Access to funding shapes who gets to build, who gets to experiment, and ultimately whose ideas shape the future. But what does it actually feel like to navigate that system?

Join Ida Hwb for a thoughtful and action-oriented online session exploring access barriers to funding through an ecosystem lens. Rather than focusing only on individual success or failure, we’ll zoom out to understand the wider structures, pressures, and patterns that shape funding journeys in the UK creative tech sector.

This event forms part of Ida’s new research into how marginalised creatives experience public funding systems - from the practical hurdles to the deeper systemic dynamics. Our aim is not simply to name the barriers, but to generate insight that can inform more equitable funding design, in dialogue with funders themselves.

We’ll be joined by Roz Coleman, creative producer, researcher and coach, who authored research commissioned by Collusion Cambridge exploring how creatives are adapting, innovating and sustaining their practice despite funding constraints. Her work highlights both the realities and the resilience within today’s ecosystem.

Together, we’ll explore:

• What it really takes to build and sustain a creative tech career

• The visible and invisible barriers in funding processes

• The emotional and labour costs of bidding culture

• The strategies, solidarities and adaptations emerging in response

This session will include:

• A speaker conversation unpacking the funding ecosystem

• Open dialogue around lived experiences of access and exclusion

• Small breakout discussions to identify patterns, opportunities and potential shifts

Whether you’re an experienced bid writer or just beginning to navigate funding, this session will deepen your understanding of the landscape and invite you into a collective conversation about how it could evolve.

As always, Ida sessions are warm, informal and open to women, non-binary and trans people working or wanting to work in creative emerging technologies. You don’t need to be an expert. Just bring your experience, your curiosity, and a willingness to think together about what equitable funding could look like.