London Technology Week: Events highlight cloud, youth employment and more

Speaking on the campaign, Johnson added: "London is already the digital capital of Europe. But that is just the beginning. We want London to be the digital capital of the world.

"To do that we need to ensure that our young people have the skills that our digital firms need and that youngsters have access to all the opportunities our amazing digital economy has to offer," he concluded.

The Cloud World Forum, the industry's most comprehensive cloud event, is taking place at Olympia London and features input from companies such as Microsoft, HP, Google and more on Tuesdays 17 June and Wednesday 18 June, and forms part of the London Technology Week event listings.

Featuring over 300 speakers for brainstorming sessions, keynotes and live demos, this year's event has focused on changes for cloud computing in business and IT.

London School of Economics professor Will Venters commented: "What some businesses want from cloud and what cloud is truly offering are different things."

He warned of comparing it to current IT in light of history demonstrating that new technologies such as the cloud can often be years ahead of the curve.

IBM's CTO in Europe, John McLean, told journalists at the event of the "new breed" of business emerging that's set to take full advantage of cloud computing. He pointed specifically to the ability to automate complex processes and interact between businesses. He said:

"We are still at the beginning of a journey. Cloud is changing the way businesses interact with their users and business partners like never before."

The concept of office-bound work was also called into question, with the increasing popularity of BYOD and mobility rendering the idea of a fixed workplace obsolete. Speaking on the topic at the Cloud World Forum, Anand Krishnan, general manager of Microsoft UK's developer platform, said:

"The workplace used to be the place where you would have access to tools far more advanced than you would at home. Technology has become a lot cheaper and the form factor has changed. There is a logical desire to bring devices into the workplace."