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We have focussed on our AI mission being transparent and accelerating the programme safely. We work on the ethos of value-led and basing our approach on solving real problems that will help our citizens and colleagues. We use a ‘test and learn’ approach through rapid tech prototyping and iteration. We work with colleagues on the front line to co-develop solutions and have developed a culture of innovation across the business.

We are always responsible and transparent, and in time we will publish our AI code base to the public to ensure transparency. We also have building and sharing components in mind, so tools that we build can be reused across Government.

While working in an ethical and safe way, we are also delivering results at high speed. Our first Gen-AI projects went from preparing a business plan to the delivery of six proof-of-concept projects in a matter of months.

I truly believe AI is a transformative enabler of new and better experiences across every industry and every aspect of our lives. However, in a rush to implement AI, organisations are increasingly spending untold time and money building "AI for AI's sake" instead of using it to solve a core customer problem. I am on a mission to change this. Responsible AI shouldn't be a tickbox at the end of the process; responsible, ethical AI is a competitive advantage that helps us build better products, do better by our customers, and be better for the business's bottom line. Through my talks, writing, and consulting, I am showing organisations of all sizes that responsible AI is a competitive advantage, and one Scotland and the UK as a whole is uniquely positioned to capitalise on.

AI is the buzzword of the decade, capturing the imaginations of technologists and the public alike. However, AI isn't new; it has evolved over decades of research and development. In order to maximize the benefits of machine learning and AI as technologies for the public good, it is imperative that people understand both the potential and the risks associated with these innovations.
The notion of AI as a blackbox is neither productive nor sustainable. My core proposition is to educate people about the capabilities and limitations of AI, emphasizing the importance of the underlying data that powers these systems. This educational endeavor will involve demystifying AI, elucidating on what it can and cannot do, and highlighting the critical role of data quality and integrity in achieving reliable AI outcomes.
Moreover, leveraging existing technological expertise, we can demonstrate the art of the possible with AI. By showcasing practical applications and tangible benefits, we aim to build public trust and foster a deeper understanding of AI's potential to contribute positively to society. This approach will empower individuals and communities to make informed decisions and embrace AI-driven solutions with confidence and awareness.

The Defence Data Research Centre is part of the UK Government’s Defence AI Strategy and Defence AI Centre. The DDRC operates as a consortium led by Zena Wood at the University of Exeter and includes the Universities of Liverpool, and Surrey and the Digital Catapult. DDRC brings together expertise in data science, computer science, cyber, social science and business. My objective is to help MOD overcome its technical, cultural, and behavioural barriers to the use of data within AI and Data Science. This is achieved by delivering practical insights to advance the use of data for Artificial Intelligence applications; investigating data-driven decision making within a defence context; and exploring how solutions and mitigations developed by the Centre could be applied elsewhere to benefit the wider UK economy. DDRC activity focuses on four areas (research, problem solving, community building and impact acceleration), all of which are seen as equally important.

My core proposition is to do everything I can to support evidence based policy and tech enabled delivery in public service. The primary impact has been in 1) attracting, hiring and promoting phenomenal talent 2) delivering extremely high quality data and AI products, quickly and well, especially in high impact policy areas or in times of crisis 3) intervening in tech procurement to ensure we are procuring the right solutions that also offer value for money 4) providing free training and upskilling to thousands of people 5) engaging a wide range of civil service colleagues through shared voluntary endeavour, especially big government hackathons 6) training and guiding senior civil servants and political colleagues in how to effectively work with data and evidence to make better decisions 7) building strong brands to draw people together under a banner of Data and AI for the Public Good.

Evidence House: https://www.linkedin.com/company/evidence-house/
Incubator for AI: https://www.linkedin.com/company/100365443/

I grew up not seeing user-centred design jobs in Wales and felt I had to move to England to start my career. My ambition is to make Wales an exemplar country for user-centred design in the public sector and to prepare the workforce for this to happen.

Through my work I aim to make the Welsh public sector an exciting, mature, inspiring place to do user-centred design work to ultimately improve citizens' lives.

