AWS Pop-up Loft: Amazon’s giant cloud company to briefly move in on London startups
Developers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and tech enthusiasts will be able to go to the new loft and get in-person help and guidance from AWS staff on technical and business development matters.
However, unlike Google, which has a permanent startup space a short walk away from the loft in the form of Google Campus, the AWS startup hub will only be temporary, sticking around for less than two months this autumn.
AWS said visitors will be able to participate in training courses, boot camps, self-paced labs, meetups, and other events.
It sounds as though the space will be fairly relaxed, with AWS stating that people can drop in for free and grab a coffee or spend some time in the open office working on their app
"The UK is a hotbed of innovation and London is one of the main places where we see talented, ambitious entrepreneurs coming together to test ideas and start new businesses that leverage cloud computing," said Werner Vogels, CTO and VP, Amazon.com.
"With the AWS Pop-up Loft in London we will be bringing together a host of AWS resources, and some of the brightest and most creative minds in the industry, to help startups across the UK. We look forward to working alongside the next generation of UK businesses and helping them to reach their full potential."
The loft, to be based in Moorgate, will be open from September 10 to October 29.
Fast growing London startups such as SwiftKey, Hailo, Shazam and Citymapper use the AWS cloud to support their apps, as do large corporates such as News International and Transport for London.
Companies are increasingly moving their businesses into the cloud as a way of saving money and getting more computing power as and when they need it.
Andrew Roughan, director at IO, said: "This is an astute move from AWS - moving into the vibrant London tech scene and offering a service to a huge startup economy. AWS have a scale platform that transforms IT economics. Startups do not have legacy IT complications to concern themselves with and public cloud gives them a great opportunity to scale without significant investment."
AWS already has similar lofts in San Francisco and New York, while Berlin is also due to get one.
The wider Amazon group came under fire from The New York Times last weekend which published a damning article on the ecommerce giant's working environment.
Techworld has lined up interviews with several UK-based AWS employees that are willing to go on record and share their experience of working for the company.