CAIO Weeknote #17

Learning from others, AI in education and Innovation Modelling

Monday

Monday didn’t start to badly. I got listed!

I’m super proud to be included in @Apolitical’s Government AI 100 for 2026, which recognises public servants and government leaders from around the world who are shaping how AI is governed, adopted, and used responsibly in the public sector.

The Government AI 100 is part of The Government AI Campus, a trusted hub for AI excellence in government, supporting 1 million public servants to lead in the age of AI.

Explore the full 2026 AI 100 list on Apolitical: https://apolitical.co/list/en/government-ai-100-2026

We always kick off with our AI Programme Team Meeting which set us up for the week.

I convened our AI Summit Steering Group to help elove this year’s AI Summit and we ran our first session setting up our strategic programming and key internal people to involve in the first instance.

I met with our Control Centre Team to evolve one of Proof Of Concept Projects in transport.

Tuesday

Email admin and then rehearsing my Points of View and speech for the afternoon.

Where do you get your industry knowledge from?
For me, its the newsletters I subscribe to, the X feeds, the LinkedIn articles I save, the odd book and the in-person peer meetings. On top of which it’s other brilliant events I attend as a speaker or delegate and the network of speakers.

I had the huge pleasure this week to be invited to Newham Council to speak at their event Data, AI and the Future of Work.

Highlights for me included:
💥 Hearing the personal story and ambition from Newham Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz.

💥Year 13 Data Ambassador Student and prize winner of the TFL Digital Twin Challenge, Rachel sharing her points of view on AI.

💥James Culley thoughts on AI in Education, CTO of London Design and Engineering at UTC. So good to get the students to work on competitions that see the winners work being built in real life.

💥The eloquent and engaging Eddie Copeland's opening, Director of London Office of Technology & Innovation (LOTI).

Expertly facilitated and introduced by Omid Shiraji.

Great new connections included:
🤝 Meeting the new DD for AI in Local Government in MCHLG, Kat Sexton.
🤝 The brilliant Nathan Nagaiah AI Leader and DDaT in Newham.
🤝 Serena McIntosh and Todd at Bloomberg Associates.
🤝 and bumping into data pal, Martine Wauben Head of Data for London.

I was invited to give a strong provocation opening to my panel on the future of AI in 2036. (Which could have bombed, but seemed to go down well).

Wednesday

Up to Liverpool on the early train.

Meeting with the Business Support Team on the approach and roll-out of our Copilot licences and training.

Henry from my team and I visited Hope University. This beautiful institution, built in 1844 with a heritage in teacher training, is the only ecumenical university in Europe.

A quick tour of the buildings and meetings with Damien Maguire, Associate Dean of External Engagement and Professor David Reid, who has a brilliant podcast, Married to the Machine: Living with AI and invented the shopping cart!

Thursday

Woke up early and managed to get an hour or more in on my MSc. I’m in the middle of my Systematic Literature Review, collecting all the conditions that enable employee voice - employees’ communication of ideas, suggestions, and concerns at work, with the intent to improve the way an organisation functions.

Great meeting with James Townsend of Mobilise, the platform that supports unpaid carers. Brilliant to understand the more recent work he is doing with AI on their Dynamic Carer’s Assessment tool, reducing 95% admin time on Statutory Carer’s Assessment and enabling local authorities to reach far more carers than current human-only facilities allow.

Great to understand the work of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Hazel Snell, Head of Academic Faculty Operations and Simon Wagstaff, Head of Scientific Computing, came to visit my Director, Lorna, and I. Can’t wait to see more on their AI Strategic Initiatives and robotics laboratory - as well as the 200 snakes they keep!

Presented at NW Employers AI Meeting with our fab Head of Digital Services Ste Sharples. I shared the AI Programme on a page - our aims and high-level objectives, and Ste shared the great work he is doing in our move to cloud, our data strategy and modelling and upskilling our Dev Ops team.

Team 121s: quickfire questions sweep up.

Travel to a different hotel, quick check-in and turn around for the kick-off of this year’s Novel programme, which I was delighted to be invited into this year’s cohort.

The Novel programme is a unique approach to innovation, growth and venture building for business leaders in the Liverpool City Region aimed at helping businesses transform their capabilities and ambitions into commercial realities.

We were picked up and taken to the Shakespeare North Play House, a beautiful modern 420-seat circular auditorium, built in wood, inspired by the 1590’s Prescott Playhouse on this site and built on Inigo Jones 1629 layout of the theatre in the Palace of Westminster. A modern studio space, outdoor performance garden, exhibition and visitor centre.

Jon Corner, brilliant entrepreneur, ex CDO of Salford Media City, and Co-Founder of Novel opened the event.

Adrian Woolard of the CoSTAR network, engaged us in thinking about:

• What is your type of innovation

• Do you have a culture of innovation

• Can you measure it usefully

• Are you about outcomes or performance

• Think regional, national and global

- Mark Shayler, environment consultant followed with engaging presentation on setting the scene for us.

Dinner, drinks and networking enabled us to have a few good conversations. I caught up with Fin and Matt at the VEC, the University of Liverpool’s Virtual Engineering Centre. Bowled away to know that they give free data, analytics and prototyping help to businesses based in Liverpool incorporated for 1 year or more.

Friday

Rarely has an event transformed the way I think so much as Novel in a day.

Simon May and Jim Dawton of Impeller Ventures in the first session laid out why the Innovation Funnel is wrong, how to minimise the Valley of Death (project completion to Successful commercialisation), what’s wrong with Innovation Projects and how to get to market MUCH quicker. Blew us all away.

Jon Corner and Jim Mooney laid out the plan for Novel.

Codebase Edinburgh helped us all identify the assets and actors in the region, how they connect through knowledge, capital and talent and we all played into the SWOT analysis for the region.

Emma shared her depth of knowledge on Leadership and key learnings for us and Andrew Borland, Chief Innovation Officer at the VEC wrapped up with an inspiring close.

I scooted at the end of the day close and networking for a train back to Liverpool and then to London. I need to lie down in a dark room for another full day just to process it all, but uplifted by an incredible community of brilliant people wanting to change our region and beyond in great ways.

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Events that I’m speaking at - coming up

5-7th Feb: Role of the CAIO, ACC Liverpool Festival of Data, University of Liverpool

25 Feb: The CAIO Blueprint, CAIO Summit London

26 Apr: The CAIO Print: Embedding AI in Regions Local Government Partnership Network North 2026

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Tiffany St James
Chief AI Officer, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority