As a credit to the UK’S robust, thriving tech sector, about 11 UK tech entrepreneurs have been given the honor of being on this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 list, which features 300 young innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders spanning all across Europe.
The list covers 10 different categories including the arts, entertainment and finance industries, and also includes entrepreneurs who have been vetted by a panel of expert judges in their line of work.
The criteria for selection of entrepreneurs were based on a set of questions that included their entrepreneurial mindset and the potential that they have exhibited to disrupt their chosen field over the next half-century.
The UK tech entrepreneurs included in this year’s list are the following:
- Sam Amrani, founder of Tamoco
- Daniel Attia, founder of Yopa
- Ed Barton, co-founder of Curiscope
- Ed Boyes, CEO of HelloFresh
- Edward Perello, co-founder of Desktop Genetics
- Alexandra Margolis, co-founder at Carwow
- Timothy Sadler, Co-founder at CheckRecipient
- Charles Taylor, founder of Debut
- Scott Taylor, founder of MiDrive
- Ben Grech, co-founder of Uniplaces
- Tommy Walkinshaw, founder of Alba Orbital
Commenting on the list, Randall Lane, editor of Forbes, said:
The Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list is the ultimate honor roll of the young entrepreneurs reshaping Europe for the better. For our second annual list, we scoured the continent for the people revamping every industry and recruited an all-star judging panel to help us determine the best of the best. The result is 300 superstars, across 10 fields, who will impact Europe for the next 50 years.
Women & the Tech Sector
Despite UK tech making its mark on this year’s list, some commentators threw light on the need for more female entrepreneurs to be included in the roundup.
Gillian Arnold, director at Tectre and chair of the European Women in IT Taskforce, has made it clear in recent times that, even though the benefits to hiring women are evident– as they are more likely to remain in their positions for longer than their male counterparts – she doesn’t think enough is being done to encourage the aspirations of women in the tech industry. She has said:
The grant pot for women is tiny.
She also added that a lot more needs to be done to foster greater diversity within organizations.
The discourse ceases to be limited to just the female to male ratio. Employers today need to consider people from a variety of different backgrounds, bringing with them different experiences and skill sets, and not just focus on those with an IT or tech-related qualification. Arnold said:
We need to open the industry’s eyes to people from all backgrounds.
