London’s ‘Top Tech Advocate’ leads ‘Learning Curve: Realising London’s Potential’

30 Oct London’s ‘Top Tech Advocate’ leads ‘Learning Curve: Realising London’s Potential’

Tech London Advocates’ delivered its fourth flagship summit at Bloomberg LP’s European Headquarters last night.

Over 200 Advocates were in attendance at the event, which covered how digital skills are becoming increasingly important for schools, entrepreneurs and investors.

Speakers at Bloomberg included Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy Ed Vaizey MP, Decoded co-founder Kathryn Parsons, leader of the UK Digital Skills Taskforce Maggie Philbin and Managing Director of tesconnect Lord Jim Knight.

Delivering the keynote address, Ed Vaizey MP reaffirmed the government’s commitment to investment in tech infrastructure and education. “The three things I am looking at is building the infrastructure this country needs, creating the right climate for investment to help us grow and scale, and putting down the roots to ensure that we have the skills we need for businesses,” he said.

The panels examined the need for more digital skills in Britain prescribed solutions to fuel private sector growth

Speakers discussed recent research from the Advocates group, which found that 70% of Advocates believe a lack of skilled graduates is holding back the tech sector. 64% of the Advocates also graded the employability of British computer science graduates as average to poor due to failings in their training.

Kathryn Parsons also touched on the importance of coding being accessible to young people: “I believe technology is the language of the future, the language of billions. Businesses are looking for digital literacy and confidence. The next step is empowering educations and schools to bring coding alive in the classroom,” she said.

The event came as Tech London Advocates recently celebrated reaching 1,000 Advocates, a feat achieved in just 18 months.

As the group continues to move from strength to strength, the first overseas Tech London Advocates event will be taking place in San Francisco on December 10th.

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