Posts Tagged ‘birmingham city council’

The Digital Birmingham Team have a new home!

Following an organisational move into the Development Directorate of Birmingham City Council, the team are now based at 1 Lancaster Circus, Birmingham. B4 7DG.

This repositioning is good news for the team, providing greater alignment to the City’s economic, sustainability and digital inclusion agendas. This will enable us to play a key role in integrating the opportunities and benefits of digital technologies into the city wide and LEP strategies, policies and delivery plans.

The Ninth Midlands Media Awards are taking place at the ICC, Birmingham next Thursday, 13th May.

This will be the second year that Birmingham City Council have sponsored the Online Campaign award which will be decided by public vote again this year.  This award recognises an “individual or group that has used social media tools to make a difference” and with that description I figure that we ought to have a whole heap of hopefuls vying for the prize.

Last year’s winner was Donato Esposito with his Black Country version of Facebook and it’s good to see that the group is still going strong with over 33,000 members as of today.

Nominations are now open, but be quick as you only have until Friday to make them.

Digital Birmingham are going to have a busy autumn with a real focus on digital technologies. As part of Birmingham’s Digital week of events 18 – 22 October, we are organising and bringing together linked events that will include the Eurocities Knowledge Society Forum, Beyond 2010, Birmingham City Council’s Local Government Day ‘Sharing Experiences and Shaping Public Service’, the Hello Digital business conference, and the Say Hello public programme.

These are all part of a wider Hello Digital programme of events and activities that is enabling the widest possible audience to engage with technologies and explore new opportunities and innovations.

We are currently scouting around for speakers and we thought it would be interesting to canvas suggestions from the public. If you’re reading this, then that’s you.  So, have you seen somebody speak who made you walk away buzzing with ideas? Is there somebody that you think would be ideal for any of the events that we are holding?

More – Crowdsourcing a conference

Hello Digital is back! Birmingham’s first digital festival returns this week with its one day Business Conference - 21st October 2009 @ Millennium Point. Want your business to be more competitive in this digital world? Then you can’t miss it.

More – #HD09

Cllr Paul Tilsley, Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council, started the ball rolling in June this year with his announcement of Birmingham’s new Digital District.  Now an event is on the annual calendar, well seminar to be exact, for policy makers and stakeholders from the city and the region to network with other European cities that have established their digital districts already.

The seminar, “Developing Birmingham’s Digital District”, has been organised by Birmingham City Council and Birmingham City University.  It is being held in association with Digital Birmingham, Hello Digital, West Midlands in Europe, Fazeley Studios and 2009 Year of Creativity and Innovation.  It takes place on 14th October.

To register for the event and to get all the information you will need, please visit our dedicated events page www.digitalbirmingham.co.uk/events/developing-birminghams-digital-district.

Birmingham Bulletin the City’s own e-mail alert service delivered a great news story today into my in-box which I have to tell you all.  Birmingham has got its very own digitally enabled news site.  You must visit www.Birminghamnewsroom.com as its a one stop shop for all the news from the City Council.  

No more do I have to go hunting for information across various websites to get the latest news.  It has rss feeds, video, twitter, flickr and links to Birmingham own Youtube channel.   It is great to see that the City is at the forefront of embracing new technologies and social media and this can only enhance Birmingham reputation as a leading digital city.

Deputy Leader, Cllr Paul Tilsley views all that's left of a computer hard drive after shredding, watched by Secure IT Disposals' MD, Martin Burke

Research last year showed that only 20% of the 6 million items of electronic equipment thrown away annually are recycled. It’s good to see then that the scheme that we put in place last year together with Birmingham City Council, Service Birmingham and Secure IT, to recycle IT waste such as computers, printers and laptops is starting to have a positive impact on the community. So far around 15,000 items of unwanted IT kit have been collected from businesses and schools. In addition Secure IT provides a door to door residential collection service which to date total 108 collections. A nominal fee of £15 is charged for up to four items though for the registered disabled it is free of charge. More – Green IT initiative is a winner all round

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, the first of its kind. Who is she I hear you ask? She was the first female “programmer” who lived in the early 19th Century.  She foresaw a computer’s potential, that is, not just to be a machine that “number-crunched” and calculated. In her short life (she died at the age of 36) she translated memoirs on Charles Babbage’s newest machine, the Analytical Engine. With additional detailed notes, historians agree that this was the first computer program. Her other claim to fame was the fact that she was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron.

More – Ada Lovelace Day

… then what would it be? Okay, I’ll narrow that down a bit: if you could remove a government-imposed obstacle to allow Birmingham City Council to help you improve the sustainability of your community, what would that be? More – If you could change one thing…