This week I attended the Government ICT conference in Westminster, London.

Honestly, I did not know what to expect. I had been sent as a delegate rather than an exhibitor, so I guess the tables had turned!

The talks about AI and robotics and its application in the public sector were interesting but hard for me to keep up with as I use technology to work better not work to make technology better.

Another talk that was very current was about data protection and GDPR compliant cloud hosting.

The concerns are:

Who owns data? And what will happen to data help in cloud structures if a no-deal Brexit happened?

The first step is finding out where your data is hosted what data you have. You can find out more from the ICO about preparing for a no deal Brexit.

I also got some good tips about how to make procurement easier, which I even shared with my colleagues. Apparently, you need to listen to different viewpoints and identify the common problem that needs to be solved before going to procurement and that a unified architecture of information and computer systems should take priority. Essentially, when buying something, make sure that it solves the problem for everyone who is involved in that process and makes sure that it fits with your way of working. For example, both meeting attendees and meeting participants have problems and procuring a platform that helps both would be ideal.

However, what really got my attention was the talk on converging technologies. The speaker explained it really well by using the example of his smartphone. Essentially a phone and a camera were two separate pieces of technology fifteen years ago. Now by having a phone with a camera, people can have meetings on the go, record presentations and work in  different ways that we were used to. And because of converging technology, another example being the internet of things, the way we work is becoming very different.

If your organisation needs to have secure senior-level meetings, save costs around paper and travel, or simply needs to spend less on a digital board portal, contact us for a free trial and demo. We are on the government procurement platform G-Cloud and offer cloud as well as on-premise hosting solutions.

Convene uses Amazon Web services to host our cloud solution and have made provisions for a no-deal Brexit.

 

Nicola Snowe

Written by Nicola Snowe

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