London's tech centre "to rival Silicon Valley"

 

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By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 4 Nov 2010 at 08:51

The Government plans to turn the Olympic Village and parts of East London into a technology park to rival Silicon Valley.

In a speech to high-tech business leaders, Prime Minister David Cameron will today set out plans to encourage innovation investment in the area and breathe life into Old Street and Shoreditch with technology parks and innovation centres.

“Right now, Silicon Valley is the leading place in the world for high-tech growth and innovation,” Cameron will say in his speech. “But there’s no reason why it has to be so predominant. 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.”

The Prime Minister said the announcement followed months of meetings with technology companies that had given “overwhelming” support to the idea and Cameron laid out £400 million in funding through finance and construction projects.

We are reviewing our IP laws, to see if we can make them fit for the internet age

“The policies in this document set Britain on to the path of becoming the most attractive place in the world to start and invest in innovative technology companies,” he said, pledging £200 million of equity finance for businesses with high growth potential and £200 million for new Technology and Innovation Centres.

New visas for entrepreneurs with ideas and investment potential would be created to encourage talent, Cameron said, while government procurement would be made more accessible to small and medium companies.

The announcement featured some of the biggest names in technology, with household names cited as having committed to extending their presence in the UK.

Intel will establish a new research lab in East London, focusing on performance computing and energy efficiency, and Google and Cisco plan innovation hubs, while Facebook said it would make the area a permanent home for its Developer Garage programme to nurture UK talent.

To provide the bandwidth needed on site, the Government said BT would fast-track its superfast broadband plans for Shoreditch and Old Street, while universities are also expected to play a key role in moving research projects into spin-off start-up companies.

Intellectual property boom

As a side issue to boost creativity, Cameron also proposed potential changes to UK copyright laws following discussions with business leaders who declared they could not innovate in the UK without the risk of infringing intellectual property.

“The founders of Google have said they could never have started their company in Britain,” Cameron said. “The service they provide depends on taking a snapshot of all the content on the internet at any one time and they feel our copyright system is not as friendly to this sort of innovation as it is in the United States."

“Over there, they have what are called ‘fair-use’ provisions, which some people believe gives companies more breathing space to create new products and services," he said. "We are reviewing our IP laws, to see if we can make them fit for the internet age.”