Silicon Valley UK 2010

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Silicon Valley comes to the UK

17th – 20th November 2010
London and Cambridge

On 17th and 18th November 2010, the world's leading entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, from business giants such as Google, Facebook and LinkedIn, descended on London to collaborate and exchange cutting-edge ideas with the UK's most exciting business talent.

The visit was part of 'Silicon Valley Comes to the UK', a four day tour of the UK's innovation hotspots, co-hosted by NESTA and Cambridge University. The aim of the visit was to foster collaborations between the US entrepreneurs and their UK counterparts, as well as with students, academics and policymakers at the forefront of developing the technologies that will drive the future economy.

The London tour kicked off with an event on the impact of digital on democracy at the Houses of Parliament, followed by a reception hosted by the Speaker of the House, The Rt Hon John Bercow MP.

The big data debate

The visitors then visited NESTA, one of the UK’s largest seed-stage investors, to join a debate on the power and possibilities of big data. Speakers included Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Megan Smith, Chief Executive of Google.org; Hans Peter Brondmo, Head of Social Software and Services at Nokia; Max Jolly, Director of Media Solutions at dunnhumby, the company behind Tesco's Clubcard programme and Haakon Overli, Managing Partner of Dawn Capital, one of the UK's most active investor in data-base businesses.

On Thursday 18th November, the visiting entrepreneurs held workshops at NESTA with 80 leaders of Europe’s most exciting start-ups, sharing their experience on the financial, legal, marketing and other aspects of running a business and stimulating connections and engagement between these businesses and Silicon Valley. The workshops included a forum for UK entrepreneurs including a keynote speech from the Minister for Universities and Science, David Willets MP.

Bringing the best together

This is the third in the Silicon Valley series, co-hosted by NESTA and Cambridge University.

Last year the programme brought together digital twillionaire Stephen Fry, Twitter founder Biz Stone and LinkedIn creator Reid Hoffman to discuss the future of social media.

The trip came just two weeks after Prime Minister David Cameron visited London's 'Silicon Roundabout', celebrating the UKs high-tech innovation and setting out steps to make the UK one of the leading places for high-tech growth and innovation.

The world-class line up of Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs who took part in the programme was:

•    Reid Hoffman – Co-founder, LinkedIn
•    Adam Nash - Vice President of Search & Platform Products, LinkedIn
•    Hans Peter Brondmo - Head of Social Software and Services, Nokia
•    Mike Schroepfer - Vice President of Engineering, Facebook
•    Megan Smith - Vice President, New Business Development, and General Manager, Google.org
•    Julie Hanna - Chair of the Board, Kiva
•    Daniel Yates - CEO and Founder of OPOWER
•    David Helliwell - Co-founder, Pulse Energy
•    David Hornik - General Partner, August Capital
•    John Lilly - CEO, Mozilla
•    Joi Ito - CEO, Creative Commons
•    Jose Ferreira - CEO, Knewton
•    Kerry B. Haley - Vice President, Power and Process, Strategic Project Solutions
•    Laurie Yoler - Managing Director, GrowthPoint Technology Partners
•    Nancy Lublin - CEO & Chief Old Person, DoSomething.org
•    Sheila Lirio Marcelo - Founder and CEO, Care.com
•    Ted Shelton - CEO, Open-First