£500m Future Fund launch mired by fears startups will miss out May 20, 2020 Future Fund, the government’s £500m answer to startups’ need for cash to survive coronavirus, is set to launch today – but risks freezing out a swathe of British firms, entrepreneurs and investors have warned. That many startups cannot yet demonstrate a turnover, and that they typically rely on equity investment for cash flow, excludes most [...]
Covid-19 will boost London’s status as leading tech hub, says industry chief May 18, 2020 The coronavirus crisis will bolster London’s position as a leading global tech hub as society becomes increasingly reliant on the digital economy, a top industry boss has said. Russ Shaw, founder of London Tech Advocates, told City A.M. that the Covid-19 pandemic will “catapult London forward” and help cement the UK’s status as a “tech [...]
Numeracy skills remain the key to a better life May 13, 2020 As a parent under lockdown, I count myself among the many thousands of people who have added ‘home schooling’ to their list of responsibilities at home, at least temporarily. I take my hat off to teachers who do this normally. Reflecting on the way we educate children and engage them in a subject like numeracy, [...]
Digital Rights Blockchain May 12, 2020 There is a clear use case for a globally recognised digital rights blockchain. Content creators and content consumers can see real value. The challenges are aligning the motivations of all those stakeholders in the middle – including the ones who may become redundant. Musicians, scriptwriters, photographers, artists and yes – even journalists – experience a [...]
Fake news websites exposed by their supply chains May 11, 2020 Fake news websites could be identified by the partners that provide their video streaming and advertising, research shows. The new approach could help search engines and social media giants, such as Facebook and Twitter, to flag untrustworthy articles more rapidly and prevent their misleading content going viral. Fake news stories and conspiracy theories have proliferated [...]
Coronavirus: We must future-proof our vital supply chains May 8, 2020 UK Government orders for social distancing and the closure of many businesses meant an extra 500 million meals and snacks—30% of all calories—were being eaten in UK homes every week in late March. And yet, according to Nielsen, consumers were adding just a single additional item to their average shopping basket on each trip. So, [...]
Health and wealth: ‘fit-tech’ steps up the pace May 7, 2020 Fitness is far from an obvious winner from government instructions to ‘stay home’. Gyms are firmly closed. People making the most of the ‘one form of exercise’ allowed by the government are the only people in parks. In these inauspicious circumstances, though, there is heightened awareness of personal fitness. In the early days of lockdown, [...]
BT scraps dividend as Covid-19 and full-fibre rollout hit profit May 7, 2020 BT today scrapped its dividend as the coronavirus crisis and full-fibre broadband costs weighed on profit. The telecoms giant said it had taken the “exceptionally difficult” decision to suspend the payout until 2022, when it will be reduced 50 per cent to 7.7p per share. It came as BT posted a two per cent dip [...]
Europe’s Crypto funding gap May 5, 2020 The European blockchain ecosystem is increasingly critically undercapitalised if it is to maintain the hard fought global leadership role established over the last decade. Despite London, Switzerland and Berlin when combined being home to roughly a third of the worlds blockchain startups, it has just 22% of the investment compared with the US and China [...]
Investment firms deploying new tech are the most trusted among investors May 4, 2020 Investment firms that are deploying new technology are the most trusted by both institutional and retail investors, according to new research. Nearly two-thirds of institutional investors and nearly half of retail investors with an adviser trust their investment firm because of an increased use of technology. There is growing interest in the use of artificial [...]