In June Birmingham City Council were announced joint ‘Digital Council of the Year’ along with Salford City Council as part of the Digital Leaders 100 awards.
Each year, the Digital Leaders’ community, together with the wider digital sector, nominates their favourites across each of 10 categories with 10 available places to create a final list of 100. It has become the premier list identifying individuals and teams leading Digital Transformation in the UK. It consists of leaders and organisations who are pioneering change within the public sector, Enterprise, SMEs and Charity Sectors, generated by their peers.
The judges shortlist the nominees into a final list of 100 and following the announcement of this list, a public vote is opened to put the 100 names into a final order. The top three in each category are then put in a final order by the judges.
The Digital Council of the year recognises the work of Digital Birmingham in its innovative and ever evolving application of digital technologies to enhance the life chances of its citizens and bringing economic benefits to businesses.
This has seen Birmingham driving the exploitation of data by providing access to commercial, closed and real time anddata. Over 100 datatypes and 500+ datasets are being used by businesses to create new applications and solutions for education, mobility, health, tourism and environmental services through the Big Data Corridor platform. This work is helping to provide thought leadership on the council’s role in the use of citizen data and standardised approach to the collection and management of data supporting businesses to innovate and enhance their competitiveness.
Our challenge driven, innovative projects has overseen the launch of new products; e.g. SmartRouting, that nudges citizens to use public transport in a user friendly way. Our elderly and vulnerable citizens are being equipped with wearable technologies, linked to IoT sensors through the pioneering City4Age project enabling the Council to monitor and predict their behaviours and intervene in the right way to enable them to stay independent within their communities for longer. PULSE is getting hundreds of citizens involved in sharing and using their data to promote healthier lifestyles and encourage more physical activity through behaviour change assessing individuals’ urban environment and the risk and impact on them developing diabetes and asthma.
The PURE COSMOS Interreg Europe funded project provides an approach to extend the Council and region’s learning, share knowledge with other partner regions that are enhancing development of its policies and strategies. It is helping to influence funding and investment opportunities to drive digital leadership and transformation and maximise the impact for citizens and business.
Photo: DL100 2018 joint winner for the Digital Council of the Year award left to right: Raj Mack, Head of Business Engagement; Nicola Bryant, Programme Manager; Peter Bishop, CIO & Assistant Director - Information, Technology & Digital Services
