“Silicon Milkroundabout” seeks to lure geeks from the City
One of the biggest challenges facing any tech start-up, particularly in the UK, is recruiting skilled developers.
Rather than sit around waiting for the government’s East London Tech City initiative to bear more fruit than ministerial meet-and-greets, the residents of Shoreditch’s “Silicon Roundabout” are taking matters into their own hands. And yes, it involves a hilariously bad play on words. Read more
Silicon Roundabout revisited
In summer 2008, the FT was the first newspaper to record the new moniker that had been applied to the growing cluster of tech and digital media start-ups around London’s Shoreditch.
Two and a half years later, “Silicon Roundabout” is the centre of a major government growth initiative and entrepreneurs are still flocking to Old Street and its environs.
So the FT returned to the east end to investigate why start-ups are clustering there and what they think of David Cameron’s “Tech City” scheme. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
