'Why do we tell the brightest and the best to go home?' asks tech entrepreneur Ewan Kirk
Enterepeneur and philanthropist Ewan Kirk talks to Computing about the work of his charitable foundation, of VC fund and accelerator Deeptech Labs and shares his thoughts on how to address the UK deficit in STEM skills.
Ewan Kirk is a technology entrepreneur probably best known for founding Cantab Capital Partners, a science-driven quantitative investment management firm that uses data analysis to research and implement systematic investment strategies. Kirk exited Cantab in 2016 after securing an acquisition by GAM Investments and has since started or become involved in multiple ventures to commercialise, apply, and support science, technology, and mathematics research.
These include Chairmanships of Deeptech Labs and the Management Committee of the Isaac Newton Institute of Mathematical Sciences and a Non-Executive Directorship at BAE Systems. He's also Entrepreneur in Residence at the Center for Mathematical Studies at Cambridge University and the Co-Founder and Director of the Turner Kirk Trust, which supports STEM, early childhood development, and biodiversity and conservation causes in the UK and developing world.
He explains why the current political and media obsession with AI is drawing attention, and critically important funding, away from ventures which could prove much more beneficial to climate science and the wider shift to more sustainable living.
"Whether it's battery technology or new ways of creating dyes or other biodegradable materials, these are complex technology problems. Deep technology, by definition, requires long cycle investment and funding and right now everything is focused on AI. If you've got AI in your company name you can get funding. If you're a bio plastics producer or doing something really interesting generating new materials you're going to find it a lot harder to secure investment."
Deeptech Labs, a Cambridge based VC fund and accelerator, invests in cohorts of companies in broadly related fields. At present it is seeking companies in sustainability and climate science who are post Seed funding and seeking to scale and secure series A funding.
"By definition these people are scientists," says Kirk, "not necessarily natural entrepreneurs." However, these business skills are relatively easy to teach, which is exactly where Deeptech comes in, and he emphasises how the Cambridge location helps entrepreneurs to tap into a thriving local tech ecosystem.
Bridging the education skills gap
During his speech at London Tech Week earlier this week, the Prime Minister rightly hailed the UK cyber, fintech and biotech sectors, and noted the 134 unicorns which have been created in the country over the course of the last decade. The problem is that right now, it's probably easier to find an actual unicorn than the STEM skills that UK tech needs to fulfil its potential over the next decade. Kirk would like to see this tackled from multiple directions, the first of those being the education system. It fits with his strong beliefs in the merits of socio-economic diversity.
"My charitable trust is funding a project in Glasgow with eight- and nine-year-olds where we are teaching mathematical skills in a visual-spatial way for a term and seeing how it affects results."
University based research on the impact of improving visual-spatial skills on mathematics and computer science attainment has shown, as Kirk puts it, "a stunning effect" after around 10 weeks of tuition in these skills for as little as one to two hours a week.
Some of the children involved in this scheme have had a tough start in life, and Kirk acknowledges the vast scale of the challenge when it comes to STEM education. His charitable trust can make a small difference to some childrens lives today, and maybe a bigger one to to improving skills in the long term, but he acknowledges that no solution based in education is going to solve the deficit in skills that we presently face.
Incoherent approach to immigration
This brings us to the troubled subject of UK immigration policy which Kirk thinks can and should be altered to create a more welcoming environment for the people who have the tech skills our economy so needs.
"It is just so difficult to employ anyone from abroad," he says. "You must prove that there is literally nobody in the UK that can do the same job, and the process takes up to nine months. At the Isaac Newton Institute we've been trying to get some people into the UK on our Solidarity programme where we help mathematicians in more difficult places and it's still a six-month wait. That's if you can get a visa because half of them get turned down seemingly for no apparent reason."
Like many who work in and advocate for STEM, Kirk is frustrated by what he sees as the incoherence of immigration policy. The line that the UK wants to attract "the brightest and the best" from around the world sits ill at ease with an obsession with migrant numbers and an emphasis, amplified through approving media channels, that these numbers should be reduced.
The recent media debate around record levels of legal migration included plenty of talk on whether international students should be counted in the net migration numbers and the desirability of students leaving the UK when their courses have finished. Kirk thinks that talk of whether these individuals should be counted as migrants completely misses the point, and that encouraging these students to return to their countries of origin at the end of their courses is profoundly mistaken.
We get the brightest and best, who pay £30k a year, often to be taught in a language that is not their first. After we've taught them to be brilliant, we tell them to go home. It's just crazy.
"The incoherence drives me nuts. We want to be a tech hub. We want to be Silicon Valley. How did Silicon Valley get to be Silicon Valley? By attracting talent from everywhere.
"We just don't have enough people, and there are only two ways of tackling that. You can make huge efforts to train people to become mathematicians, programmers, and statisticians. It would be nice to see some effort there but it's not enough to fill the gap. So we also invite people who have come here to be educated and paid money into the economy to do so, to stay and get a great job and pay tax. Which seems like a good solution to me.
"Arbitrary caps on numbers just don't work. I'm going to sound like a libertarian now, but shouldn't we let the market decide?"
You may also like
/feature/4334521/tech-isnt-meritocratic
Leadership
Tech isn't as meritocratic as you think
And relying on graduates to fill vacancies isn’t working
/news/4322678/tech-launches-manifesto-generational-change
Skills
Tech She Can launches Manifesto for Generational Change
Launch showcased an impressive community of sponsors, educators and policy makers
/news-analysis/4212923/long-reads-scarlett-johansson-claims-openai-copied-voice
Artificial Intelligence
Long Reads: Scarlett Johansson claims OpenAI copied her voice
But first, the company ignored it