Tag Archives: Washington (state)

London gets its first Chief Digital Officer (CDO)

A report commissioned from 2thinknow by Business Insider ranks the 25 most high-tech cities in the world (Vancouver, Canada rates as 14th on this list) is featured in an Aug. 25, 2017 news item on the Daily Hive; Vancouver,

The ranking was selected on 10 factors related to technological advancement, which included the number of patents filed per capita, startups, tech venture capitalists, ranking in other innovation datasets, and level of smartphone use.

Topping the list, which was released this month, is San Fransisco’s “Silicon Valley,” which “wins in just about every category.” New York comes in second place, followed by London [UK; emphasis mine], Los Angeles, and Seoul.

Intriguingly, London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan announced a new Chief Digital Officer for the city just a few days later. From an August 29, 2017 news item by Michael Moore for Beta News,

Theo Blackwell, a former cabinet member at Camden Council, will take responsibility for helping London continue to be the technology powerhouse it has become over the past few years.

Mr Blackwell will work closely with the Mayor’s office, particularly the Smart London Board, to create a new “Smart London Plan” that looks to outline how the capital can benefit from embracing new technologies, with cybersecurity, open data and connectivity all at the forefront.

He will also look to build collaboration across London’s boroughs when it comes to public technology schemes, and encourage the digital transformation of public services.

“The new chief digital officer post is an amazing opportunity to make our capital even more open to innovation, support jobs and investment and make our public services more effective,” he said in a statement.

An August 25, 2017 Mayor of London press release, which originated the news item, provides a more detailed look at the position and the motives for creating it,

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has today (25 August [2017]) appointed Theo Blackwell as the capital’s first ever Chief Digital Officer (CDO).

As London’s first CDO, Theo will play a leading role in realising the Mayor’s ambition to make London the world’s smartest city, ensuring that the capital’s status as a global tech hub helps transform the way public services are designed and delivered, making them more accessible, efficient and responsive to the needs of Londoners. The appointment fulfils a key manifesto commitment made by the Mayor.

He joins the Mayor’s team following work at GovTech accelerator Public Group, advising start-ups on the growing market in local public services, and was previously Head of Policy & Public Affairs for the video games industry’s trade body, Ukie – where he ran a ‘Next Gen Skills’ campaign to get coding back on the curriculum.

Theo brings more than 20 years of experience in technology and digital transformation in both the public and private sector.  In his role as cabinet member for finance, technology and growth at Camden Council, Theo has established Camden as London’s leading digital borough through its use of public data – and this year they received national recognition as Digital Leaders ‘Council of the year’.

Theo also sits on the Advisory Board of Digital Leaders and is a director of Camden Town Unlimited, a Business Improvement District which pioneered new start-up incubation in ‘meanwhile’ space.

Theo will work closely with the Mayor’s Smart London Board to develop a new Smart London Plan, and will play a central role in building collaboration across London’s boroughs, and businesses, to drive the digital transformation of public services, as well as supporting the spread of innovation through common technology standards and better data-sharing.

Theo will also promote manifesto ambitions around pan-London collaboration on connectivity, digital inclusion, cyber-security and open data. He will also focus on scoping work for the London Office for Technology & Innovation that was announced by the Mayor at London Tech Week.

London already has more than 47,000 digital technology companies, employing approximately 240,000 people. It is forecast that the number of tech companies will increase by a third and a further 44,500 jobs will have been created by 2026.

The capital is also racing ahead with new technologies, using it for ticketing and contactless on the transport network, while the London Datastore is an open resource with vast amounts of data about all areas of the city, and tech start-ups have used this open data to create innovative new apps.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said:

I am determined to make London the world’s leading ‘smart city’ with digital technology and data at the heart of making our capital a better place to live, work and visit. We already lead in digital technology, data science and innovation and I want us to make full use of this in transforming our public services for Londoners and the millions of visitors to our great city.

I am delighted to appoint Theo Blackwell as London’s first Chief Digital Officer, and I know he will use his experience working in the technology sector and developing public services to improve the lives of all Londoners.

Theo Blackwell said:

The new Chief Digital Officer post is an amazing opportunity to make our capital even more open to innovation, support jobs and investment and make our public services more effective. The pace of change over the next decade requires public services to develop a stronger relationship with the tech sector.  Our purpose is to fully harness London’s world-class potential to make our public services faster and more reliable at doing things we expect online, but also adaptable enough to overcome the capital’s most complex challenges.

