UKTI Silicon Roundabout comms account up for grabs

UK Trade and Investment has launched a pitch to aid east London’s Tech City, the area around Old Street’s ‘Silicon Roundabout’, amid efforts to draw in young tech talent.

PRWeek understands that the retained brief, currently held by Hill+Knowlton Strategies, will call on an agency to highlight the Government’s work to support the area.

A well-placed source said: ‘The work will look to encourage inward investment and have a UK element as well as a possible international one.

‘It’s to increase awareness of Tech City as a location of choice for business. It will also focus on increasing awareness among those based in Tech City of the benefits of UK policy measures and the support they can get when looking internationally.’

PRWeek understands a recent preliminary meeting included Blue Rubicon and Weber Shandwick. An appointment is expected in December.

Tech City was launched by the Prime Minister in 2010 with the aim of making the area a global hub of tech talent.

The pitch comes amid continued development of the site, with the recent installation of The Shoreditch Network offering high speed internet and secure cloud services to local businesses. In July, Amazon opened an innovation centre at Tech City, joining Google, Vodafone, Facebook and Intel among others at the site.

Hill+Knowlton Strategies was appointed in May last year by UKTI to provide comms backing to the Tech City Investment Organisation.

A spokesman for the TCIO said: ‘We hope to find an agency we can work with to benefit Tech City and the UK tech industry.’

This article was first published on prweek.com