*Updated post*
N.B. Thurs November 22nd is a follow-up meeting from the first Croydon Tech City event held October 4th (see below to see what was discussed).
On Thurs Nov 22nd:
- There will be a full presentation of the vision (as below) from 7.30 – 8pm for those who were unable to make the previous event.
- 8pm onwards there will be a presentation from Croydon Creatives, and extended time for audience feedback and discussion of how to take Croydon Tech City forward.
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The Silicon Valley of South London
Croydon Tech City is a vision of mine in which I wish to see Croydon become a credible player in the European tech scene and an attractive home for digital and creative start-ups.
The aims of the evening are primarily to:
- Explain why Croydon should commit to this vision
- Show how I intend to push Croydon Tech City forwards in 2013
- Find out how others can help me
- Learn from any suggestions or criticisms
The agenda for the night is as follows (although subject to change):
- Introduction (with pyrotechnics and laser show, budget permitting)
- Personal background
- Purley 2.0
- An introduction to Tech City
- Brief history
- Notable companies in the area
- Events and culture
- Success stories
- Why Croydon should commit to this vision
- Matthews Yard
- Fairfield Halls
- Examining current local tech cluster
- Croydon Creatives
- Commercial office space
- Residential properties
- Local culture
- Plans for 2013
- Croydon Creatives
- Events at Matthews Yard
- Croydon Tours
- Code Club (Primary Schools)
- Young Enterprise in Croydon
- Summer event 2013 – Startup Weekend Croydon
- Q&A (with possible premature escape through the back exit from groupies/irate naysayers)
The event will formally finish at 9pm – although it would be great to carry on the conversation well into the night. Ideally somewhere classy (read: KFC). 🙂
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Please do come along on Thurs Nov 22nd at 7.30pm, it would be wonderful to have you listen, contribute and shape this vision.
I can be contacted at jonnyrose1 [at] gmail [dot] com or 98rosjon on Twitter.
The crowd at the Oct 4th meeting wanted to meet again to progress the idea! 🙂
Jonathan Rose's Blog 
I am SO behind this – it is such a great thing you are doing. I know I don’t really live in Croydon any more, but if there is anything I can do to support this thing, I will!
Why is everything on a Thursday, am even struggling to make my own networking events because they’re on a Thursday! Won’t be able to attend but hope it goes well Jonny.
I will Tweet like mad though!
Wendy
will definitely be there, this is fascinating 🙂
Nick – thank you very much. I look forward to seeing you on Thursday 🙂
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Hi Jonny
I was there on the 4th to hear your well thought through and presented proposal.
We haven’t spoken before just a brief “hello” at MY.
Anyway, since that night I’ve not been able to get the idea of a Croydon Tech City out of my head.
I’m not a techie myself (apart from my greencroydon website but I don’t count that)but I want what is best for this town to succeed and as you’ve suggested have a growth industry to make up for the declining retail or manufacturing offer. Regretfully, I don’t have anything to bring to the table other than a suggestion that I’ll come to for consideration.
Today (25th) I went to the Old Street ‘Silicon Roundabout’ to see for myself the area involved. I just wanted to see what they have to make a comparison with Croydon.
It’s proper grotty and in terms of a more attractive environment we have it beat hands down. There’s the traffic blighted roundabout which divides that area up in to 3 or 4 separate roads. The tube station area is grim, but there are one or two smartish eateries all things Croydon has already and will get more of with the Whitgift development.
I saw some of the tech businesses around the roundabout area.
One thing that catches the eye are signs on buildings saying ‘short term office space from 2500sq ft immediately available’. I saw at least 3 of these.
Obviously, anyone thinking of a start up would be encouraged to take advantage of this as it is short term so if they don’t succeed or don’t want it they are not tied in for a long contract. Where in town do we have similar offers for short term lets? Is this part of the Old Street attraction that enabled it to kick start? Perhaps this is what we need.
I recall you saying that geographically you saw such a tech city mushrooming around the MY area or certainly MY as a hub for it.
Not wanting to run before we can walk but personally, I think the area of St Georges Walk with the empty offices above would be ideal. It’s like a city block in itself and there are the retail units below which could all be rejuvenated and provide services for the workers.
I understand the Nestle tower will be made in to flats so it doesn’t sound as if there is a mass demolition project that is going to happen.
How does that sound as a suggestion? As you have said it’s a long way off but if the office space there could be made available at small and short term rents for start-ups it could give the physical infrastructure. It’s close to the college and of course close to MY and close for all the transport and facilities.
Food for thought.
I look forward to your next instalment and ultimately a Croydon Tech City. As a greenie I’m in favour of these low-carbon digital businesses!!
Dear Andrew et al,
Good points, I see where you are going. You are focusing on the property value. Can I offer more food for thought?
Imagine as I hope we will soon see again, thriving enterprise in Croydon, the employees hard working, skilful and industrious, producing rewarding, sustainable, wealth for the area…
… what do you think happens to the rental value of the property they do all this good stuff on?
… what do you think happens to their earnings, profits, salaries, wages?
Think about this very carefully. Remembering that almost 100% of enterprise in Croydon is in rented property. The landlord collecting these rents not only absent from Croydon, often not even in this country, having contributed nothing whatsoever to the rising value.
If you can see this you will have your answer immediately.
I’m happy to meet up with anyone who wants to go into further dialogue on this.
Robin Smith
Candidate for the Young People’s Party
07786 078836
I don’t know why the focus on rented property. Almost all business in Silicon Valley is in rented property. In areas that have mostly higher rents than much more expensive parts of London than Croydon. Most business in London, for that matter, is in rented property.
Why? Not because there aren’t alternatives, but because, and I say this as someone who has been involved in starting half a dozen companies, it makes absolutely no economic sense for most companies to own property unless they’re extremely large.
It ties up capital at expected returns far below what any reasonably successful business will hope to produce were they to invest it in other aspects of their business.
A business that don’t even try to beat a property investment in terms of return on investment, is horribly bad news for it’s owners and investors: They’d be better off investing in that property than using it themselves.
Dear Mr Rose,
We have been donated £200 to fund a young upcoming tech guru, to help our campaign in the Croydon North by-election over the next month.
Do you know any young people with a keen understanding of how to optimise social media. We need to ramp up the social media side of our campaign.
Yours,
Robin Smith
Candidate for the Young People’s Party.
This is a great idea and will really boost the creative ideas in and around the area – I will see you all there