Duke of York Visiting Tech City in London and Revealing his Passion for Technology

This morning His Royal Highness, the Duke of York – supporting the business community in the UK and enthusiastic about helping to boost East London as a centre of hi-tech endeavour – was on an official visit to Tech City which encompasses the network of more than 1,300 digital or creative businesses and technology start-ups in the East of London.

The Duke returned to Yammer after he officially opened our office last September as we were chosen as one of two hosting companies for the Duke’s visit to Tech City.

In a BBC video interview in preparation to his visit to Tech City the Duke revealed that the Royal Family are tech ‘early adopters’ and that his family use Yammer: “I’ve used that [Yammer] for seminars and forums I’ve held here so that people can carry on the conversation afterwards.”

Yammer co-founder and general manager Adam Pisoni hosted the Duke together with Joanna Shields, CEO of Tech City in our office where he met a selection of entrepreneurs and company founders who have chosen Tech City as the place to imagine, start and grow their businesses.

Joanna Shields said: ‘Tech City is home to some of the most innovative, ambitious companies in the UK and it’s been a pleasure to introduce the Duke of York to some of the talented people based here today.

The Duke was impressed with a video to show Yammer’s journey over the past five years including a successful two years in Tech City. He then had a longer conversation with various Yammer staff before he was introduced to around 60 Tech City representatives including Divinia Knowles, CFO & COO of Mind Candy – creators of Moshi Monsters – and Elizabeth Varley, co-founder of TechHub, which provides community and workspace for tech entrepreneurs. Elizabeth said: ‘Given the ubiquity of technology in our lives today, it’s great to see all sorts of people taking an interest in how technology is created.’

Adam Pisoni summed it up: We are very proud and honoured to have been chosen as a host for the Duke’s visit to Tech City. When expanding our operations into the UK just two years ago East London provided us with the ideal environment to grow our team and better support our European customers. The support we receive from Tech City and the great talent pool available here were both key factors in our decision to open our first engineering centre outside of San Francisco here in London.”