Jo Farmer, Lewis Silkin’s joint managing partner, introduced the day talking about the convergence of tech, creative and science and how being curious leads to diversity of thought and successful businesses.
xCHANGE wasn’t just about discussions - it was about sparking fresh thinking, exploring opportunities, and embracing challenges. We unpacked strategies to deliver better outcomes and rebuild trust. We explored the challenges of building trust in an AI-driven world, emphasising the balance between innovation and accountability and explored the evolving landscape of health, wellbeing and innovation and the evolving landscape of creativity.
Throughout these conversations, we highlighted the pivotal role of media, communications and negotiation in shaping and supporting these sectors. These skills are essential in navigating complex challenges and ensuring ideas translate into impactful actions.
Ben Terrett, Public Digital
Ben Terrett opened proceedings with an insightful presentation about mission-orientated business and how to effect change, well, effectively. His background is working with governments but businesses can learn from his insights too. He made the point that change is really hard – changing tech is the easy bit, the difficult bits to change are culture, processes and business models. There is a lot of waste in processes – for example, if a website does not work, you must call instead and that wastes money, time and resources. He also gave the example of an overengineered tap that needs instructions on how to use it, when taps have existed for millennia. But it is possible to do things well and quickly, for example the Vaccine Taskforce in the UK, and City of Kyiv’s digital ID scheme. This needs three key components: a multidisciplinary, citizen-centred team, a focus on outcomes not outputs, and a test and learn process. It is much better to fail small than big – so look for friction points and unblock them, and test prototypes as you go. Communicating well and trusting staff are key.
Read, Public Digital’s The Radical How
Trust, resilience and authenticity in AI
Bryony Long chaired a panel discussion on AI with panellists Dr Erin Young (The Alan Turing Institute), Nick Barron (MHP Group), Gideon Spanier, (Campaign) and our very own JJ Shaw. The panellists discussed how to build trust in AI with your workforce and your customers. According to surveys, only one third of the UK public expects AI to improve their lives, and one quarter feels that their jobs are under threat. While AI can do jobs, it can’t do them as well as humans can. If you are deploying AI you need to engage your workforce and be transparent when making decisions. AI needs to be underpinned by ethical frameworks which put humans at the centre. Upskilling employees is key – and on the other side of the coin it is also important that individuals understand AI and understand how to pick through misinformation. Another major issue is copyright – models are trained on copyright-protected information and can get behind paywalls, and we are waiting for a couple of high-profile legal cases to be decided. Regulation is key, but there is a lack of confidence in regulators. Lastly, there is a need for more diversity in the AI and tech workforces more widely to combat bias, for example, in healthcare, recruitment and credit scoring.
Health and wellbeing
The next panel included Dr Louise Newson (Newson Health), Olivia Houghton (The Future Laboratory), Dr Max L Wilson (Nottingham University) and Tom Gaunt (Lewis Silkin), and was chaired by Stephanie Kay. It considered trends in global wellness such as personalised medicine, optimising mental health, wellness real estate and wearables. 45% of people use wearables but there are ethical concerns, for example if the data collected is used for insurance or recruitment purposes, what are tech platforms doing with it and if people understand the data they are seeing. However, it can also be used for the good, e.g. the Zoe app on nutrition data and the Balance app which is used by 1.5 million women worldwide and is contributing towards reducing the research gap for women’s’ health. Data on apps can also help with real world medicine – for example you show your healthcare provider data rather than just telling them something.
How Sam got “that” interview
The next session was a fascinating and entertaining talk by BBC Newsnight producer (and ex barrister) Sam McAlister about how she persuaded Prince Andrew to do “that” interview with Emily Maitlis. In a follow-up fireside chat with Jo Farmer Sam spoke about the importance of resilience and tenacity (as well as the hazards of not having lawyers around when giving important interviews on national television). Naturally a superb speaker with fabulous storytelling skills. But perhaps Sam’s greatest superpower was her ability to tailor her talk on the fly whilst remaining witty, honest and interesting - definitely a highlight of the day (you had to be there, sorry!).
How to get more girls interested in STEM subjects
Our next speaker was Lisa Rajan who has written a series of books aimed at providing girls with role models in STEM careers. She said that if you can’t find the book you want on the shelf, write it yourself. This stemmed (no pun intended) from her work as a councillor in Southwark which was one of the most deprived areas in Europe and had one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the UK. She asked children what they wanted to be when they grew up and both girls and boys said they wanted to be rich, so she researched what careers were most likely to pay well and found that most were STEM careers.However, the percentages of girls doing STEM A levels are very low, with only 3% doing physics and 13% doing biology. So, girls are ruling themselves out of STEM careers and taking themselves out of the talent pool. She hopes that her books will encourage more of them to take science and Maths A levels.
Future of Creativity
Alan Hunt hosted Vanessa Spence (ASOS.com), Stevie Spring (PRS for Music), Tazie Taysom (Artiq) and Nick de Klerk (Purcell Architects) for the final panel on the future of the creative industries. Alan ran through a few stats at the beginning – the creative industries employ over 2.5 million people and are worth £126 billion to the UK economy but do not receive enough funding. Tech facilitates creativity but does not replace it. Just because you can use tech to create something doesn’t mean that you do it well. However, it can be used in areas such as logistics and stock control, improving contact between creators and customers, collaboration between creators and helping with the day to day running of creative businesses. The panel also agreed that as well as STEM subjects, we need to encourage the take up of creative subjects to ensure that the sector can recruit the people it needs from diverse backgrounds. It also revisited the issue of data scraping and copyright concerns. However, there is much to be excited about – there are many opportunities for the creative industries, not least in finding solutions to the climate crisis.
xCHANGE 2024 was a day rich with thought-provoking discussions and powerful ideas - it was about sparking fresh thinking, exploring opportunities and embracing challenges. We hope the ideas exchanged and shared here will continue to inspire and drive progress in your respective fields. Together, we’ve celebrated the power of the nexus between creativity, tech and science.