Herb Kim is the founder and curator of a wide range of big-name events in the Northern tech scene – Thinking Digital, TEDxManchester, TEDxNewcastle, and more.
Sitting down together recently, I talked to Herb – a Steering Panel member for Manchester’s first-ever Digital City Festival, which is bringing a programme of digital-first events to the city – about his beginnings in the North East, his future ambitions for the region, and the people who inspire and encourage him.
Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Kim moved to the UK in 1997 after being offered a tech role with Blackwells bookshop. He started out in Oxford, then London, before, after five years, being offered a role in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
“I’d never spent much time in the North. I certainly don’t think I’d spent any time in Newcastle.” He thought long and hard about the decision, and had conflicting advice from peers. Herb tells me “ironically, it was the people from the North East who were the most vociferous against me going. Bizarrely, it was people from London – who’d either never been, or not spent much time in Newcastle – who thought it sounded great.”
