All of this is shaped by an overarching commitment to inclusive growth under a guiding star of ‘purposeful collaboration’, resulting in a new model of an Inclusive Innovation District. Key to this has been working with the right sort of partners from across all sectors, new and old, big and small —who share our ambition. We have targeted sectors that deliver growth in good quality, sustainable careers. We have jointly designed and delivered a demand-led employment and skills programme, ‘East Works’, which responds to employers’ current and future skills opportunities and challenges. We have worked hard to drive up wages and improve employment practices in sectors that are characterised by low pay, unpaid internships, and recruitment through closed networks. We have championed civic voice and participation for example with our Park Panel residents steering group and hundreds of Park Champion volunteers. We have emphasized Youth engagement via our Youth Board and outreach programmes. 

We have developed an educational programme focused on Experimentation Arts Science and Technology. We support community activation and empowerment through projects that put the community as client such as Hub 67 and East Village Trust. We invest in diverse network building with initiatives like Echo. We protect natural assets with our environmental sustainability commitment and seek growth with net environmental benefit. Above all, we unashamedly celebrate the abundance of diverse talent, often untapped, that resides in east London.East London is home to one of the most diverse, young populations in the world, and with that comes a multiplicity of experience and thought that hold real value to the sorts of knowledge-based businesses making Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park their home. Nurturing this diverse talent pipeline, and opening access to it is a business imperative for knowledge-intensive originations, but also, a key to how these knowledge clusters can connect with local communities, building a mutual sense of belonging and prosperity.

With partners across various sectors and sizes coming together to design and deliver a range of activities focused on social, economic and environmental benefits, the result can be more than an agglomeration effect; moving towards co-production and co-creation of new ideas, products and processes. It is with this intent, grounded by an inclusive growth mission that we start to create the inclusive economics of tomorrow that are so needed in the current global crisis of today.