I challenge the siloed, traditional waterfall approach of delivering digital work and encourage collaboration, constructive challenge and authenticity in my work. I believe in using creativity to inspire our efforts; coming from a design background I use my design thinking skills to bring stakeholders together to run ideation workshops, design critiques and team collaboration sessions. I believe working in this way is attracting talented people into our profession to make much needed digital transformation in Wales.

My core proposition is centered around harnessing digital technology to enhance our staff and patient experiences. Passionate about technological advancements, I thrive in autonomous roles where I can guide Senior Project staff, ensuring their projects align with strategic goals and making data-driven decisions. At 26, I bring fresh, innovative ideas to the table, contributing to meetings and suggesting process improvements. I've successfully introduced new communication methods for digital change and programme updates, demonstrating my commitment to effective organisational change. My leadership style is defined by empathy, kindness, and honesty, fostering an environment where staff feel understood and motivated. I am dedicated to their growth by aligning annual goals with their development. My confidence has grown significantly, enabling me to present confidently at various meetings and forums. I excel in delegating tasks with clarity, ensuring that projects are completed thoroughly from start to finish.

Imagine a team of experienced professionals, their invaluable knowledge isn't documented -it's tacit, locked away in their minds. Daily inefficiencies arise from searching for information, tracking down experts, or sifting through outdated documents, massively impacting productivity. Challenges extend through on-boarding, team scaling, and knowledge-retention when someone leaves.

80% of organisational knowledge is trapped in people's minds. Knowledge-workers spend at least a fifth of their time searching for information within their business, absorbing 26% of salaries. Outdated and inaccessible information is costing the UK economy a staggering £25B yearly, with many existing knowledge sources considered "useless", according to new research.

Existing tools like wikis, file-sharing platforms, and chat apps fall short. Enter TeamBrain, a game-changing solution designed to capture, curate, and make team knowledge easily accessible. It enhances productivity and innovation, initially benefiting Product and Software Teams. TeamBrain promises to transform how teams manage and leverage their collective-wisdom, doubling/tripling productivity.

BERRI is a sophisticated digital tool which assesses a child’s psychological and neurodevelopmental needs, and provides individualised smart reports containing bespoke advice for caregivers, informed by the expertise of clinical psychologists. The is huge unmet need when it comes to mental health and neurodiversity, and limited clinical resources to meet that need. Using the BERRI digital tools can help parents and carers to support children to be happier and feel better understood in their lives. This will cause ripples of positive change through the generations, changing the world for the better.

Digital Skills Hub was established in August 2023 to address digital exclusion in the Boscombe-Bournemouth community. My aim is to ensure that digital skills—ranging from basic to advanced—are freely available and easily accessible. Through a variety of courses, drop-ins, events, and workshops, I support both individuals and businesses in enhancing their digital literacy.

The Hub’s mission is to boost productivity, economic growth, and digital engagement in the area. By offering services like employment support, business learning, and specialised workshops, we help residents and businesses become more digitally empowered. I actively collaborate with local organisations across multiple sectors, driving digital transformation and ensuring our community stays future-focused.

My goal is to make a lifelong positive impact by providing a safe, welcoming space for learning and growth, enabling everyone to succeed in the digital age.

I am passionate about delivering meaningful social impact. With 15 years’ experience in-house at charities, leading digital transformation and user-centred design, I’m proud to head up the third sector portfolio at Healthia (formerly Mace & Menter). I work alongside a talented team with a shared goal: creating better experiences to deliver better outcomes.

Throughout my career, including recent projects with Macmillan, With You, Breast Cancer Now, NHS Gloucestershire and the V&A, I’ve focused on developing new or enhancing existing services for patients, staff and carers, both on- and offline. Service design and research have been key tools, enabling informed decision-making and de-risking transformation.

Service design is also critical in breaking down internal silos that can slow progress. I’m passionate about helping more charities embed service design and research capabilities, and I aim to support organisations in recognising the value of design thinking by fostering a collaborative, one-team approach on all my projects.

Automatic triaging - LLM based technology to do a ‘first pass’ prioritisation of new cases based on vulnerabilities detected in the intake information

Risk alerts - these are visual representations of flags like medical conditions or equipment needs, young children, and people of pensionable age. You can roll over one of these flags to see a summary of why it is present.

Supervisors get a real-time dashboard of case mix per team member, so they can allocate new cases accordingly.

