CAIO Weeknote #04
AI Festival Week
The week didn’t start as well as I hoped - I was bumped off my Sunday night train from London to Liverpool, all trains cancelled, returned home with my head cold so strong it made me dizzy, and no way of getting to the Youth AI Summit on Monday am to greet Mayor Rotheram - but it ended spectacularly.
Monday - The LCR Youth Summit
I produced a three-page visual of our AI strategic approach to share with our Chief Exec, ahead of our 121 this week, on the train up on Monday am.
I landed in Liverpool, towing my case for the week straight into the LCR Youth Summit in full swing at The Spine building, The University of Liverpool.
In putting together the AI Strategy for the Region, it’s super important to hear the voices of young people. The LCRCA and the LCR Civic Data Cooperative gathered five of the six boroughs’ school children together to find out their hopes and fears for AI through an in-person interactive workshop.
I got to see some of their work, chat through their ideas and introduce myself to everyone.
The results of the day were full letters to understand their points of view, a video of snippets of the day with four brilliant young people: Favour, Ela, Ada and Ruby reading the letters on stage to me at the AI Summit later in the week and asking me questions on my ambitions for Region as well as my views on the importance of including young people.
Tuesday - Prep for the week
Prepping for the week’s talks: opening Hello and closing Fireside chat with Invidia and Dell at the University of Liverpool AI Discovery Day, VIP Dinner address, and for the main stage at our AI Summit: AI for Good panel, response to young people’s questions and a new slot, my CAIO address.
Worked with the team to better understand SharePoint to share our AI resources with the Combined Authority. We now have an open site (internal) that houses where I’m speaking for comms and better collaboration and AI resources and strategies from Central Government or leading bodies such as the Alan Turing Institute and Open Data Institute to help build internal AI capability.
Delighted to have a 121 with our Chief Executive, Katherine Fairclough, who gave me an incredibly warm welcome and insightful steer to help me with connections and well-rounded resources to help better create our AI strategy.
Wednesday - University of Liverpool AI Discovery Day
I had the privilege to speak at the opening of the University of Liverpool AI Discovery Day after one of the smartest UK Academics on AI, Katie Atkinson, Director of interdisciplinary research centre, to introduce myself briefly and share my agenda, as well as a closing Fireside Chat with Dell and Nvidia.
I was blown away by the brilliant examples of AI already being delivered in the region. It was a super-fast learning day on AI Projects by the University of Liverpool, and great technical applications of AI by Nvidia and Dell.
Andy Grant, EMEA Director, Supercomputing, Higher Education and AI at NVIDIA and Paul Graham, Senior Solutions Architect shared many brilliant example.s My favourites included:
NIM Agent Blueprints - a set of ready-made tools that make it easier for businesses and developers to use AI models quickly and efficiently.
AI Accelerated Computing Platform enabling airflow testing over dynamically changing car models
Just a smattering of the AI projects already being delivered by the University of Liverpool that lit us up:
The world’s first AI-powered robotic scientist for chemical synthesis
Meta Liverpool - Liverpool’s Digital Twin
SAVSNET - Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network - tracking and predicting disease outbreaks, climate and infections for humans through health surveillance in pets and companion animals.
AI Project DynAIRx to tackle over-prescribing of medications and making combinations of medicines safer and better.
Digital Legal Assistants
AI tools to make the world safer and more equitable: from helping tackle piracy, fighting international internet child abuse, exposing illegal fishing to tackling misinformation.
Borrowed with permission from Paul Graham, Solutions Architect at Nvidia - the achingly simple way of describing the four genres of AI:
Predictive AI - Is this a picture of a cat?
Generative AI - Make me a picture of a cat.
Agentic AI - My cat is sick. Find vets nearby and suggest a rehabilitation schedule.
Physical AI - Hello robot cat!
University of Liverpool AI Discovery Day
The VIP Welcome Dinner
A race across town to dump my laptop and head immediately to the VIP Welcome Dinner for our key speakers and guests at our AI Summit the next day, where I gave the welcome address.
Private dining hosted at the Museum of Liverpool, with a spectacular view I didn’t manage to capture.
A brilliant conversation over dinner with Liverpool John Moores University and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital got me thinking deeply on ethical AI and applying the principles of medical ethics.
Do no harm
Autonomy – respect for the patient’s right to self-determination
Beneficence – the duty to ‘do good’
Non-Maleficence – the duty to ‘not do bad’
Justice – to treat all people equally and equitably.
My favourite quote of the evening, on introducing astro-physist Paul Goodall, our AI for Good Panel Moderator, to Kate Royse, Hartree Centre Director, the UK’s supercomputing and AI hub for industry:
Paul: “Oh great to meet you, I had my first job at Hartree”
Kate: “What did you do?”
Paul: “I helped build a Helical Undulator prototype.”
I have worked in tech for 20 years, and mainly in London; this made me howl. A brilliant demonstration of a conversation that comes up in the Liverpool City Region!
The LCR AI Summit
Over 950 delegates, including 200 young people (14-18y), gathered together on Thursday for the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority AI Summit.
My highlights include:
* Hearing hopes and challenges on AI from young people
* A rich 121 discussion with Nicola Hodson Chair IBM UK & Ireland
* The opportunity to share my AI priorities as CAIO for the region on stage
* A brilliant panel debate on AI for good with exceptional peers
* Hearing excellent content from colleagues, my team and key partners
Having the opportunity to showcase a room full of interesting interactive tech was super engaging for people. Was the event a success? Some of my colleagues asked later in the evening.
* On the day, the number of people who were blown away by the quality of the content from our Keynote speakers and panellists is always a great sign and a marked difference to sponsor-led content at many other events.
* The connections and collaborations that follow, we will track, and the benefit that is derived post-event. Last year’s pre-event dinner brokered new world-leading entities being formed, so we’ll keep a keen eye on developments.
* From an event to sell out in three weeks and triple its size in year 2 is significant, and we’ll digest and look at programming for next year.
Many thanks to our Moderator on AI for Good, Paul Goodall and super interesting panellists delivering great work in this space: Kieran Harris, Sandra Ortega-Martorell and Elena Musi, Ph.D.
Great to give old pal Mike Bracken a squeeze hello, see AI avatars Co-host, and give directions all day from the digital humans from Sum Vivas, I saw people entertained with the Robot Dogs and a whole roomful of interactive tech.
A huge thank you to all our sponsors, contributors and teams that made this possible.
Posts that have reported the event more cohesively than me include:
My fab AI Project Manager, Kayla Vondy’s post on LinkedIn
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s fuller write up here.
Straight from the networking post-summit drinks where I managed to slip in two interviews and one glass of wine, I dashed to a dinner with the Japanese Ambassador and local dignatories dinner. Great to meet the team at Playstation and fellow tech and growth experts.
Friday was spent on a brilliant call with NHS England Regional Digital Director of Technology, understanding the AI Health and Social Care challenges in the North West set up by the brilliant connector in AI, Supercommputing and the public sector Professor Richard Harding, organising future speaking events and trying to process all of this!