At a meeting, somewhere recently, with names not to mention and times unspecified, I was fortunate to hear, first hand, as to the UK opportunity for a DARPA style organisation. DARPA is, of course, the US agency that, for sixty years, has existed to ‘make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security.’ The idea […]
Category archives: Digital Technologies
Tax should not be so taxing
Tax, a temporary aberration has proven itself particularly permanent. Of itself, this is neither good, nor bad but we should surely be using every tool at our disposal to make sure our tax system works for the common good. Last week I was pleased to participate in a debate in the House of Lords considering […]
SolarWinds Cyber Attack
Today in the House of Lords the government was questioned on their response to the SolarWinds Cyber attack, first reported in December 2020. In the light of the attack I asked the government to again commit their full support to the UK cyber industry. The attack was one of the largest and most sophisticated cloud […]
The Alchemy of Talent and Technology
Covid is an indiscriminate infector yet discriminating deliverer of death. My heart goes out to all those affected by the virus and to all those souls taken before their time. The crisis has also exposed much which is sub-optimal in our social and economic fabric. Covid, like so much of what currently faces us, is […]
Technology for Essential Services
Yesterday, I was delighted to take part in a short debate on the risks and opportunities involved in the deployment of large scale technology for our essential services. “Would my noble friend the Minister agree that there are huge advantages for citizen and state, local and national government, to be gained through the considered, ethical […]
21st Century Frictionless Trade – Lords debate UK EU Trade Agreement
“My Lords, there exists a need, there exists an opportunity, a pressing need, a potentially transformational opportunity. The need for a border fit for the 21st Century, the opportunity; a digitally enabled, free trade flowing, free trade growing border delivered by the best of our talent deploying the best of our technologies. Artificial Intelligence, Distributed […]
21st Century Frictionless Trade: The UK can lead but govt. must act.
Today [Tuesday 15th September] I am delighted to publish a new Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) report on “Reducing Friction in International Trade” (RFIT). Using a combination of distributed ledger technologies and Internet of Things (IoT) devices the RFIT project demonstrates a comprehensive supply chain data management system for Australia/UK wine imports in which all the […]
Protecting Democracy
I sat down with BBC Cyber-security reporter Joe Tidy to discuss the recommendations of our House of Lords report into Democracy and Digital Technologies – and to try and answer the question posed by the webinar which was about how the UK Parliament is combatting online attacks on elections. It was a good opportunity to […]
Fintech and covid: the good, the bad and the future
Covid-19 has been a hugely difficult experience for so many of us in so many ways, shattering for some, seriously challenging for many, and we are still in its midst. For all those who have been taken from us, for all those who have been hit so hard, we are duty bound to seek out […]