DCMS director general at L39: insights, trends and roundtable summary
7th December 2017
On December 1, we invited Matthew Gould, director general for digital and media policy of DCMS and previous British Ambassador to Israel, to learn about issues and trends within our tech community.
In the hour-long session entrepreneurs from member companies such as Satoshi Systems, 6Prog, Inadash Authlete and CybSafe shared their opinions on the current market conditions, access to talent and engaging with customers.
The discussion began with discussion on access to customers – how to engage with them meaningfully, how the government should facilitate access, the power of convening innovators, managing startup-corporate relationships and the policies in place which gives incumbent businesses incentives to innovate.
With cyber startups and CEOs in attendance, much of the discussion fell to the importance of cybersecurity. The DCMS-funded Cyber 101 programme, approaches to providing startups and SMEs training, and the important topic of visas and immigration.
With a New-Zealander in attendance, we spent some time learning the lessons of other nations. University of Waikato students have been encouraged to come to London through a fruitful partnership – asking us as Londoners to re-think our definition of where top talent can be sought.
On the topic of talent, the group discussed the government’s initiatives in getting more young people pursuing technical and computer-science careers. An £84m fund will be upskilling a large number of secondary-school teachers so that they are able to deliver computer-science skills.
Lastly the group focused on infrastructure and regulation – what does the future hold for UK corporates, business and SMEs in the wake of GDPR, PSD2 and more? Time will tell.