Don’t go chasing unicorns: Scottish Labour wants tangible tech application

Tech startups may not be the solution to the country’s economic challenges.

Daniel Johnson has warned against chasing unicorns rather than concentrating on applying new innovations to existing industries.

Echoing Downing Street’s focus on overhauling the UK public sector through automation and artificial intelligence, Scottish Labour’s spokesman for the economy, business and work, wants to see a push for tangible applications rather than ambitious ‘moonshot’ projects. 

‘There’s a bit of a tendency to be chasing pure tech unicorns. And actually, where we’re going to get the most growth is the £100 million applied technology firms, rather than pure technology or software startups,’ said Johnson.

‘And if you look at a lot of the economic data, 90 to 98 per cent of firms in Scotland just don’t grow, and poor levels of technology adoption are at the heart of that,’ he continued. 

While the comments show support for the need to overhaul public services, the clear warning against ‘unicorns’ is at odds with messaging from Downing Street about introducing ‘startup culture’ into local and central government departments. Johnson went on to cite a visit to a fish processing plant which uses AI to debone catch, alongside various innovations in healthcare provision including increased use of robotics. 

Commentators have pointed out that the position suggests a major rethink from Scotland’s current position. The administration’s flagship Techscaler programme is just one example of the country’s large scale investment into startups and novel technologies. Johnson has also pointed to major gaps in digital skills as a more urgent issue compared with the need to explore completely new applications. 

‘It’s about how we deepen the technology pipeline that STER set out, so it actually better focuses on applied technology and how those benefits are spread,’ said Johnson. ;But also, we did this one-off thing with Digital Boost, and we actually need to mainstream the ways that we provide support to SMEs.’

Image: Paul Bill / Unsplash 

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