Written by Mark Thompson, Professor in Digital Economy, University of Exeter

Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of chairing the Digital Leaders It was [obviously] a virtual conference — the first virtual conference I’ve chaired — and something I really enjoyed was the vibrant chat panel, which allowed a broader set of views to be aired in real time, something that we’d never really properly achieved in the physical world using phone-based apps. Appropriately enough, the conference was themed into ‘Supporting Covid Recovery’, ‘Improving Health & Wellbeing’, and ‘Tackling Economic Inequality’ — but rather than provide a summary of content…

Written by Kelley Conway, Executive Vice President at Northern Trust Corporation

Technological innovation affects all aspects of our world, from agriculture to transportation to how we communicate with each other. Mundane tasks can now be automated using robotic process automation (RPA), while artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a collaborator across industries as varied as medicine, transportation and fashion. 1

In this series, I will explore the broad impact of innovation on society and what enterprises can do to help ensure that technology innovation furthers societal growth.

Technology innovation is reshaping society

Technology is now firmly embedded throughout our everyday activities, sometimes to a degree where…

Written by Neve Spicer , Founder & Director WeTheParents.org

The science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields are pioneers of innovation, a fact mad e possible by the brilliant minds driving research, discovery, and invention therein. Many crucial advancements in STEM have been made by intrepid female engineers and scientists, which is a wonderful thing to celebrate this February 25th on Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day .

The awareness day is part of Engineers Week, a seven-day event led by the National Society of Professional Engineers. Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, or “Girl Day”, is a worldwide campaign aimed…

Written by Sarah Kruger , Managing Director — Talent & Organization Lead for Financial Services Australia

It’s also important to mention that within financial services, many employers possess information about their employees as customers too. While this presents an additional opportunity to glean valuable customer insights it could potentially pose the risk of a conflict of interest. Privacy issues around customer data gathering are significant, and those issues could be compounded when the customers are employees as well. …

Written by Assaf Frances, Zencity, Director of Urban Policy and Partnerships

The Coronavirus pandemic has had a tremendous impact on local government work over the past year. Although most government CIOs had contingency plans in place pre-corona to ensure the uninterrupted continuation of operations in their district, the unprecedented, rapid evolution of the COVID-19 outbreak and the new technological challenges that came with it left many CIOs in unchartered territory, continuously adapting to these tumultuous times. With no previous “coronavirus guide book” available for reference, many leaders had to adjust on the fly. …

Written by Professor John McDermid OBE FREng , Director, Assuring Autonomy International Programme

While the potential benefits of AI and ML are clear, the introduction of systems that use these technologies cannot be rushed. Safety is paramount and must go hand-in-hand with the development of the system. If you’re developing, buying, or regulating autonomous technologies you need assurance of the system’s safety. Q. What do we mean by safety assurance and how can we get it? A. Communication; Confidence; and Trust

Autonomy, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML): buzz words that crop up in the news, social media, and conversation…

Written by John McMahon, Product Director, IEG4.

John McMahon of IEG4 explores how emerging technologies around data will enable an increase in personalised services, more proactive action, no code digital services delivery, a more compassionate approach and the provision of intelligent services.

There are so many aspects to service delivery within the public sector, that trying to condense them into one or two things becomes tricky.

There is one common thread among everything that public services do: Data. Data is at the centre of our thoughts; the starting point of our ideas, is with the capabilities and purposes of data.

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Written by Professor Alan Brown, Strategy Advisor, Entrepreneur, and Professor in Digital Economy

There is no doubt that the adoption of digital technology has helped all organizations maintain their current operations in times of crisis. Digitizing previous ways of working was seen as necessary to survive the shockwaves of the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, it is becoming clear that this is insufficient to deal with challenges that lay ahead. A digital transformation is essential. This requires leaders in digitally transformed organizations to drive change and adapt to evolving conditions by maintaining closer ties between the business strategy and the delivery of…