The Mayor of London has announced a new £100m fund to support tech ventures in the Middle East.
Speaking at the World Islamic Economic Forum, Boris Johnson said the fund’s purpose will be to encourage tech startups, entrepreneurs and innovators from the Muslim world to come to Tech City.
Pioneers
The aim is to encourage partnership and collaboration opportunities between London and other tech clusters all over the world.
Mr Johnson said: “The idea is to bring together London tech firms and pioneers with people in the Arab world and around the Muslim world.”
Progressive Thinking
Fouad Jeryes from PayHyper.com, an online cash payment platform based in Jordan said:
“It’s excellent news about the fund and shows a progressive thinking by London.”
“In fact, I think other countries can learn from London and look to use this model as, after all, it’s only going to help build a bigger and better digital economy. ”
“For PayHyper it provides a great opportunity for us to collaborate with another FinTech centre and this initiative will just make it easier for us in the future.”
Global firsts
The 9th World Islamic Economic Forum is being held in London, the first time it’s ever been held outside the Islamic World.
And on Tuesday David Cameron unveiled the first ever government sukuk – an Islamic bond – to come from the non-Muslim world.
The UK hopes to raise £200m from this bond.
Image Credit: Wikimedia