London Tech Week: Key Takeaways

Picture of Ambar Vitelli-Khosla

Ambar Vitelli-Khosla

Strategic Partnerships

AI

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that he wants to make the UK the “geographical home of global AI safety regulationamid warnings about the risks the technology poses to humanity.

Clare Barclay, CEO of Microsoft UK, told delegates that generative AI “will be the most significant inflection point in our lifetimes”.

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer called for the government to move faster on AI regulation.

EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act passed a significant milestone on the road to legislation. Margrethe Vestager, who leads the EU’s strategy on AI, believes there needs to be a balance between innovation and ensuring people’s fundamental rights are being protected. The proposed legislation is not really about protecting jobs; nor is it, strictly speaking, pro-innovation. It is, however, set to have as much of an impact globally as GDPR.

UK Government funding announced

Innovation

Gerard Kelly CA, CFA, Director of UK Innovation at National Grid, Carol Hilsum, Senior Director of Product Innovation at FARFETCH, Jacqueline Davidson, Programme Director at Aero Xelerated, and CEO & Founder of Authentise, Andre Wegner formed a fantastic group of experts to discuss how corporates can continue to prioritise investing in innovation.

The capital has attracted more than 1,700 tech foreign direct investment projects: “London has matured from a burgeoning start-up hub to a place where you can also scale an international tech business,” says Janet Coyle, Managing Director for Grow London at London & Partners.

The launch of VR shoes

Freeaim Technologies demonstrated a pair of shoes that allow the wearer to walk in virtual reality without clattering into the wall or coffee table.

London Fintech Week: Key Takeaways

A fireside chat with the Fintech Times and the FCA concluded that, consumer protection and market integrity are the main drivers when it comes to crypto regulation.
Recent FCA research has shown us that 1 in 10 people in the UK have some form of crypto. For me, that’s a fascinating opportunity as a regulator but we’ve still got the message at the moment, which is if you invest in crypto, be prepared to lose all your money. And the reason for that is because we see the volume of fraud on a daily basis. Firms need to have high standards in 2023... Innovation is exciting and we must have the standard to sit alongside it.
Matthew Long
FCA
Rajesh Agrawal, deputy mayor of London for Business kicked off the day with a keynote speech on London’s strengths.
London is home to over 1,600 fintech companies. No other city in the world can boast that. We’ve got the largest concentration of foreign banks in London.
Rajesh Agrawal
Deputy Mayor of London
Karan Jain spoke on the evolution of bank and fintech partnerships where banks are beginning to stitch together multiple technologies not just for a customer journey but for a better customer outcome!
Joel Blake OBE from GFA Exchange drew comparisons between day-to-day differences and the difference in capital dispersion as he shared his keynote on inclusive capital.

Last year was very much about #ESG, #embeddedfinance, #crypto, that’s still there. It’s just a different evolution of it. In terms of where we are today, it is very much about generating AI tokenisation in full swing, and SMB, crypto, and CFO tech.

Where we’re headed is actually where banks start to stitch different types of technologies, and not just for a customer journey, but for a customer outcome.

Karan Jain
CEO, NayaOne

As an entrepreneur, for me, pain is one thing, potential is another and the potential for me is going to be what we call an inclusive space. So let me be very clear about what I mean.

When we talk about diversity inclusion, we often talk about diversity inclusion in our social, moral, political hot potato seats.

My argument is that inclusion should be a natural thing that we’re all a part of, because everyone is different. We like different things, different clothes, like different foods and like things differently. So why should the disperse of capital be any different?

Joel Blake OBE
GFA Exchange

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