Aleksandra Pedraszewska

A central challenge for the next UK government - how to transform public services without spending more? It is widely acknowledged that technology and specifically artificial intelligence will be critical.   Our new report - https://lnkd.in/etKrnHVY - shows that effective AI deployment could significantly boost the UK’s economy and save the public sector over £17 billion by 2035. In the process, millions of hours of public sector workers' time could be repurposed to improving quality of services. There are already good examples of this potential across health, education, defence, research and local and central government.   The report makes seven recommendations to make the most of the AI opportunity for the public sector: 1. Establish a centre for AI delivery across the public sector. 2. Set out a clear "AI for All" principles declaration for the public sector. 3. Implement a holistic approach to skilling across public services. 4. Unleash the power of public sector data. 5. Reimagine procurement processes for the AI era. 6. Accelerate AI adoption across local government through change agent networks. 7. Update the Treasury's approach in light of the AI technology stack to maximise the opportunities for the UK. Jacob West, Matt Telling, Glen Robinson Sally Phillips, Anna Dijkstra, Robin Denton, Will Orme, Sarah Croxford, Anoup K. Steve Douthwaite

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🌎 The #USIT guides have been a product of international sector-wide collaboration. Guides for the sector by the sector. ✨ Taking inspiration from US-BOLT, the guides have benefitted from continuous conversations with TenU members Orin Herskowitz, Lesley Millar-Nicholson and Karin Immergluck. Orin also supported our first meetings, helping us to persuade early contributors that this was worth the effort. 🙏 Thank you to them and to all of the people in the UK and elsewhere who have turned the USIT guides into valuable references to help accelerate research to market for societal and economic growth. ⬇ Download the guides here: https://ten-u.org/ #Collaboration #Impact

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Even if you don't keep up with economic commentary, you're probably aware that the G7 countries are used as a benchmark for the UK's performance. Despite this, there's very little understanding of how different parts of the G7 perform, and what this tells us about how well their national economies do as a result. Today we fill that gap. We find that the prosperity gap between the UK and leading G7 economies results from the underperformance of its largest cities outside of London (see chart below). If the UK is to close its yawning prosperity gap, there is no plausible way of doing so without getting Manchester and Glasgow to be more like Chicago and Frankfurt. Doing this requires a credible target. We recommend that the goal should be to make the UK more prosperous than Germany. To give you a rough idea of what this would mean, the UK economy would need to be 8.8 per cent bigger than it is today to overtake Germany. Given the gap is so big, doing so also needs a long-term plan. This has long been absent from government policy and the current election debate. Not a plan over one parliament, but over several with cross-party agreement. To kickstart this, the next government should: 1. Reform the planning system, moving the UK away from its uniquely discretionary system and the uncertainty this creates towards a rules-based one that is more common in other G7 countries. 2. Pursue deeper devolution to bring large UK cities more in line with their G7 comparators: more control over spending, the ability to raise their own taxes and for all to have transport powers akin to what London has with Transport for London. 3. A UK version of the US CHIPS Act designed to boost cutting edge activities in the UK’s largest cities, spending £15.9 billion over 10 years in Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester and Leeds to encourage innovation through their leading universities, invest in their city centres and create or extend their transport funding. Much of this funding has already been earmarked by the last government but has not been spent. The full report is here: https://lnkd.in/egKdTwkY

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'Old' at 50... Let's just say I'm hitting my stride... 😀 In fact, it was at the start of my fifties that I founded Adora, an AI health-tech platform to empower women through peri/menopause in the workplace. Why? Because 1 in 10 women leave work due to peri/menopause, and 38% adjust their roles. That's a massive loss of talent. But here's the good news: with the right workplace support, we can turn this around. And according to the Centre for Ageing Better, the future of the UK economy depends on it as Dr. Emily Andrews explains: “By 2030, there will be an additional 1.2 million people aged 50-64 in the UK, but only another 500,000 people aged 15-29. The future of UK growth depends on mobilising the 50-plus workforce". So if you are looking for growth in your company and are ready to support your female employees through peri/menopause get in touch, or visit us on Stand 69 at REBA on June 20th. #futureofwork #REBA #Employeebenefits #HR #WomensHealth https://lnkd.in/enzkZneM

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Are you a Small to Medium Sized Enterprise (SME) developing or using AI in your products or services in the UK? Do you know about the rules and regulations you should follow to be transparent to customers? If so, how do you interpret these rules, and how do you implement these rules in practice? If these questions are important to you, join us for our 'AI Transparency' research workshop in Bristol on Thursday, 6th June 2024. Your participation in the workshop will help co-create a 'regulation toolkit' that SMEs in the UK can use to comply with relevant AI transparency rules. Please register here: https://lnkd.in/e-Qqxtfp Department for Science, Innovation and Technology #FederationofSmallBusinesses #EnterpriseNation Responsible Ai UK #responsibleAI #UKSMEs #SMEs #AItransparency #transparency #ArtificialIntelligenceforBusiness #SMEsinBristol #BristolInnovation #internationalpartnerships

