East London’s burgeoning tech scene owes little to the involvement of David Cameron’s Tech City initiative, according to a start-up business based there.
London’s Olympic Park, which will form part of Tech City
Launched last year by Prime Minister David Cameron the scheme plans to extend the current hub of high-tech start-ups based around Shoreditch and Hoxton (The so-called Silicon Roundabout, named after the famous Old Street roundabout) up to the Olympic Park in Stratford.
"Our ambition is to bring together the creativity and energy of Shoreditch and the incredible possibilities of the Olympic Park to help make east London one of the world’s great technology centres," said Cameron at the launch.
But Chris Downs, founder of levelbusiness.com, who provide free data from Companies House, has questioned the government’s involvement in the area and suggested that the scheme could even have negative consequences for companies already based around Silicon Roundabout.
"It’s happening anyway," he told CBR. "What are they bringing, apart from sweet talking some of the big guys? We’re not here because of what David Cameron says; we’re here because others are here. We’ve managed so far without it."
His firm originally began life down the road in Farringdon but saw the benefit of moving to Old Street because of the other companies there and the support they could offer each other. "The magic of Silicon Valley is the cafes and bars, people meeting other people and discussing ideas and that is starting to happen here, it helps breed optimism. I would ask David Cameron to not interfere too much, we want to support each other," Downs said.
What is more worrying for Downs is Cameron’s idea of getting big companies involved in the project. Intel will establish a research lab in the Olympic Park, while Google will set up an Innovation Hub, "which will be a creative space for their researchers to come together with developers and academics to create the next generation of applications and services," as Cameron put it. Facebook too will be there: its Developer Garage will have a permanent home to bring together developers and entrepreneurs from around the UK.
"We’re already losing people to the big guys such as Google. Is it wise to invite them in? It’s tough to attract developers as it is. Do we need them there? It sounds great politically but may not help us much," Downs told CBR.
However, speaking to CBR, Eric Van der Kleij, CEO of the Tech City Investment Organisation, said it is an issue they are aware of. "We’re addressing it. What we’re saying to our large corporates coming to Tech City is that yes, this is a great place to hire smart talent, but that we ask you to embrace a policy of training up two more developers or engineers from the local area for every developer or engineer that you hire. If everyone does that we’ll never run out of talent in the area."
Van der Kleij said his organisation sits within UK Trade & Investment and its role is to help start-ups get settled in the area and help with elements such as finding VC money and providing assistance as businesses grow. "Part of my role is to make sure the government knows when its intervention might not be absolutely necessary, and I’m not frightened to say so."
A full feature on Tech City will appear in the July-August issue of CBR and on CBROnline shortly after.
