LOTI: Weeknote 13
London Environment Directors’ Network (LEDNet)
On Monday, Eddie gave a presentation about LOTI’s mission and work to LEDNet and discussed the role that smart infrastructure and Internet of Things devices might play in supporting their activities. These conversations are really important to us to ensure we’re not just speaking to a technology audience.
Information Governance
Later that day, we met with Apollo Gerolymbos, Director of Data Analytics, Insight and Reporting for the London Fire Brigade and his colleagues Steve Beakhust and Catherine Levin to share lessons about running collaborative digital and data projects.
We compared notes on approaches to information governance. London Fire Brigade already shares data with 33 London boroughs as well as other public agencies and they were interested to hear more about LOTI’s plans in this space. James Sivell will be demonstrating the London Fire Brigade’s use of the Information Sharing Gateway at LOTI’s next Information Governance workshop (see below).
They were also interested to hear more about LOTI’s outcomes-based methodology, and our experience to date in supporting collaboration between member boroughs.
On Tuesday, we met with Ed Garcez, Fozlu Miah and Sudip Trivedi at Camden to discuss our next Information Governance workshop. In that session, which will be held on 28 October, we’ll be seeking the expert advice of Data Protection Officers and Information Governance leads from LOTI member boroughs. Their knowledge, experience and support are vital for this project’s success. In advance, we sent participants a briefing about the project and the agenda.
On the subject of data sharing, Eddie published a blog outlining “A four step approach to collaborative data projects”.
London Councils’ Leaders Committee
On Tuesday, we observed a meeting of London’s elected Council Leaders and Mayors to learn more about the matters that are high on their agenda. It was interesting to learn about how London boroughs intend to use digital and ICT to improve local NHS services, the collective efforts being made to improve SEN resources, and the pan-London work commissioned by GLA’s Resilience Forum to identify opportunities and mitigate risks for London local government as a result of the UK’s planned exit from the EU.
Digital Apprenticeships
After finishing off our user research, we shared what we’d learned with Hackney, who have used that to inform the outline for our LOTI Digital Apprenticeships Playbook (still very much a work in progress). Cate McLaurin and Rob Miller from Hackney met to identify what existing Hackney resources they could usefully point users of the Playbook to, and flesh out suggestions on how Digital Apprenticeship roles can be designed, recruited into, and supported by LOTI member boroughs.
Engagement with Schools
We held our kick-off call for our Schools Engagement project with Opama Khan at Croydon. She shared their plan to hold a roadshow at secondary schools in Croydon to raise awareness and aspirations for young people about future jobs and careers in technology. We’re now liaising with other LOTI member boroughs to see how they might be able to support this great initiative.
London Datastore
We also held a kick-off call for our London Datastore project with Paul Neville (Waltham Forest), Trevor Dorling (DG Cities and Greenwich), Paul Hodgson (GLA) and the Open Data Institute (ODI). Following that call, we’ll be working closely with Paul and Trevor to plan a workshop to invite the views of boroughs to support the GLA’s discovery phase on user needs.
City Tools
We held our last kick-off call of the week on the City Tools project with Omid Shiraji (Camden) and Paul Neville (Waltham Forest). City Tools — a database and visualisation of all the technologies used by boroughs to support their services and operations — will be launched on 13 November, supported by Bloomberg Associates. In this project, we’re planning a series of workshops to determine how boroughs, SMEs and residents might wish to use this data, and how the tool can be supported and developed over time.
Coming up this week
This week we are:
- Holding our kick-off call with Ben Goward (RBKC and Westminster), David Grasty (Kingston and Sutton) and Nathan Pierce (Sharing Cities) for LOTI’s Internet of Things (IoT) Standards Project.
- Meeting with GLA’s Economic Development team to discuss collaboration opportunities under their GovTech London project.
- Discussing the future possibility of a pan-London technology and transport project with the GLA, London Councils and TfL.
