Archive for the ‘Digital Birmingham’ Category

Virgin Media is working with training provider Freeformers and Innovation Birmingham to offer small businesses in Birmingham the opportunity to participate in a series of online training workshops to learn how to build a live web page, release a viral social video, develop a web app and new social online marketing techniques. The workshops will take place on three days across three consecutive weeks in June 2013 at Birmingham Science Park, Aston.

You should consider applying for this free training programme if you are:

 - A small or medium-sized business based in Birmingham

- Are able to commit to attending three sessions, either on the 12^th, 19^th and 26^th of June, or on the 13^th, 20th and 26^th June 2013 at Birmingham Science Park, Aston

- Agree to provide feedback on your experience that can be used in case study material for other small business to benefit from

- Have an idea of how you will use digital training to improve your marketing or business model.

 If you are interested in applying, please contact us by 17^th May, or get in touch with Virgin Media directly at Daniel.Butler@virginmedia.co.uk or on 0207 909 3287.

The Next Gen Skills Debate – Birmingham Re-Worked on Monday was organised in association with Birmingham’s Commission on Youth Unemployment and Birmingham’s Smart City Commission, to take a transformative look at how we invest in skills & enterprise as part of a digital economy and create a brighter future for the young people of this city.

The Next Gen Skills Debate took place at Millennium Point in front of a packed house, energised by the support of Sampad and BOA students, who were our ‘Next Gen’ reporters’ for the day  – a reminder that young people need to be at the heart of the debate and shaping the next generation of learning – their future now. More – #nextgenskills

al with the cities immediate and future challenges.

The context for these challenges, are not dissimilar to other cities – we need to move to a low carbon economy and adapt to climate change; as
more and more people live in cities and population increases, we need to get better at managing our resources such as energy and housing; the financial situation has compounded many of the inequalities of the city; some of the areas of the city are extremely deprived; wages are lower, more people are unemployed, and the health outcome of residents are poorer in these places.

Technological change brings big opportunities to offer new exciting solutions for new services provision – that supports better integration across service providers to enable a shared and connected approach, stimulates innovation by SMEs and responds to and informs changes in consumer choice and behaviour – all leading to a better quality of life and more jobs.

We have a real opportunity to constructs a coherent and viable future for our city and position ourselves to maximise the opportunities that it brings. We don’t underestimate the challenge this presents, but believe that with the right collaboration and working closely with our partners that we can do this together.

There are seven key priority areas of our roadmap to becoming a Smart City. These look at how we make better use of the city’s data to improve lives; support new business models and innovation for SMEs and entrepreneurs; enable a more joined up approach across sectors such as transport, energy and health and support and empower our business and citizens to help shape and jointly design services.

• Leadership/ownership: The Smart City roadmap must strategically be led at the highest level, but also fully embrace communities, businesses and citizens at a grass roots level to help shape and jointly-design services.
• Exploiting technologies: Birmingham needs to develop ultra-fast digital connectivity, to attract inward investment. A Smart Development Blueprint will shape this plan.
• Service transformation: Working together, sharing all available data
  viagra online

  to modernise services so issues are anticipated and prevented rather than reacted to and fixed. This will deliver more personalised and targeted services for citizens.

• New information marketplaces: Promoting an ‘Open Data’ agenda for the council and others in recognition of the fact that maximising the use of high-quality information can help improve services and develop new opportunities for entrepreneurs.
• Supporting innovation: Reviewing public procurement practices to encourage new ideas, along with the creation of an innovative development fund.
• Closing the digital divide: Affordable connectivity and improving existing skills are vital to capitalise on the opportunities the Smart City agenda offers.
• Profiling and influencing: Developing ways in which the city’s many organisations can work together to champion Birmingham as a Smart City in the areas of enterprise and social collaboration to make the city an attractive location to invest in

Please take a look at the Vision statement – an online version of the Smart City Vision Statement is available here.

We are keen to have your views on this, particularly to have your involvement in helping to shape the more detailed roadmap and action plan that will follow on from this. The aim is to have this completed by summer 2013 and we will be working with business, third sector and communities to shape what this looks like. Any thoughts or for more information email us at: smartcity@birmingham.gov.uk

Finally, we would like to thank the Smart Commission members, that have given their time to help shape and define what this vision looks like and the momentum this presents to build our future Birmingham together.

