One of the biggest things that Dundee has benefited from in the past few years is more recognition when it comes to its incredible industries.

I was delighted to hear the news that Abertay University has announced a new partnership with the École Intuit Lab in Mumbai in India.

This new partnership, which Abertay states will aim to build an innovative and academic relationship, contains “a commitment to work towards collaborative research and innovation for the video games industries in Dundee and Mumbai”.

This is a pretty big deal. Dundee is spreading its wings with the things it is so experienced at.

It brings the opportunity for more investment and learning opportunities for people studying in both cities, and it builds Dundee’s profile to an even greater level.

Abertay is a fantastic institution which has helped spearhead Dundee’s video game industry to the next level, and to see the university stretch its arms to build new partnerships with institutions from major cities like Mumbai shows that no matter the size of our city, Dundee has the ambition to show the world that we are not limited by size.

I don’t believe it should stop there though. We should be ambitious, bold and daring.

I believe Dundee should be building more relationships with other institutions in other major cities around the world as it offers the chance for the city to grow its economy and status as an international hub for technological growth.

I always look back at Dundee’s feature in the Cognizant’s Cities of the Future list and look at the other places and see how they compare with Dundee.

Dundee featured for its reputation as a tech-led city fuelled by the video gaming industry, the biomedical and life sciences, along with its comic book industry too.

One city that was featured on that list was Toronto in Canada. Just like Dundee, Toronto is a growing tech city and they are aiming to grow their video gaming and esports sector. They also aspire to build a new esports arena as well, just like us.

I am off to Toronto in September, so it will be very interesting to see how it differs to Dundee, with the exception of size of course!

Another on the list is Sao Paulo in Brazil, which has an École Intuit Lab of its own.

They, like Dundee, are a growing leader in scientific research, something which Dundee University does so very well.

I think if we build bridges to other major cities around the world, like Toronto and Sao Paulo, it brings more exciting partnerships between this wee city of ours and major global metropolises.

We shouldn’t be limited to our ambition because of our size, we should seize the opportunity of what we have – because it is very huge.