London Tech Week Insights 2023

Last year, London Tech Week introduced us to what has bothered us more in 2023: workforce, work-life balance, and AI innovations for sure. What came here to stay for a while? We will discover just in a month at the new Olympia venue, which obviously means the next level scale. "London is Europe’s biggest hub for starting, scaling and investing in new tech businesses, and this is the best place to meet the people who create this thriving ecosystem.", Brent Hoberman says, and hardly anyone who has visited #LTW will disagree. One more year in a row Russ Shaw CBE and Tech London Advocates & Global Tech Advocates will showcase the latest and hottest from the UK tech innovation ecosystem.

How London Tech Week #LTW2023 has looked like?

Workforce competition. "Huston, we have a problem; we are running out of engineers was widely stated on the stage, socially, and in person. Mostly everyone is interested in nursing more techies inside the country, but nearshore collaborations may work as well.

Innovations as a part of business strategy. One more innovative hub for blockchain and AI is going to be developed in the UK, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated during the opening ceremony. Previously known for its strong interest in Health and FinTech, the UK puts on the map a new milestone to achieve. As research and scientific infrastructure are strong in Britain, it obviously may work.

Country-as-a-service. London Tech Week was presented with Palestina (workforce), Dubai, UAE (relocation, financial services), and startups from Ukraine, Estonia, and Germany. While Britain's national healthcare system is struggling, experts reason around heal tech innovations and collaborations between manufacturers, startups, and NGOs as a key to pulling the innovation trigger.

Digital inclusion.The issue of digital inclusion remains significant in the UK and globally, with disparities in digital device usage. In Estonia, STEM education is integral, but in the UK, there's a noted lack of youth interest in engineering. Experts argue that the limited ability to harness the full potential of smartphones hampers digitalization progress in the country.

Web 3.0 may be "an internet of value built on top of web 1.0 communication and web 2.0 social sharing experience," says Graham Cooke.

The convergence of Web 3.0 and AI is anticipated to have substantial implications, with expectations that this fusion will lead to significant practical advancements.

Data strategy. AI brings both powers of access to numerous amounts of linguistic data and challenges how we are going to store and protect it. So, in line with Cybersecurity, Data Management should be a part of business strategy, not only the responsibility of your IT department. Thank Emma McGuigan for bringing this out and Sarah Luxford and GatenbySanderson team for an amazing session at #InspireShift . #AI and leadership part brought a lot of discussion and ideas to me.

Prompt engineering is one of the skills that should be developed. To be honest, I was not aware of this term. But it looks like the art of asking the right questions is not only a powerful instrument used by coaches. As in prompt engineering, the description of the task that the AI is supposed to accomplish is embedded in the input, e.g., as a question, instead of it being explicitly give

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#Curiosity Mindset and Burnout prevention are crucial for any founder and leader. Both panels, "The Personal Side of Being a Founder" and "The Importance of Curiosity, Persistency, and Resilience," delivered a deeper understanding of the business outcomes from the things I personally stand for, like persistency and curiosity (they are part of a CAPS formula I developed as a foundation of outcome-based relations).

So, 60% of founders experience burnout, Saasha Celestial-One, Rana Yared , Nick Hungerford, and Simon Beckerman encourage everyone to work on burnout prevention. As well as work on the values and principles business stands for. I think it allows them to find the best possible team which will support the founder's idea and will commit to doing the impossible to make the idea possible.

"Creativity is an ability to ask the right questions to drive insight,"- states Jennifer Sundberg.

"HIPPO effect stops innovations. Once, I was asked to play devil's advocate to a colleague of mine as he was in love with his idea," which gives an example of what can stop creativity water flow in any organization Ann Hiatt. (HIPPO effect is about Highest Paid Person's Opinion being given more consideration in a decision because it has a higher value per se).

Government investments in AI. To state the UK is on the map of AI innovations, the government invested dozen of millions of pounds across sectors in investing in AI-based projects.

“UK Research and Innovation will invest for programs developing trustworthy and secure AI, including £31m for a UK and international research and innovation ecosystem, £13m for projects helping the UK meet its net zero targets, £10m for Bridge AI studies & Turing Fellowships”, stated Chloe Smith.

Monopoly can be defeated. Tim Creswick and Vorboss team aim to provide a London Business connection of the necessary quality. The company provides physical connectivity with broadband needed. Cause today, Zoom calls in London experience regular problems and freezing moments for anyone who does them. By the way, the market is huge - more than 60% of business connectivity need is allocated in the capital.

In essence, London Tech Week served as a hub of ideas, ranging from workforce challenges to cutting-edge innovations, leadership evolution, and the critical role of human connections in the ever-evolving tech landscape. People are still the best part of the events. Extremely grateful to EQL:HER and GEN UK, especially Elaine Gold, or your support of Ukrainian #womenentrepreneurs . A power hour for Ukrainian women in tech. It was a great chance to meet ladies who push innovation triggers in the UK market.

#strategy #innovations #LTW24