Reflections on London Tech Week

It might have rained (and rain it did) but that didn’t stop London shining a spotlight on its incredible tech talent and ecosystem last week. As I continue to follow up with all the new contacts I made it is time to reflect on some of my highlights of London Tech Week.

To have the Prime Minister open London Tech Week at Here East and Sadiq Khan open Cognition X at Kings Cross knowledge quarter there could not have been greater support to kick start the festival.

From this high level involvement through to grass roots activities over 300 events took place with over 60,000 attendees, 35% from international markets. Visitors from over 90 countries came to London to listen, learn, connect and engage with our tech talent, our influencers, investors, business leaders and entrepreneurs. Two delegations of Female Founders joined us from Australia and from across Europe - keen to build new networks and seek opportunities.

London & Partners hosted delegations from the US, Germany, China, Australia and partnered with DiT to host "Scaling up in London & the UK".

Guest speakers flew in from international markets too including the wonderful Julie Hanna (Executive Board Chair at Kiva) at the RSA for a special conversation with Sherry Coutu CBE about a purpose driven economy, building culture and having positive societal impact. So many lessons learnt by our gathering of 200 women CEOs all inspired by the experiences shared by Julie.

“Culture is who you are to each other when know one is looking…” Julie Hanna, Exec Board Chair Kiva

Connections & Collaboration

Connections were made from morning until night, some via apps others via networking events or grabbing five minutes in between panels. From feedback I have received the event that really had huge impact in making valuable introductions between start ups, scale ups and corporates was the Innovation Festival curated and hosted by London & Partners. Round tables fostered conversations and a super connector session with Lauren Quigley and Sara French demonstrated that there is still real value in making face to face connections rather than relying on apps to swipe left or right.

The collaboration of our tech ecosystem was evident in spades last week. From the partnering for the opening ceremony at the much loved Olympic Park (thank you Plexal) through to Corporate partnering of the big events. Great also to hear the collaboration across cities in the panel I moderated at the super cool venue created by Cognition X underground together with Theo Blackwell.

Tech London Advocates partnered with many international delegations including Latin America and Africa. 

LTW Ambassadors were also out in force to champion our tech sector including Sherry Coutu CBE, Amali de Alwis, Priya Guha, Kathryn Parsons, Omid Ashtari and Dan Cobley.

One Ambassador who travelled across town to support events from the Gala dinner, LeadersIn and the Innovation Festival through to a very special panel at Cognition X with the Girl Guides was the incredible Jacqueline de Rojas, President of Tech UK. She spoke at so many events and always with a clear message on the importance of diversity and inclusivity as we build technology for everyone.

“When the seatbelt was invented women and children died because it was invented for men of a certain weight and height. That’s why diversity matters.”

Themes of diversity and the next generation…..

Diversity was a theme throughout London Tech Week and was evident at all the events I managed to get to (I attended or moderated over 16 events). This offered a greater variety of experiences and knowledge plus role models for the younger people. I was accompanied across to one of the CogX events by a student who was blown away by the delegates she had met and the speakers she had heard.

Debatemate gave us a fantastic taste of the young talent on their programmes at the Informatech hosted Gala dinner. In fact that evening really shone a spotlight on young people with Founders4Schools as the chosen charity. Anne Marie Imafidon, Founder and CEO Stemettes also offered compelling stories and data about girls in tech. One such panel that stood out for me was the “where are all the female engineers?” at AccelerateHer with Anne Marie and Hayaatun Sillem brilliantly moderated by Matt Brittin.  I only hope that we can get enough young girls in front of these inspirational role models to show them how they can help to change our world for the better.

We heard last week that Facebook is creating 500 new jobs in London including 100 in AI roles. We also heard that tech jobs have risen by 60% in the past nine years so it is important that organisations like Founders4Schools are helping students to prepare for the jobs of tomorrow.

Messages to the world

There were so many great messages we shared with the world about the strength of the London and UK tech cluster - all backed by data. Thanks to Saul Klein, Local Globe for having the foresight in advance of London Tech Week to drive forward joint messages for London and the UK together with London & Partners, Tech Nation and DCMS. As a reminder...

• The UK is behind only the US and China for total number of unicorns created
• London ranks second to the Bay Area for the number of fintech unicorns, at 18
• UK tech has created more $1bn companies than any other European country and Israel
• Since last year’s London Tech Week, 13 new unicorns have been created bringing the total number of UK unicorns to 72

We also heard some great stories about some of our best talent expanding their businesses into the US market. Two of the most successful challenger banks, Monzo and Revolut have announced their global expansion plans as has Depop, the London based start up that facilitates online peer to peer ecommerce who will use it's latest Series C funding round to expand into the US. Great to see so many successful London companies competing on the global stage.

So 6 years on from when London & Partners first co-founded London Tech Week together with Tech London Advocates, it is exciting to see how far it has scaled and the global reach we now have. We have demonstrated our passion for tech, our diverse talent, our ability to host over 7000 international guests and that London is most definitely open for business! Thanks to everyone who joined us on this journey to deliver such an incredible week. Too many to mention but quick shout outs to Caroline Dawson, Gavin Poole, Andrew Roughan, Jacqueline de Rojas, Russ Shaw, Oli Barrett, Tabitha Goldstaub, Charlie Muirhead, Laura Stebbing, Poppy Gaye, Joanna Jones, Jimmy McLoughlin, Saul Klein and many many more.

So what was your highlight or biggest learning from last week? I would love to hear from you....