Series of live Guardian debates ask how the UK might ever rival Silicon Valley

The Guardian's Tech Weekly podcasts are recorded at Imperial College Business School

By Tanya Gubbay 
Wednesday 12 October 2011

Imperial College Business School, in partnership with the Guardian, hosted the first in a series of four debates for the Guardian’s Tech Weekly podcast on Monday night (available for download here).

Guests tackling the first question of 'Who will build the future digital economy?' included Professor Jeff Magee, Principal of the Faculty of Engineering at Imperial, David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, Dan Crow, Chief Technology Office at Songkick and Emma Mulqueeny, director and co- founder of Rewired State and Young Rewired State.

Kicking off the debate, panellists delved into the issue of how to inspire people into Computer Science. A running theme throughout the evening was how to create the 'Brian Cox' effect in the digital economy, with suggestions about Alan Turing (widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence) being used as inspiration as we approach the centenary of his birth.

Dan Crow highlighted the fact that start-ups are still having to go to Silicon Valley to hire good people, which raised questions about where entrepreneurial flair comes from. While David Willetts acknowledged that we need to be better at fostering this in the UK, he stressed that it is about changing the environment rather being in awe of the perception that America is just better at taking risks. He said that Silicon Valley has become a successful cluster because it is a low risk environment to conduct high risk activities.

Jeff Magee said that universities need to be better at supporting students in their entrepreneurial ventures but cautioned that this support needs to be made available at the right time. For example, third year computing students might be best supported when they come back from their six month placement in industry inspired by real-world problems and full of ideas of how to address them. The Business School was cited as a successful example of how to embed innovation and entrepreneurship into programmes, with routes to make this available to students across the whole campus. The panel agreed that the challenge is replicating this more widely.

From left to right: Professor Jeff Magee, Emma Mulqueeny, David Willetts and Dan Crow kick off the series of debates

Emma Mulqueeny inspired both the panel and the audience with her activities through the Young Rewired State, identifying and supporting people to learn how to carry out computer programming and then coming together to learn from each other. The panel discussed cross-disciplinary approaches, with Dan wanting to see more blending together of MBAs, computer scientists and designers.

The debate finished on the point that the main challenge for the future will be making sure that the pipeline of skilled people is strong enough to meet the need of these cross-disciplinary challenges.

Professor David Gann, Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Imperial College Business School said: "These debates raise vital issues and ask important questions about the future of the digital economy. The UK is in a strong position to lead and develop the next generation of digital services. Through our world class universities, top businesses and digital start-ups, we can generate better opportunities in cities and create growth in the job market.

"At Imperial, our Digital City Exchange programme has been established to research and develop new ways of using data from across different sectors and transform the way our cities are used."

The debates mark the anniversary of the launch of the Tech City initiative – the Government’s strategy to make London’s East End a world- leading technology city to rival Silicon Valley.

The series is set to continue on Monday 17 October with panellists (at time of press, yet to be confirmed) debating how the government intends to get the whole country online, and whether our access could be compromised by sharing the financial weight with private companies who have their own agendas.

Monday 24 October sees Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and Peter Barron, Director of External Relations EMEA at Google, as part of the panel asking whether East London is ready for Tech City, what its strengths are, what is necessary to inspire innovation and what we can learn from other cities.

The final debate will feature Jonathan Haskel, Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School and Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries among the panellists. They will be addressing what business model is needed to foster the UK’s creativity and how to best support talent these industries, who often see their digital creations infinitely replicated.

For those interested in attending these debates, more information is available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/oct/03/tech-weekly-tech-city-talks-digital-economy-event

The Guardian’ s Tech Weekly podcast is available for download every Tuesday

UPDATE: Please note there is no debate on Monday 17 October. The series will continue on Monday 24 October and Monday 31 October. The final debate will take place on Monday 7 November with panellists yet to be confirmed.