Antony Walker, Deputy CEO of techUK, said:

techUK has long argued that London needed a Chief Digital Officer to ensure that London makes the best possible use of new digital technologies. The appointment of Theo Blackwell is good news for Londoners. The smart use of new digital technologies can improve the lives of people living in or visiting London. Theo Blackwell brings a deep understanding of both the opportunities ahead and the challenges of implementing new digital technologies to address the city’s most pressing problems. This appointment is an important step forward to London being at the forefront of tech innovation to create smart places and communities where citizens want to live, work and thrive.

Councillor Claire Kober, Chair of London Councils, said:

The appointment of London’s first Chief Digital Officer fills an important role providing needed digital leadership for London’s public services.  Theo will bring his longstanding experience working with other borough leaders, which I think is critical as we develop new approaches to developing, procuring and scaling the best digital solutions across the capital.

Robin Knowles, Founder and CEO of Digital Leaders, said:

Theo Blackwell has huge experience and is a fabulous appointment as the capital’s first Chief Digital Officer.  He will do a great job for London.

Doteveryone founder, Baroness Martha Lane Fox, said:

Digital leadership is a major challenge for the public sector, as the new Chief Digital Officer for London Theo’s track-record delivering real change in local government and his work in the tech sector brings real experience to this role.

Mike Flowers, First Chief Analytics Officer for New York City and Chief Analytics Officer at Enigma Technologies, said:

Theo is a pragmatic visionary with that rare combination of tech savvy and human focus that the task ahead of him requires. I congratulate Mayor Khan on his decision to trust him with this critical role, and I’m very happy for the residents of London whose lives will be improved by the better use of data and technology by their government. Theo gets results.

It’s always possible that there’s a mastermind involved in the timing of these announcements but sometimes they’re just a reflection of a trend. Cities have their moments just like people do and it seems like London may be on an upswing. From an August 18 (?), 2017 opinion piece by Gavin Poole (Chief Executive Officer, Here East) for ITProPortal,

Recently released data from London & Partners indicates that record levels of venture capital investment are flooding into the London tech sector, with a record £1.1 billion pounds being invested since the start of the year. Strikingly, 2017 has seen a fourfold increase in investment compared with 2013. This indicates that, despite Brexit fears, London retains its crown as Europe’s number one tech hub for global investors but we must make sure that we keep that place by protecting access to the world’s best talent.

As the tech sector continues to outperform the rest of the UK economy, London’s place in it will become all the more important. When London does well, so too does the rest of the UK. Mega-deals from challenger brands like Monzo and Improbable, and the recent opening of Europe’s newest technology innovation destination, Plexal, at Here East have helped to cement the tech sector’s future in the medium-term. Government too has recognised the strength of the sector; earlier this month the Department for Culture, Media and Sport rebranded as the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. This name change, 25 years after the department’s creation, signifies how much things have developed. There is now also a Minister of State for Digital who covers everything from broadband and mobile connectivity to the creative industries. This visible commitment by the Government to put digital at the heart of its agenda should be welcomed.

There are lots of reasons for London’s tech success: start-ups and major corporates look to London for its digital and geographical connectivity, the entrepreneurialism of its tech talent and the vibrancy of its urban life. We continue to lead Europe on all of these fronts and Sadiq Khan’s #LondonIsOpen campaign has made clear that the city remains welcoming and accessible. In fact, there’s no shortage of start-ups proclaiming the great things about London. Melissa Morris, CEO and Founder, Lantum, a company that recently secured £5.3 in funding in London said “London is the world’s coolest city – it attracts some of the most interesting people from across the world… We’ve just closed a round of funding, and our plans are very much about growth”.

As for Vancouver, we don’t have any science officers or technology officers or anything of that ilk. Our current mayor, Gregor Robertson, who pledged to reduce homelessness almost 10 years ago has experienced a resounding failure with regard to that pledge but his greenest city pledge has enjoyed more success. As far as I’m aware the mayor and the current city council remain blissfully uninvolved in major initiatives to encourage science and technology efforts although there was a ‘sweetheart’ real estate deal for local technology company, Hootsuite. A Feb. 18, 2014 news item on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) website provides a written description of the deal but there is also this video,

Robertson went on to win his election despite the hint of financial misdoings in the video but there is another election* coming in 2018. The city official in the video, Penny Ballem was terminated in September 2015 *due to what seemed to be her attempts to implement policy at a pace some found disconcerting*. In the meantime, the Liberal party which made up our provincial government until recently (July 2017) was excoriated for its eagerness to accept political money and pledged to ‘change the rules’ as did the parties which were running in opposition. As far as I’m aware, there have been no changes that will impace provincial or municipal politicians in the near future.