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Are you a Small to Medium Sized Enterprise (SME) in Bristol developing or using AI in your products or services in the UK? Do you know about the rules and regulations you should follow to be transparent to customers? If so, how do you interpret these rules, and how do you implement these rules in practice? If these questions are important to you, join us for our 'AI Transparency' research workshop in Bristol on Thursday, 6th June 2024. Your participation in the workshop will help co-create a 'regulation toolkit' that SMEs in the UK can use to comply with relevant AI transparency rules. Please register here: https://lnkd.in/e-Qqxtfp Bristol Hub Bristol Robotics Laboratory Bristol Business Network AI For Collective Intelligence (AI4CI) #FederationofSmallBusinesses #EnterpriseNation #responsibleAI hashtag #UKSMEs hashtag #SMEs hashtag #AItransparency

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Whatever happens next we'll be starting from the lowest of low bases. In 2018 I was invited by UK Gov to lead on a Europe-wide initiative to agree a meaningful set of comparative measures, exploring the wellbeing of young people. Whilst the UK quietly withdrew from this initiative, things have moved on all the same. So, here we are now: * 30% of all UK children living in comparative poverty * Over a third of young people reporting evidence of depression or anxiety * 90% of young people below the basic threshold for financial literacy * Young peoples’ happiness in work, education, qualifications and money at an all-time low. That's a worthwhile list of things to fix.

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This is definitely a step in the right direction, but how will it work from a cradle-to-cradle perspective? 🔄 Straight from the horses mouth William McDonough: “Everything is a resource for something else. In nature, the “waste” of one system becomes food for another. Everything can be designed to be disassembled and safely returned to the soil as biological nutrients, or re-utilised as high quality materials for new products as technical nutrients without contamination” This is a decent move, but will drinks containers qualify as technical nutrients? Have they been manufactured in a way that will allows them to reenter the production cycle easily? I have no idea, but thats surely what we should be aiming for?

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Wondering what it takes to win a £350,000 Innovate UK Smart Grant? I’ve broken it down inspired by Steven Bartlett’s Five-Bucket Framework: 📚 Bucket #1 Knowledge: Drafting the grant application felt like a throwback to my university essay-writing days. We worked with consultants, Grantify, to develop our idea by answering their 128-question system and pulled together a budget, risk register, project plans, and technical appendices. We backed it up with research to present a compelling argument for why Pravi.ai deserved funding. 🛠️ Bucket #2 Skills: Our application was a fusion of my passion and experience in the nonprofit sector and Jeremy’s corporate background leading billion dollar projects and managing digital transformation. Pravi.ai blends together our previous experiences to create something new and different. 🤝Bucket #3 Network: It was through our network that we found out about Smart Grants to begin with. We met our technical team by networking. I’m currently mining all my contacts to make sure we solve the problems charities need solving. Building Pravi.ai wouldn’t be possible without our network. 💰Bucket #4 Resources: Simply put, you need money. Innovate UK don’t just hand you a cheque to cash in when you win. Everything is carefully budgeted throughout the year and the grant money is paid to us in arrears at the end of each quarter. We sold our house in Sydney to fund Pravi.ai 🏆 Bucket #5 Reputation: The endorsement of winning a Smart Grant from Innovate UK opens doors and has already given us traction in our first few weeks. When you win a grant your reputation precedes you - you just have to live up to it! If you’re considering applying for a Smart Grant and have any questions, send me a DM, I’m happy to help.

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What actually is Biodiversity Net Gain? And why is it so important? At Gaia we have built the UK's largest natural exchange for BNG Units. Today I try to explain in a little more detail what this scheme is about. #BNG #biodiversity #biodiversitynetgain

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❓ Is the UK Primed to Birth the Next Generation of Tech Decacorns, and if Yes, What's the Blueprint? Jody Ford, CEO of Trainline, drew attention to the UK's illustrious past in industries such as steel, oil, and banking, followed by successes in pharmaceuticals and consumer goods. However, he pointed out a glaring gap: the tech sector's underperformance compared to the US counterparts. Ford stressed the urgent need for the UK to foster an environment where tech companies get easy access to capital, a fair regulatory framework that companies can flourish, expand, and compete worldwide. But here's the exciting part: We have the potential to birth tech giants not only in traditional sectors but also in innovative areas like oral health. Take Presto Dental, for instance—a pioneering startup poised to revolutionize oral healthcare globally. Let's seize this opportunity to propel the UK's tech scene to new heights. Time to make it happen! #techEntrepreneurs #companybuilders #UKTechRevolution #Innovation #PrestoDental #Oralhealth #Dentaltech #preseed #funding

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This week: The economy. We’ve mapped 1,695 sentences  of economy-relevant manifesto content to help demystify who is saying what.  What’s surprising – or not – about the following selected patterns in the data?   - Labour not saying a lot about fair pay relative to Lib Dems  - Conservatives focusing heavily on regional infrastructure and resourcing  - Reform UK not saying much about Councils/social housing  - Labour featuring more content on Regulation vs innovation? See the link below for a full interactive map of all economy-related content, broken down by party.    What would you like to see next? 