Fuse is a secure, customisable, and flexible web-based project portal that integrates rich and interactive content from commonly used tools, applications, and services. It serves as a central hub for project information, providing an efficient, self-serve user experience for both internal and external stakeholders. The platform's advanced GIS services, spatial analytics, and database tools support the work of project managers and various engineering teams, enabling them to make informed decisions based on accurate and up-to-date information

My mission is to harness the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) for the benefit of vulnerable service users.

I’ve built a team of experts combining deep expertise in AI, user-centred design, and understanding the challenges faced by caseworkers and service providers. We’re reimagining casework through cutting-edge innovations, collaboration, inclusivity, and tangible outcomes of improved performance and productivity.

We zero in on the highest priority items to unlock value and deliver impact. We run riskiest assumption tests, avoid rabbit holes and push at open doors - including low code tools and AI functionality of existing CRMs. The crux of the challenge is often evaluating machine generated output, for which we can employ prompt engineering, LLM fine tuning, RAG and classical NLP.

We take data security seriously, with pseudonymisation of data, to remove Personally Identifiable Information, housed in secure architecture. Model and bias evaluation is a key part of our offer.

The core idea is to provide an effective evidence base that empirically brings to life our anecdotal evidence of poor mobile user experience in Westminster. Over two months in early 2024, the council and Inakalum surveyed the borough, using normal mobile phones hosted in Veolia waste collection trucks, to identify the capacity challenges in the city.

The devices collected the data required to map capacity problems across all major mobile networks. By using waste trucks, we captured data in the morning, afternoon and evening, showing how capacity changes throughout the day. This data revealed specific areas of congestion and provided evidence for discussions with planners, so network connectivity can be factored into the planning process and help inform our Infrastructure Development Plan. Additionally, Ontix is leveraging the data to target areas for additional small cell deployments, which is the primary method of addressing capacity problems in dense urban areas.

As KCCs Digital Programme Manager, I am dedicated to enhancing digital experiences and driving transformation within Kent County Council. My focus is on improving service delivery, reducing costs, and promoting accessibility and inclusion. I lead initiatives such as the Digital Post project, which aims to streamline postal activities and support hybrid working practices. I advocate for user-centered design, ensuring that our digital services are intuitive and meet the needs of all residents. My commitment to digital transformation is evident in my efforts to foster collaboration across departments and leverage technology to achieve strategic goals. I am passionate about creating a culture of continuous improvement and innovation, empowering teams to embrace digital solutions that enhance efficiency and deliver better outcomes for our community.

I am passionate about using digital to generate valuable insights which can be used to improve the world we live in. At Arup, I enjoy working on large infrastructure and environmental projects and using my digital expertise to help deliver high-quality work for our clients. I am particularly keen to promote the important of ‘where’ and integrate geospatial into all our projects. I am a big proponent of automation and using it to drive efficiencies.
As a young digital leader, I am eager to showcase the power of geospatial and encourage engagement between digital experts in my organisation, in the region more broadly. I am keen to encourage others to foster their digital skills and to play my role in helping drive digital transformation.

Ideal for All is a charity run by and for disabled people. We know first hand how hard life is without equal access to digital. We work to ensure everyone has access, and we enable people that have been on that journey themselves to have their ‘voice’ heard, and to give back to other who need digital too.

Closing the gap on the digital divide, we supported over 1,700 disabled and vulnerable adults last year with vital digital skills, access to free data enabled devices and adaptive technology. Our staff also have disabilities including being visually impaired and share their knowledge, expertise and even equipment with others to give them access to the digital world on their terms – using low cost solutions which can be easily replicated at home such as generative free AI, adaptive technology and accessible equipment to give everyone access no matter their age, ability or background.

The Institute of Coding (IoC), led by the University of Bath, is a national collaboration of universities, employers, and charities dedicated to closing the UK’s digital skills gap and driving social mobility. Since 2018, we have developed over 150 courses with 35 UK universities, enrolling more than 1 million learners, particularly from underrepresented and marginalised groups.

In January 2023, we launched the £12 million Click Start programme, funded by Nominet. This nationwide initiative brings together educators, employers, and charities to tackle the UK’s digital skills gap and improve social mobility. Click Start provides technical and employability training, offering broad online courses and intensive deep provision programmes for those facing substantial barriers. By removing financial and structural obstacles, we are opening pathways to digital careers for people who have traditionally been excluded, transforming the UK workforce and creating new opportunities for individuals from diverse backgrounds.