Getting back to government initiatives that encourage science and technology efforts in Vancouver, there is the Cascadia Innovation Corridor. Calling it governmental is a bit of a stretch as it seems to be a Microsoft initiative that found favour with the governments of Washington state and the province of British Columbia; Vancouver will be one of the happy recipients. See my Feb. 28, 2017 posting and August 28, 2017 posting for more details about the proposed Corridor.

In any event, I’d like to see a science policy and at this point I don’t care if it’s a city policy or a provincial policy.

*’elections’ corrected to ‘election’ and ‘due to what seemed to be her attempts to implement policy at a pace some found disconcerting’ added for clarity on August 31, 2017.

High speed rail link for Cascadia Innovation Corridor

In a Feb. 28, 2017 posting I featured an announcement about what I believe is the first  project from the British Columbia (province of Canada) and Washington State (US) government’s joint Cascadia Innovation Corridor initiative:  the Cascadia Analytics Cooperative, During the telephone press conference a couple of the participants joked about hyperloop (transportation pods in vacuum tubes) and  being able to travel between Vancouver (Canada) and Seattle (US) in minutes. It seems that might not have been quite the joke I assumed. Kenneth Chan in an Aug. 14, 2017 posting for the Daily Hive announced a high-speed rail feasibility study is underway (Note: Links have been removed),

According to KUOW public radio, the study began in late-July and will be conducted by a consultant at a cost of US$300,000 – down from the budgeted USD$1 million when the study was first announced earlier this year in Governor Jay Inslee’s proposed state budget. The budget bill proposed Washington State stations at locations such as Bellingham, Everett, SeaTac International Airport, Tacoma, Olympia, and Vancouver, Washington.

The idea has received the full backing of Washington State-based Microsoft, which supported the study with an additional $50,000 contribution. [emphasis mine] Engineering consultancy firm CH2M, which has offices in Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland, has been contracted to perform the study.

Interest in such a rail link is spurred from the Cascadia Innovation Corridor agreement signed by the government leaders of BC and Washington State last fall. The agreement committed both jurisdictions to growing the Vancouver-Seattle corridor into a tech corridor and innovation hub and improving transportation connections, such as high-speed rail.

“Why not a high speed train from Vancouver to Seattle to Portland? If we lived in Europe it would already be there,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer, at a recent Portland conference on regional policy. “We need to raise our sights and our ambition level as a region.”

Microsoft is very interested in facilitating greater ease of movement, a development which causes me to to feel some unease as mentioned in my February 28, 2017 posting,

I look forward to hearing more about the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative and the Cascadia Innovation Corridor as they develop. This has the potential to be very exciting although I do have some concerns such as MIcrosoft and its agendas, both stated and unstated. After all, the Sept. 2016 meeting was convened by Microsoft and its public affairs/lobbying group and the topic was innovation, which is code for business and as hinted earlier, business is not synonymous with social good. Having said that I’m not about to demonize business either. I just think a healthy dose of skepticism is called for. Good things can happen but we need to ensure they do.

Since February 2017, the government in British Columbia has changed hands and is now led by James Horgan of the New Democratic Party. Like Christy Clark and the Liberals before them, this provincial government does not have any science policy, a ministry of science (senior or junior), or any evidence of independent science advice. There has been (and may still be, it’s hard to tell) a Premier’s Technology Council, a BC Innovation Council (formerly the Science Council of BC), and #BCTECH Strategy which hie more to business and applied science than an inclusive ‘science strategy’ with attendant government agencies.

Canada and its Vancouver tech scene gets a boost

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been running around attending tech events both in the Vancouver area (Canada) and in Seattle these last few days (May 17 and May 18, 2017). First he attended the Microsoft CEO Summit as noted in a May 11, 2017 news release from the Prime Minister’s Office (Note: I have a few comments about this performance and the Canadian tech scene at the end of this post),

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today [May 11, 2017] announced that he will participate in the Microsoft CEO Summit in Seattle, Washington, on May 17 and 18 [2017], to promote the Cascadia Innovation Corridor, encourage investment in the Canadian technology sector, and draw global talent to Canada.

This year’s summit, under the theme “The CEO Agenda: Navigating Change,” will bring together more than 150 chief executive officers. While at the Summit, Prime Minister Trudeau will showcase Budget 2017’s Innovation and Skills Plan and demonstrate how Canada is making it easier for Canadian entrepreneurs and innovators to turn their ideas into thriving businesses.

