Top 0 Asian Stars in UK Tech - JOOMAG version Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech 2015 | Page 3

Celebrating the
Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech
Digital industries are among the fastest growing in Britain, accounting for 1.46 million
jobs last year with demand for skilled individuals growing at a rate of 28% year on year
according to statistics in the Tech Nation 2015 report published earlier this year. But the
success of industry in the UK has been marred by its lack of female and ethnic diversity
at all levels.
So to challenge the notion of of the “white, young, male” stereotype, Diversity UK set
itself a challenge to research the individuals working within the industry to see what
it would find. Having spent the last 14 years publishing for the South Asian diaspora,
my job was to start with a community I knew well. Imagine my surprise to quickly find
over two hundred South Asian leading lights working in every corner of the British tech
scene: from angel investing and startups, to fintech, cleantech, edtech, medtech and
social enterprises.
Wayra’s new StartUpDNA research has shown that the start-up system, in particular, is
five times more likely to have individuals from ethnically diverse communities in C-Suite
positions than FTSE 100 businesses. Furthermore, Wayra’s research showed that 18.7%
of people working in startups are from an ethnic minority background, the majority of
them Asian. This affirms reports that Asians are more entrepreneurial than the average
UK population and is a mirror image of what is now happening in Silicon Valley, as
Asians steadily establish their global digital empires.
Those from the “old tech” corporate world of proprietary software solutions are
embracing the “new tech” world of cloud-based SaaS services, cybersecurity, mobile
applications and collaborative working. And it is not for themselves alone, many Asians
mentor startups and social entrepreneurs; others contribute to online learning, creative
collaboration, knowledge transfer and skills