Hot on the heels of celebrating Global Entrepreneurship Week, Cardiff Capital Region (CCR) is continuing to show its support for start-ups, innovators, and entrepreneurs.

The announcement that Vishay Intertechnology is to acquire the Nexperia (former Newport Wafer Fab) facilities and operations for $177 million is welcomed by the Cardiff Capital Region.

When Gavin Powell came to CCR in July to drive the Innovation & Clusters agenda, he brought with him two decades’ experience of working within the priority sectors of our Region. We spoke to Gavin about why he’s so excited about his latest challenge - and a future built on the ingenuity of many different industries …

Creating a Wales that connects people, communities, businesses and opportunities has never been so important – or possible. So what do we need to do to create that connectivity? Leigh Hughes and Rob O’Dwyer of CCR explore what’s being done with Heather Myers of Business News Wales …

The Venture ‘Talent Leaders Talking’ series gets to the very heart of where we stand in terms of the skillsets, employability, opportunities and potential we have in our region - in this feature, we talk to Grant Santos, Principal/CEO of Educ8 Training, discovering the many dimensions of ‘Where Are We?’ and ‘What’s Next?’ as we move into the fourth industrial age.

The past fortnight has seen a number of new and novel skills initiatives unveiled in the universities, colleges, schools - and even nurseries - of our region, with Cardiff Met launching a world-class aviation degree … USW announcing an innovative Incubator Hub based on its Newport campus …  Kier partnering with Think Air on a high-impact STEM outreach programme … the Welsh language Si-Lwli nursery in Cardiff providing bilingual apprenticeships to its employees … and, further west, Pembrokeshire College collaborating with global energy companies to deliver a clean energy career journey …

With more young people than ever starting up a business in the UK, it was tremendous to see four young Welsh Entrepreneurs announced as winners in this year’s Young Innovator Awards - the Innovate UK programme for 18-to-30 year olds that’s co-funded by Cardiff Capital Region and fully supported by the Venture Skills & Talent hub. Abbie Lawrence, Beren Kayali, Christian Berger and Matthew Richmond have each won the coveted Young Innovator Award for their ingenious new business projects - with these Welsh winners joining 59 other young people who are looking to change the world through their ground-breaking innovations.

Transforming our infrastructure, connectivity and mode of transport is absolutely critical to the sustainability and future success of Southeast Wales - and in this illuminating update, Cllr Huw David, Chair of the CCR Regional Transport Authority, enlightens us on the ‘hard yards’ made, the milestones already reached; and the shape of things that are about to come …