London recently came in at No. 2 on a list that ranked cities across the globe on how conducive their policies are to the growth of tech startups and other entrepreneurial ventures.
The City Initiatives for Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship report, which was put together by British innovation capacity-building charity Nesta in collaboration with Future Cities Catapult and management consultancy Accenture, declared New York City to be the top locale for pro-startup policy-making. London was the first runner-up, only narrowing missing out on the top spot. It was followed by Helsinki, which came as a surprise to some industry observers, while Barcelona and Amsterdam rounded out the top five.
Open data proved a positive differentiator
So, what elements resulted in London’s high score? As Wired noted, the facts that the city was ahead of the curve in terms of embracing the open data trend by making municipal information available to the masses was a big contributor. Cited by the news source, John Gibson, director of government innovation at Nesta and co-author of the study, observed that the availability of this type of data made it possible for lucrative ventures like Citymapper to spring up. Citymapper is an app that taps into static and live data made available through the government body Transport for London, helping users navigate the city with ease and avoid trouble spots such as parts of the London Underground that are experiencing delays. It has since expanded to other cities.
Thanks to open data provided by Transport for London, app-builderThanks to open data provided by Transport for London, former Google employee Azmat Yusuf was able to develop Citymapper.
Measures such as the Tech City initiative, the Smart London Plan and the Future Fifty accelerator program were also lauded by the report for boosting innovation and helping to grow the tech sector. As we detailed in a recent article, the Future Fifty program offers support to growing tech firms scaling up their operations – and creating valuable digital jobs in London in the process. The report also acknowledged London’s “proportionate and flexible approach” to startup regulation, as well as its use of the London Challenge to stimulate innovation.
Building STEM skills now to staff digital jobs of the future
In order to stay toward the front of the pack, London must keep its momentum rolling, especially in light of the fact that other European municipalities are becoming stiff competition.
“City government in Europe at the moment has definitely caught on to the idea that innovation and entrepreneurship are going to be important in the near future and they’re starting to invest a lot of time and energy in building good policy,” observed Gibson, as quoted by TechCrunch.
Part of this tactic involves laying a solid foundation for the next generation of innovators. Indeed, according to Gibson, overhauling and improving the way schools approach building science, technology, engineering and maths skills is one reason why New York City took the report’s top spot. The Nesta expert noted that New York invested $70 million into digital skills education, dwarfing London’s £1.5 million.