: it keeps us curious, inclusive, and future-focused.
Thank you for reading our latest newsletter and we’re looking forward to bringing you more updates over the next few months – as always get in touch with us if you want to book a chat or have any questions. If you know someone you think it would be good for us to have a conversation with, we would always appreciate being put in touch.
Look out for our next newsletter at the end of October and have a great month in the meantime,
The Vikela Team 👋
