I’ll turn the East End into the British Silicon Valley

At the moment, there is nothing like it anywhere else. But something exciting is happening in east London — so exciting, in fact, that it means we could create another Silicon Valley. This isn't far fetched — all the elements are here too.

Already the area around Old Street and Shoreditch has more than one hundred technology companies, attracted to the cheaper rents, the great transport links and the cafés and galleries. Add to that the Olympic Park. Just a few Tube stops away, there's the potential for nearly one million square feet of flexible office and research space which our technology companies can expand into.

And then throw into the mix the fact that London has more outstanding universities than any other city in the world, plus a host of venture capital firms that are willing to invest, and east London has all the ingredients to become one of the world's leading technology centres.

Indeed, there's so much potential in the area that after many phone calls and dozens of meetings, we've helped to inspire a huge mobilisation of business and enterprise. Today, a who's who of some of the world's biggest companies and organisations — from Facebook to Google, Cisco to McKinsey, BT to Barclays, plus many, many more — are committing to invest in the long-term future of east London. These companies are putting up everything from free business advice to start-ups, to help with financing and the laying down of super-fast broadband cables.

Perhaps most exciting of all, Intel, Google and Facebook are all creating either research labs or innovation spaces in east London, where the latest technologies can come together with new entrepreneurial ideas to produce the businesses of the future. And Vodafone has committed to bring its global innovation fund to the capital, to hunt out cutting-edge British technology.

There's nothing that says Silicon Valley has to dominate the world of technology from now until the end of time. Other hubs can rise to challenge them. The question is where will they be? I believe if we recognise our strengths, have the confidence to really go for it and understand what it takes — London can be one of them.