The Institute of Coding (IoC), led by the University of Bath, is a national collaboration of universities, employers, and charities dedicated to closing the UK’s digital skills gap and driving social mobility. Our core mission is to make high-quality, inclusive digital education accessible to all, with a special focus on underrepresented and marginalised groups. Since our launch in 2018, we have developed over 150 courses in collaboration with 35 UK universities, enrolling over 1 million learners. Our efforts have yielded a significant impact: 47% of our learners identify as women (compared to the UK tech average of 25%), 54% come from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds, and 32% were unemployed at the start of their training. By removing financial and structural barriers, we are transforming the face of the UK tech workforce and creating new opportunities for those traditionally excluded from digital careers.

In 2023, Salford Council secured funding as part of the Planning Software Investment Fund from DLUHC. We worked with three software providers to deliver AI capability in our planning application process – Agile Applications, Objective and Arcus Global. We aimed to see all information related to planning applications; drawings, supporting documents and associated data, flowing seamlessly between multiple systems so that our planning officers could efficiently process and assess applications, delivering quality outcomes from within one system. We built open APIs between our three main systems, so that information collected by the AI validation system (Agile), could pre-populate our back-office system (Arcus) and provide access to our assessment system (Objective). Planning application information became more data-rich and easier to process. The AI system pulls applications from the national planning portal, performs configured checks on the data, presents the officer processing with a % validation, and highlights any aspects for further checks.

The Climate Data Portal is an open web portal which enables access to a range of climate data. It features guidance and information on the data available. It allows easy navigation between data layers and the data can be displayed and analysed on a simple map viewer within the portal, as well as downloaded in a range of formats including csv, other geospatial formats such as shapefile, PowerBI, and linked to via API. It features a mix of Projections (UKCP18) and Observations (HadUK) data layers covering temperature, precipitation, wind and sea level rise as well as Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) data. It is positioned at users who don’t have specialist knowledge of climate data, but also makes it easier for those with more advanced climate experience to access data in the easiest format for them to integrate with other data and operations they have on GIS platforms.

To build on the strengths of our communities by bringing together employees, residents, volunteers and partners to upskill the residents of our borough to embrace technologies, build confidence and community resilience.

In addition to the fundamental basic digital skills, we want to ensure that our residents are afforded the same opportunities to access groundbreaking technologies, in a fun and safe environment. Our commitment to these alternative technologies is more than just an investment in digital skills—it’s a strategic move towards improving health outcomes and reducing the financial strain on NHS and Council Services. This proactive “Invest to Save” approach is our answer to the pressing national discourse on adult social care funding. By championing these innovative technologies, we are crafting a future where digital inclusivity is not a mere aspiration but a tangible reality for all.

The driving ambition for OpusMap is to make UK Local Plans easier to understand and more accessible to the public, and for real-time plan making technologies and processes to be more accessible and efficient for planners to customise and apply to their internal plan production methodologies. Council planners need to be able to translate their vision spatially using the latest interactive mapping and multiple datasets. The public need to be able to access and engage with plans using their preferred devices, anything from a mobile phone to a 4K TV. OpusMap brings together digital mapping, multiple spatial data from multiple sources and the latest web-based digital technologies. It harnesses the global digital reach of the Internet and the dynamic technological capabilities of modern web browsers to provide a common and familiar digital interface through which planners and stakeholders participate, consult and collaborate in the plan making process.

TechPixies is a social enterprise dedicated to empowering women through digital education, focusing on CPD-certified social media training, life coaching, and business coaching. The core proposition is to bridge the digital skills gap for women, enabling them to re-enter the workforce, pivot their careers, or launch their own businesses. The guiding belief is that every woman, regardless of her background, deserves the opportunity to achieve financial independence and career fulfilment.

With a strong commitment to inclusivity, we’ve supported over 14,000 women from diverse backgrounds, including those from underrepresented communities. By equipping women with the tools and mindset to succeed, TechPixies transforms individual lives and contributes to a more diverse and inclusive workforce.