Prime Minister Trudeau will also meet with Washington Governor Jay Inslee.

Quote

“Canada’s greatest strength is its skilled, hard-working, creative, and diverse workforce. Canada is recognized as a world leader in research and development in many areas like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and 3D programming. Our government will continue to help Canadian businesses grow and create good, well-paying middle class jobs in today’s high-tech economy.”
— Rt. Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

Quick Facts

  • Canada-U.S. bilateral trade in goods and services reached approximately $882 billion in 2016.
  • Nearly 400,000 people and over $2 billion-worth of goods and services cross the Canada-U.S. border every day.
  • Canada-Washington bilateral trade was $19.8 billion in 2016. Some 223,300 jobs in the State of Washington depend on trade and investment with Canada. Canada is among Washington’s top export destinations.

Associated Link

Here’s a little more about the Microsoft meeting from a May 17, 2017 article by Alan Boyle for GeekWire.com (Note: Links have been removed),

So far, this year’s Microsoft CEO Summit has been all about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s talk today, but there’s been precious little information available about who else is attending – and Trudeau may be one of the big reasons why.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates created the annual summit back in 1997, to give global business leaders an opportunity to share their experiences and learn about new technologies that will have an impact on business in the future. The event’s attendee list is kept largely confidential, as is the substance of the discussions.

This year, Microsoft says the summit’s two themes are “trust in technology” (as in cybersecurity, international hacking, privacy and the flow of data) and “the race to space” (as in privately funded space efforts such as Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket venture).

Usually, Microsoft lists a few folks who are attending the summit on the company’s Redmond campus, just to give a sense of the event’s cachet. For example, last year’s headliners included Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson (who is now the Trump administration’s secretary of state)

This year, however, the spotlight has fallen almost exclusively on the hunky 45-year-old Trudeau, the first sitting head of government or state to address the summit. Microsoft isn’t saying anything about the other 140-plus VIPs attending the discussions. “Out of respect for the privacy of our guests, we are not providing any additional information,” a Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire via email.

Even Trudeau’s remarks at the summit are hush-hush, although officials say he’s talking up Canada’s tech sector.  …

Laura Kane’s May 18, 2017 article for therecord.com provides a little more information about Trudeau’s May 18, 2017 activities in Washington state,

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continued his efforts to promote Canada’s technology sector to officials in Washington state on Thursday [May 18, 2017], meeting with Gov. Jay Inslee a day after attending the secretive Microsoft CEO Summit.

Trudeau and Inslee discussed, among other issues, the development of the Cascadia Innovation Corridor, an initiative that aims to strengthen technology industry ties between British Columbia and Washington.

The pair also spoke about trade and investment opportunities and innovation in the energy sector, said Trudeau’s office. In brief remarks before the meeting, the prime minister said Washington and Canada share a lot in common.

But protesters clad in yellow hazardous material suits that read “Keystone XL Toxic Cleanup Crew” gathered outside the hotel to criticize Trudeau’s environmental record, arguing his support of pipelines is at odds with any global warming promises he has made.

Later that afternoon, Trudeau visited Electronic Arts (a US games company with offices in the Vancouver area) for more tech talk as Stephanie Ip notes in her May 18, 2017 article for The Vancouver Sun,

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Metro Vancouver Thursday [may 18, 2017] to learn from local tech and business leaders how the federal government can boost B.C.’s tech sector.

The roundtable discussion was organized by the Vancouver Economic Commission and hosted in Burnaby at Electronic Arts’ Capture Lab, where the video game company behind the popular FIFA, Madden and NHL franchises records human movement to add more realism to its digital characters. Representatives from Amazon, Launch Academy, Sony Pictures, Darkhorse 101 Pictures and Front Fundr were also there.

While the roundtable was not open to media, Trudeau met beforehand with media.

“We’re going to talk about how the government can be a better partner or better get out of your way in some cases to allow you to continue to grow, to succeed, to create great opportunities to allow innovation to advance success in Canada and to create good jobs for Canadians and draw in people from around the world and continue to lead the way in the world,” he said.

“Everything from clean tech, to bio-medical advances, to innovation in digital economy — there’s a lot of very, very exciting things going on”

Comments on the US tech sector and the supposed Canadian tech sector

I wonder at all the secrecy. As for the companies mentioned as being at the roundtable, you’ll notice a preponderance of US companies with Launch Academy and Front Fundr (which is not a tech company but a crowdfunding equity company) supplying Canadian content. As for Darkhorse 101 Pictures,  I strongly suspect (after an online search) it is part of Darkhorse Comics (as US company) which has an entertainment division.

