LEADING members of the local business community took a peep into the future this week. Bolton Institute sponsored the Reebok Stadium link for the 1999 DTI Innovation Lecture - 2010, a Business Odyssey. It involved more than 8,000 business people in 40 different venues throughout the country.

More than 150 people in the Reebok audience watched a national debate featuring various experts and politicians discussing issues such as the knowledge-driven economy, environmental development, Information Technology and biosciences.

Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers told the assembled business people that innovation needed to be used in a positive sense and he challenged them to give him their ideas.

The Bolton audience, which was not noticeably excited by the national debate and its surfeit of jargon, joined in the national laughter when it became apparent that Mr Byers had left the London studio before the questions started.

A recurring theme throughout the event was the need for businesses to make the most of new technology such as the Internet and e-mail.

But there was a great deal of anxiety about "information overload" and the problems companies faced in "filleting" all the available material to their best advantage.

The Bolton session was hosted by the new Principal of Bolton Institute, Mollie Temple, who took over from Professor Bob Oxtoby in January.

She is keen to build on the Institute's success and strengthen links with the full cultural diversity of the local business community.

"As a civic university for the new Millennium the Bolton Institute will participate actively in the creation of a knowledge-based society and the new information age," she said.

"Its traditional strengths and values will be maintained but modernised to create an institution capable of providing the skills, learning and new knowledge required for success in the Learning Age."

She said that in the future they estimated that only half their work in the Institute would be with undergraduate students.

"For the rest of our time we shall be working with people who will probably be in work, may already have degrees or other higher level skills and who are wanting to keep their skills and knowledge up to date," she said.

Later in the evening, after short presentations from some of those present, she defined a key challenge - combining creativity and the new technology.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.