CAIO Weeknote #22
Ferries, future skills and the foundations of regional AI.
Monday
I had to lie flat all day with a lurgy that also besieged me on Sunday to stop my throat from becoming ulcerated and more inflamed. My body told me I needed bed rest. Was it running around too much? Talking out loud too much? Being in halls of 1000s at Excel or the too-thin duvet at my modest accommodation? All 4 perhaps.
Tuesday
Up on an early train to Liverpool with a voice for Radio and a nose like a tap.
Computer fixed by our excellent IT team, wheel of death no more.
Team discussion on our presence at Connected Britain.
Great advice from AI Legend Sunhil Mistry on how to navigate NVIDIA’s GTC conference, which Kayla from my team and I are attending in San Jose, 16th- 19th March. How to make the most of it, and how long we have to queue to see Jensen Huang, CEO and President of NVIDIA, speak - great advice.
Monthly 121 with my Director, Lorna.
GTC session and networking planning with Kayla.
Wednesday
Over on the Ferry to the Wirral, we met Ellie Vondy, who is working towards becoming the first woman ever to captain the world‑famous Mersey Ferry. A qualified diver and marine biologist, she now splits her time between working onboard the ferry and studying part‑time at Fleetwood Marine College.
Visit to Eureka, the brilliant national museum for children, as it describes itself, does not do it justice! We had a full tour of all the science interactive exhibits for kids (and us big kids) and a great meeting with CEO Leigh-Anne Stradeski and Head of Learning and Inspiration (great title) Rachel Bevan, to discuss how best we can use this brilliant venue and space to help educate children in AI.
Ferry back, audio tour evaluation enroute.
Quick bite at the office, thank goodness I pack Huel with its 27 vitamins, my posh pot-noddle pasta keeps me upright and is quick and filling — two quick conversations in and out of the lifts on Smart Cities attendance, AI and education.
Quick march to the ACC to look at the venue space for this year’s AI Summit, which has landed with my team and me to organise.
Quick march back to review Kayla’s speech for next week at a brilliant event in Sunderland.
Dash for the train and the inbox to catch up on in transit back to London.
Thursday
Team discussion on the potential to extend some of our forthcoming proof-of-concept AI pilots of video language models.
Meeting with Modality, local tech entrepreneurs to understand their platform for teachers and students in Responsible AI use and help facilitate introductions in the region for them.
Internal Meeting with our brilliant Evidence, Research and Intelligence Team to share agendas and how we can support each other. DELIGHTED that Ricardo is focusing on Horizon Scanning, something I bring into my public talks and very happy to help them with Citizen Centric working with my experience as Head of Public Participation for the UK Government in a previous life.
Quarterly, I am an expert adviser to the Data for London Advisory Group, generally held in London’s City Hall. So great to hear from and contribute to London Data Projects that can benefit all local authorities and engage with others using Data for public benefit.
Thrilled to have a post-event chat with Ali Nicholl, Data and Digital Strategic Engagement Director from Connected Places Catapult. If we had planned it, it could have taken two months to get our diaries aligned, so great to seize the time together. I shared our approach to AI Test Beds and spent time shooting the breeze about how different learned people and great storytellers are depicting the future to inform future chats and how other countries are dealing with the opportunities and challenges that AI presents.
Friday
When you have a brilliant team member, and they come to the end of their tenure in the programme. That. I said a sad goodbye to brilliant team member Kevin Qu today. Kevin came to us through our internal Aspire programme and has been helping us with Project Support whilst we recruit full-time. He’s blown us all away with his speed of delivery, brilliant use of AI and volume of tasks he gets through supporting us. If any of our Public Sector colleagues in the region (because he’s all about the impact) are looking for support, check him out on LinkedIn.
Temp interviews for support and tying up contracting.
AI Taskforce shortlisting now that internal longlisting is complete. Some very difficult decisions are ahead for us, deciding between all the brilliant talent that has applied.
Great call with our Comms Team, the Director of Comms from DSIT and the DSIT Comms team to look at a joined-up approach to AI Skills.
Great to close off the week plotting our interactions in Hamburg in May with Rob March from our Investment Team. Making the most of the time the team have on the ground in Hamburg and engagement with the brilliant ARIC centre - leading responsible AI
Events that I’m attending - coming up - say hi if you are going
16-19 Mar: NVIDIA GTC, San Jose, California
Events that I’m speaking at - coming up
09 Mar: All Party Political Group on Artificial Intelligence, House of Lords - giving evidence for parliament on AI Growth Zones.
28-29 Apr: The CAIO Blueprint: Embedding AI in Regions Local Government Partnership Network North 2026
29-30 Apr: DTX Manchester
Tiffany St James
Chief AI Officer, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority
Extremely interesting week….no wonder you were run down!?! Keep up the good great work and maybe take the foot off the accelerator 10%?😊