AI is already here and every public, private and third sector body in Scotland has to understand what it is going to mean for them. Its impact will be deep and wide ranging, so what do organisations need to do to understand it, react to it and adapt to it?
AI is constantly in the news. Most often when a potential threat is being highlighted – the potential for misuse by hackers, terrorists or unfriendly foreign states. Equally, the race to regulate AI and to develop commercial advantage from it is a strong focus of attention. However, its existing use and the likelihood of its far wider influence on our everyday lives in very routine ways is growing fast. We depend heavily upon the organisations delivering our public services. We need those providing support in the charity sector. The businesses fuelling our economy through private enterprise are critical to our financial strength. All of these stand to gain or lose as the way they function and interact with their consumers and customers changes with the growth of AI. So what should they be doing now to survive and thrive in the AI world?
The Scottish Government's AI strategy aspiration is that 'Scotland will become a leader in the development and use of trustworthy, ethical and inclusive AI.' The question is, what does that mean in everyday terms? What will it require in terms of investment, strategy and implementation from those currently leading our public, private and third sector organisations?
This conference aims to demystify and simplify what AI is, how it is already in action and how it will develop next. It considers the challenges and opportunities presented by AI for organisations in Scotland's public, private and third sectors. It will discuss how to think about AI, how to plan for it and engage with it and what steps to take next on your organisation's AI journey.
The conference examines these challenges in three sessions:
Topics to be discussed
Who Should Attend
This conference will be relevant for anyone in the public, private and third sectors with responsibility for the strategic development of services, their costs and methods of production, the use of data and how their customer/consumer base will interact with them now and in the future. This includes Chief Executives, service managers, departmental directors, change managers, heads of corporate services, heads of data and information management, customer relationship managers, programme managers, service redesign, policy and insight, strategy and planning, chief digital officers, strategy managers, business growth and talent development.
Examples of the types of individuals and organisations already booked to attend include Monitoring and Evaluation Officers, Digital and Data Managers, Directors of Public Services, Business Performance, Finance, Strategy and Income Generation as well as Corporate Services, Operations, Communications and Portfolio Managers. These come from across local government, non-departmental public bodies, further and higher education, industry bodies, housing associations, the third and private sectors.
Principal
Edinburgh College
Digital Evolution Manager
SCVO
Head of Sector Development - Digital Economy and Financial Services
Skills Development Scotland
Chief Operating Officer and Head of Data
Effini
Director of Skills and Talent
The Data Lab
Chief Data Officer
Scottish Government
Audrey Cumberford MBE
Principal
Edinburgh College
Audrey is a graduate of a number of world leading UK Universities, including Oxford University’s Said Business School. Having graduated in Edinburgh, Audrey moved to Bristol University to undertake research within the field of sports psychology. Following this, she left the University sector and moved into private industry before returning to the education sector where she has held senior roles for the past 24 years.
Prior to her current role Audrey led and delivered a large scale, £70m merger resulting in the formation of West College Scotland. Audrey’s reputation as a visionary innovator has resulted in her holding a number of high profile national positions such as Board member of the Scottish Funding Council (responsible for £1.8billion funding for colleges and universities) and the Scottish Government’s Enterprise & Skills Strategic Board – responsible for improving the overall performance of the economy by ensuring that the whole Enterprise and Skills System, with a combined budget of over £2billion, delivers Scotland's Economic Strategy. In May 2022, Audrey was appointed by the Scottish Government to the National Strategy for Economic Transformation Delivery Board.
In addition, Audrey represented Scotland on the UK’s first Independent Commission on the ‘College of the Future’, Chaired by Sir Ian Diamond. In 2020, Audrey, along with Paul Little published the ‘Cumberford-Little Report’, commissioned by Scottish Government Ministers to consider the economic impact of colleges.
Audrey’s career has spanned both the private and education sector and underpins Audrey’s passion and drive to ensure tertiary education in Scotland plays a fundamental role in supporting businesses across the country - embedding a symbiotic relationship between the business community and Scotland’s colleges as providers of vocational and technical education, business support and skills training.
Phil Ford
Head of Sector Development - Digital Economy and Financial Services
Skills Development Scotland
Heather Thomson
Director of Skills and Talent
The Data Lab
Heather leads The Data Lab’s £8m data and AI skills programme which supports organisations to develop data strategy consider the impact and potential of AI, build teams and access and retain talent in today’s rapidly changing world of work.
With 23 years’ experience in software engineering, project management, education and leadership, Heather has a passion for supporting education and development and individuals and organisations.
She coordinates The Data Lab Educational Advisory Board and is also a member of the South of Scotland Digital Skills Board Management Group and the UK Data Skills Taskforce.
Tom Wilkinson
Chief Data Officer
Scottish Government
My main interest is in using data science and behavioural social science, to design institutions that are fairer and make better use of people's collective intelligence. Why? Because my Complexity Socioeconomics research suggested that traditional hierarchical social institutions are more fragile and volatile, and my real world experience tells me they introduce information bottlenecks.
My work as a Data Scientist has let me develop tools and data architecture to link expertise, measure the quality of collaboration through network metrics, as well as helping my understanding of distributed systems - both computing and ensemble machine learning.
I seek to combine network science, AI, and peer2peer mechanisms, for cooperation at scales that haven't traditionally worked without centralised institutions. Even more, I'd like to see them explored in settings where there is no effective central authority.
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