Back in June, we were approached to see how we could support the YRS Festival 2012, after it had outgrown its previous location in Bletchley and bring it to Birmingham. Through the hard work of many people, particularly Lara Ratnaraja and Big Cat, the Custard Factory and Birmingham, became home to the YRS Festival for the very first time.

Cllr McKay, Cabinet Member for Green, Safe and Smart City at the Show and Tell

This was a great coup for Birmingham; not only do we have the youngest population out of all the cities in Europe (so capturing the talent and ingenuity of young people resonates really well with us), but also the Open Data agenda is right at the heart of our Smart City programme. Ensuring data is open and accessible and easier to use will enable huge possibilities in the development of new apps, services and innovative products as part of this.

YRS 2012 proved just that. With access to open data and a week of intensive coding by youngsters (nigh on 500, some as young as 7!), at different centres across the country – we had a centre in Birmingham, courtesy of BCU (Millennium Point), something amazing took place. The culmination of all the hard work and late nights, ended with a massive sleepover session at the Custard Factory on Friday night  (fuelled by some 200 pizza’s) and show and tell on Saturday.

Their creations, along with the presentations were awe inspiring – postcode wars app; a way to go were some of the winners -100 projects from 38 centres; but for me it does drive home the need for us to get our data out there, and let nature do the rest.

Our thanks to Emma and her team for a brilliant event.  YRS is living proof of what is possible, highlights the significance of supporting young people to develop the skills needed for the jobs of the future and provides a great concept that we would like to explore and develop further in Birmingham.

Discover – Digital Skills for carers was launched at a Carers Celebration which took place on the 21st June 2012 at the New Bingley Hall in Birmingham, England. The event was put together by the Birmingham Carers Centre in recognition of the positive difference all carers, both formal and informal in Birmingham, make to those that they care for and in the long run, the communities that they live in. It was great to see so many carers, of varying ages, nationalities and backgrounds joining hands to celebrate all that they do well!

Digital Birmingham were proud to launch Discover, on behalf of all Partners, at this event. We spoke to an array of people who were keen to learn more about the project and what incentives and qualifications it may be able to offer them and how this could better their lives in the long run. The key thing that both Annette and I observed was that a majority of carers were keen to have some sort of involvement in future trials, however dependent on what their personal situations were like at the time.

Overall a successful launch – A big thumbs up to Tina Donovan, Manager of Birmingham Carers Centre and all of her Partners in arranging a hugely successful event to mark the end of the UK’s National Carers week. If you would like to sign up for updates on the project, please go to http://www.discover4carers.eu for more information.

Click here to view our activity report f

rom

April 2011 to March 2012, there has been a slight delay in this being published due to local changes within the City!

Last Wednesday (I know, better late than never!), I attended the  Facebook for the Public Sector conference (#fbps12) spear-headed by the very knowledgeable folk at www.comms2point0.co.uk . I was gutted I had missed the first two presentations (as I was at #odinnovation) but got into the swing of things

nontheless, given this was the first time I had attended a social media type event.

I was especially intrigued by the presentations given by Ally Hook from Coventry City Council and Steph Jennings of WV11.co.uk and Podnosh and their experiences, hints and tips of using the Facebook fanpage.

The afternoon saw the group break out into an unconference (again a first for me) where delegates pitched ideas/sessions/topics, the rest of us chose which of these sessions we wanted to attend. I decided to attend three sessions and learned:

1) How to increase FB followers – what we we want to achieve and the best way to spread the word

2) FB Timeline – Changes kicking in on 30 March, pros and cons but need to look into how best to use it for Digi Brum

3) Barriers to opening up access to social media to all in the workplace – does our employer trust us enough to get on with the job we are employed to do. Similar to the issues faced around Internet access in the workplace – took a while but we all got there in the end!

Thank you all for a great day and look forward to learning more!

Watch cabinet member RT Hon Frances Maude MP deliver his speech on the Open Data Innovation Community hub

via http://civico.me/v/707 now!

It’s Safer Internet Day (SID)

today!

SID is organised by Insafe each year in February to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world. Click here to learn more about being safe online.

Be safe  and responsible online!