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Sideways Saturday: yesterday was a people day, no screens (well nearly no screens helped by poor train technical connectivity ), out and about to celebrate a team building a new community asset outside of London. Nothing directly to do with elections and which didn’t have me at centre stage either. It was day of four conversations. First was a catch up my train journey to fill in gaps in papers previously shared. Yes it’s important to get things down on paper as a common base line to work from, but the working from that is about understanding the twists and turns, the nuances and contexts to make sure that messages and intentions are fully understood. Second was talking to a project manager who is leading the team that takes the thinking and plans and turns them into reality. In this case a bricks and mortar reality. A reality that will stand the test of time and likely last for over 50 years. Why for 50 years, well that’s how long the last version lasted for. Think long and be quite sure. As I was taught in carpentry measure twice, measure again and then saw the plank. Thirdly was talking to the community of volunteers who are the unpaid heroes of community projects. All work and no pay, so vitally important to say thank you. Without whom these community projects would just be projects. And fourthly talking to the leadership team who have responsibilities for this project and more besides. Long on experience, expertise and engagement. The staff are the daily custodians of your reputation. Those four parts seemed kind of like the four corners holding a roof up. They are all inter-dependent and being collaborative is a vital skill set for achieving positive change. And that does also apply to our elected representatives too. If you want to get things done you have to be able and willing to build a consensus. #ThinkLikeAClient #GrumpyOptimist #VentureStudio #Entrepreneur #VoteGoodchild >>>>>>> Footnote: all my content is written daily by me with no additives or tricks. If it interests you please tag the 🔔 in my profile to get it delivered straight to you. Otherwise if you search #GrumpyOptimist you’ll find my library of past posts. Never recycled, always fresh. Produced and promoted by Edward Goodchild, Zendht Ltd, Quantum House, 22-24 Red Lion Court, London EC2R 3EB

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Very much looking forward to talking on the AI panel! Bit of fusion LLMs, tokamak control and why AI needs fusion . . . (and fusion needs AI)? 🚀🚀🚀

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Very honest exchange of ideas! Business is global

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If you thought the military was bad in the ‘90’s you havent met the startup/VC world in the 2020's! 💂‍♀️ There is a higher percentage of women in the British Army than there are in VC. 📈 Just FYI - female led startups outperform male in revenue by over 100%. 🤝 Everyone benefits from a better economy and, quite frankly, in these times, each of us needs all the help we can get. 🤑 So imagine the change to the economy (and your pockets) if startup revenue DOUBLED. These are some of the stats I shared last week LinkedIn with Hays. #data #datageek #investment #parity #vc #angelinvesting #startup #founder #femalefounder #veteran #army #military #revenue

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Came across a really interesting TED talk about what happened at OpenAI board. Most of us are not at the forefront of AI, but organisations should start considering: - How AI is and will be impacting themselves, their operating environment, and their organisations. - What are the opportunities, as well as risks, in adopting any AGI products. - What are the ways to mitigate these risks, including Governance. Happy to chat to organisations who are interested about this and share what we know. - Ed #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AGI #OpenAI #TEDTalk #Governance

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This is great to see. It should also be noted that the UK ranks third worldwide based on the overall innovation in the country’s AI research and development, startup community, the value of private investment, and government spending as of 2024 (according to Technopedia, see https://lnkd.in/e4MZHePE). First place being the US and second China. #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Innovation #FutureTech https://lnkd.in/e32cAYhQ

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🔔 Funding Alert for UK SMEs 🔔 The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) launched a £7.4m pilot scheme yesterday to subsidise the costs of AI training for SMEs in the UK. Eligible businesses are able to apply for for funds to cover up to 50% of their AI training costs. To be eligible, you must: - Be registered and operate in the UK - Employ between 1-249 employees in the UK - Have been operating for at least 1 year - Be able to match-fund 50% of the cost of the training You can get between £2,500 and £10,000 in grants, depending on your business size. You'll be responsible for finding your own AI training provider (*massive, dramatic cough and lots of pointing at myself*). Applications are now open, but it's a short pilot window - they'll close on 31 May. To apply, head over here: https://lnkd.in/e6PGNqZg It's a big step in the right direction - very best of luck to all who apply. PS Need some help with the AI skills bit in your application? I've opened up some totally free 1:1 slots for this very purpose: https://lnkd.in/eD2HeUb3

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