The eyes of the technology and innovation world were all on Hammersmith & Fulham this week at the London Tech Week industry summit in Olympia.
The event saw 30,000 global innovators gather in the borough – including the CEO for computer chipmaker Nvidia, Jensen Huang, also known as the 'Godfather of AI'.
H&F is already home to some of the UK's most exciting start-ups and scale-ups – companies that started small but are now making global impact. Working with our partners Imperial College London, we're helping to create a unique environment of support in our White City Innovation District.
H&F Leader Stephen Cowan, who spoke at one of the main London Tech Week panel discussions, believes the borough's culture of innovation will encourage further investment in the UK's fastest-growing economy for future industries. He said:
The world is changing quicker than ever before. After launching our inclusive growth strategy in 2017, we've established H&F as a global economic hotspot in future industries. We're now number one for growth in London. That means we've curated over 13,000 new jobs and are one of Europe's leading boroughs for start-ups.
Our plan has always had inclusivity at its heart. That's why our unique H&F Pathway Bond and new international Growth Partnerships have started offering H&F's children and young people new routes to travel, gain work experience and learn – all bringing them better chances of seizing some of the best career opportunities anywhere in the world."
Upstream London – H&F's pioneering industrial strategy – has helped attract more than £6billion in high-growth business investment since 2017 across industry-leading companies in green tech, AI, life sciences and beyond.
White City pupils meet global leaders
Meanwhile at Scale Space in White City, local pupils from Phoenix Academy in Shepherds Bush explored cutting-edge technologies and future careers.
It's the latest instalment of H&F Council's White City Reveal series, which helps connect local talent with the jobs of the future.
The opportunity, made possible thanks to H&F's Upstream London, brought more than 100 pupils face to face with trailblazing businesses from our White City Innovation District, including Blenheim Chalcot, Avacta Therapeutics, BBC Studioworks, Sequoia Genetics and Digipac Consultancy.
It's just one example of how our Pathway Bond initiative ensures that local talent directly benefits from H&F's economic boom, including through pathways into careers in Science, Tech, Engineering, Medicine, Maths, and Media (STEM3).
"We know there's a lot of talent in the community around us," said Dr. Christopher Bodimeade from Wood Lane based data firm, Sequoia Genetics.
"This is a great opportunity for us to meet some of the local students and hopefully some day we can inspire them to come work with us."
