The company said that with the tech evolving so quickly, from smart devices to wearable tech, the 7th Network was a place to share research and debate on future developments between BT employees and external contributors.

This will complement BT’s already existing Infinity Lab programme, a competition it runs with entrepreneur community TechHub to encourage start-ups to develop new apps or services to exploit super-fast broadband.

Previous winners of that competition include Paris-based Xooloo for its app to manage children’s activities on smartphones and tablets and Utelly which brings together content on a mobile device.

To support the launch of 7th Network BT researched 1000 seven to 11-year-olds on their knowledge of tech history and expectations of technology in the future.

More than a third ( 35%) hoped computers would soon be able to clean their bedrooms, 31% thought smartphones would soon be waterproof and 18% predicted PCs would be small wearable devices implanted under the skin.

Meanwhile their historical knowledge was predictably patchy: 44% didn’t know what a telegram was and 16% thought the internet pre-dated the flushing toilet