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Cameron to announce London-based Silicon Valley rival

The Prime Minister will today announce plans for a ‘tech city’ in London’s East End.

By Jennifer Scott, 4 Nov 2010 at 10:52

Prime Minister, David Cameron, is set to announce plans for a new hub for technology businesses in the East End of London, with the goal of becoming the UK’s answer to Silicon Valley.

The announcement, due later today, is set to outline areas around Old Street, Shoreditch and the Olympic Park which will become a dedicated base for tech companies and may include such high profile residents as Google, Facebook and Intel.

A leaked extract from Cameron’s speech said: “Right now, Silicon Valley is the leading place in the world for high-tech growth and innovation. 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.”

Funding for the area is expected to total £400 million, with half going into financing business and the other dedicated to building Technology and Innovation Centres.

Alongside the announcement, Cameron is also expected to confirm the introduction of “enterprise visas” to make it easier for foreign businesses to set up on UK shores – despite the Conservative Party’s strong views on capping immigration – and a review of UK intellectual property laws, as companies claim they risk infringing on current laws by setting up over here.

The new announcements follow months of discussions between Cameron and leading technology figures, and the Prime Minister has claimed to have gained “overwhelming” support for his proposals.

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2 comments

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Just Proves

I just proves what we all knew, The Condems have it in for the Northwest. They are putting thousands of public sector employees out of work in Merseyside and Manchester where the 2 best computer science universities are based, but they are to site the so called silicone valley in the part of the country with the highest employment, and the local Eastenders will not gain any employment from it the graduates from Liverpool and Manchester will be headhunted and have to move south. the Northwest should declare independence.

By dfruk on Friday Nov 5

Typical

More jobs in London, stuff the rest of the country.

The South East is already over populated, land there is expensive, and the Olympic park has limited size - once it's full, further growth will be difficult.

The Olympic Park needs to have ause once the Olympics are over, but this is a poor, short sited choice.

By cyberspy on Wednesday Nov 10