Rookie Oven
Based in Glasgow’s newly renovated Fairfield Shipyard, Rookie Oven is a coworking space for tech companies, offering a range of events such as meetups, streams and hackathons to the local tech community. We have regular social gatherings and of course first class space to work from. The space is also home to RookieOven Academy, a learning programme for 16-25-year-olds to gain real practical exposure to creating modern digital products.
Before launching Rookie Oven as a co-working space, Michael Hayes had already been a key leader in Scotland’s startup community. His contribution to growing the local tech community stretched back many years through Rookie Oven meetups, the Rookie Oven blog and bringing Startup Weekend to Glasgow in 2012. When Shaun and Doug travelled across the country to meet local startups and communities as part of their Tech Britain project, they met Michael in Glasgow, and later committed to support his latest project through Telcom when he announced his plans to open a local co-working space. So when Telcom expanded its network to include Glasgow in 2014, it did so with a pledge to support Rookie Oven through a free community connection for what would become Glasgow's first tech specific co-working space. Given the emphasis upon tech startups, connectivity was a critical component of the space, and and a key feature to attract the right kind of companies that would make the initial core of the community.
Telcom was ready to take on the challenge, ensuring all tenants received a service attuned to their specific tech orientated needs, facilitating connectivity for community events such as hackathons, along with coding schools such as RookieOven’s very own Academy.
Michael located Fairfield Shipyard as the perfect location for the space, a building on the Clyde’s riverfront which had a long history as part of Glasgow’s industry and innovation for over 150 years.
The building had just been renovated and turned into a modern office space. However, the location required a combination of fibre and microwave wireless to connect the community to ultrafast 1Gbps (1000Mbps) internet.
RookieOven and Telcom’s collaboration has enabled the growth of Glasgow’s local tech community, allowing Telcom to expand in the city, and empowering RookieOven to attract the best tech and digital companies in the region.