Perhaps it didn’t seem worthwhile to mention the Canadian companies? In that case, that’s a sad reflection on how poorly we and our media support our tech sector.

In fact, it seems Trudeau’s version of the Canadian technology sector is for us to continue in our role as a branch plant remaining forever in service of the US economy or at least the US tech sector which may be experiencing some concerns with the US Trump administration and what appears to be an increasingly isolationist perspective with regard to trade and immigration. It’s a perspective that the tech sector, especially the entertainment component, can ill afford.

As for the Cascadia Innovation Corridor mentioned in the Prime Minister’s news release and in Kane’s article, I have more about that in a Feb. 28, 2017 posting about the Cascadia Data Analytics Cooperative.

I noticed he mentioned clean tech as an area of excitement. Well, we just lost a significant player not to the US this time but to the EU (European Union) or more specifically, Germany. (There’ll be more about that in an upcoming post.)

I’m glad to see that Trudeau remains interested in Canadian science and technology but perhaps he could concentrate on new ways of promoting sectoral health rather than relying on the same old thing.

Storyboarding emergencies

A team of Spanish researchers have found a way to make emergency communication more effective with a storyboarding technique (e.g. comic books are set up like storyboards with panels of visualized information and, sometimes, text).

They published their paper in April 2011 and I’m not sure why they’ve reissued the news releases at this time but I’m glad they did.

From the March 12, 2012 news item on physorg.com,

Spanish researchers at the Universidad Carlos III of Madrid have developed a computer application that allows georeferenced images that have been uploaded to social networks on the Internet to be recovered, located on maps and organized like a comic to create a visual perspective of a specific story, such as a crisis situation or an emergency.

I prefer this description of the research (from the Research paper: eStorys: A visual storyboard system supporting back-channel communication for emergencies [behind a paywall] Authors: Malizia, A. Bellucci, A. Díaz, P. Aedo, I. Levialdi, S. Source: Journal of Visual Languages and Computing. Volume: 22. Issue: 2. Pages: 150-169. Published: APR 2011. ISSN: 1045-926X [I have removed footnotes])

In times of emergency, members of the public tend to improvise and perform various activities, such as provide first-aid to wounded people, victims transportation to hospitals or even take photos to document the event … Along with these activities, taking place physically on the disaster area, a huge number of social interaction among citizens occur. In a disaster situation people need information. They seek it for themselves and, at the same time, try to provide helpful information, such as the emergency status or damages evaluation, to other citizens, including their relatives or friends. This phenomenon is often ignored by the members of governmental agencies, which are almost entirely focused on their official role in the process of dealing with the disaster. Therefore, in such a context, people communications are considered back-channels (or peer-to-peer) activities, in contrast with the information provided by the official channels … Although back-channel communications can be viewed, in the emergency management domain, as potential vehicles to spread misinformation and rumours compromising the public safety, their presence is growing with each new disaster.

During emergencies, online social media are increasingly gaining prominence for the members of the public to find and provide information independently, or in parallel, with official channels. Social services, such as collaborative tagging systems, social networking sites or even blogs and wikis, support peer-to-peer communications. Such systems allow users to both produce and consume information about the disaster. In this way citizens can organize among themselves and share information exploiting existing technologies. This fact clearly shows how the presence of information and communications technology is changing the disaster response arena, making back-channel communications and people involvement more tangible …

Interestingly (to me), this system has been evaluated by experts in the province of British Columbia (in Canada [where I live]) and in Washington State (US). From the (undated) press release titled, A georeferenced digital “comic” to improve emergency management on the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid website,

This platform has also been evaluated through interviews with emergency management professionals in British Columbia (Canada) and the state of Washington (EEUU). “The results suggest that governmental agencies prefer to approach the social networks through more restricted communities, practice communities or special interest communities, so that the credibility of the information can guaranteed,” comments Paloma Díaz. “The lack of reliability of the information found on the social networks continues to be one of the greatest impediments to their being incorporated into the process of emergency management,” she concludes.

Nevertheless, the tool that the researchers have created can be used by anyone who wishes to compose the story of a specific crisis or emergency situation, such as a journalist, or by anyone who wishes to share their experience with others.

Also from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid website, here’s a representation of what you might see in an estory,

Credit: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid website

They have produced a video but you will need Spanish language skills to fully understand the researcher,

If you listen carefully, you will hear Paloma Diaz say Vancouver and British Columbia. For those who prefer to (and can) read materials in the language of origin, the Spanish language press release is here.