Tech leader returns to Oldham to help local businesses secure data

An entrepreneur who has built his career managing the intense demands of the data centre industry is returning to his roots in Oldham to share his passion for helping businesses protect and manage their data more effectively.

Mashukul Hoque is the founder and CEO of Datacentreplus, a Manchester-based technology company, which provides data hosting, cloud computing and cybersecurity solutions to around 200 businesses.  

In his world, even a brief power outage or a sudden fluctuation in temperature in the data centre can have immediate and serious consequences - a reality that keeps his team on constant alert!  

Having spent years at the heart of the digital economy, he knows firsthand the stakes involved in keeping systems secure and running smoothly, and he is passionate about helping companies harness technology to protect their business. 

The road to that responsible role began as a child in Westwood in the 1980s, where he would regularly stay up until the early morning tinkering with his Commodore 64 home computer, sparking a lifelong fascination with technology. 

And memories of the tight entrepreneurial community – where his family ran the borough’s first Asian grocer’s shop - the 55-year-old is now driven to “give something back” to the next generation of businesses in Oldham. 

Datacentreplus has opened a satellite office in the borough’s new business hub, The Hive, a popular place for networking meetings, the Upturn-run location also stages sessions from health and business experts and coordinates an online network for local companies, which makes it the ideal location for Mashukul’s new satellite base. 

The dad of two said: “Our family moved to Oldham when I was four and I have always had an emotional attachment to an area that is a tight-knit community, is entrepreneurial, aspirational and with lots of history.  

“It is also close to Manchester, where the modern computer was invented, adding an extra layer of significance to me. 

“I now want to partner with Upturn to help smaller businesses understand how to get started with managing their data safely. It can seem like a complex area, but with the right help and guidance, they can become much more secure.” 

Former St Hilda’s Primary School student Mashukul has witnessed for himself an online revolution which is exciting but also a potential playground for fraudsters and other criminals.  

“COVID taught us that the most important thing for a business was not its bricks and mortar, it was its data. When I was young, I would take things apart and see how they worked and then did qualifications in computer science.  

“Things were so different then that Maths teachers often taught us – because no one was qualified. To be honest, I knew more about the subject than they did!” 

Despite running a software company and now living in Cheshire, he has never lost touch with his Oldham roots.  

As the former chair of the Millennium Centre, he won plaudits for insisting the project become self-sustaining rather than rely on grants. 

This chimes perfectly with Upturn’s philosophy, explains Managing Director Anwar Ali OBE. 

“Social enterprise is what the Hive is all about. We want to build a network of self-sufficient businesses that are about adding positives to life in our borough” he explained. 

“That’s something Datacentreplus has been doing for around a decade! We also want to link these, so each is helping the other achieve. And I am sure that every business and organisation in the Hive is going to need to know that cyber security is essential and attainable.” 

Situated on the second floor of the Spindles shopping centre, the Hive houses organisations as diverse as a crime prevention programme for kids, an online tutoring service and their most recent addition, a masseur!