It’s been a few weeks since my last update as a few of my team have dipped their toes in the blogging water! If you haven’t read them yet..why not?! Here they are: Pete’s update #1, Su’s first post and The DDaT Away Day! Not from my team, but I really enjoyed the randomness of my old boss Neil William’s latest weeknote too.
Couple of things I want to shout about:
Luton office Iftar
I joined my first office Iftar at Luton last night. It is an annual event and was a wonderful evening with plenty of food and conversation, and a chance to mingle informally with colleagues and Councillors I hadn’t met before. I think it showcased the best of what makes Luton be Luton – that family and community feeling. A group of non-Muslim colleagues also fasted for the day (so Muslim colleagues prepared the iftar meal as a well done – you can see from the photo there was plenty of food to go around!) They also set up a whatsapp chat to wake each other up before sunrise for some nourishment and to keep each other motivated through the day! By doing this, they raised more than their £2000 target to support the CAP foundations Orphan Village project in Bangladesh, which was amazing!
AI collaboration with the University of Bedfordshire
Have a university with a school of Computer Science on our doorstep is definitely a bonus! We’re deep in conversations about how the university can support us a council move forward on our AI journey, and they are facilitating a half day workshop for some of my team next week on the opportunities of AI and the security threats. But, what I want to shout about is our collaboration on a new AI project to support local businesses! We’ve partnered together to launch an innovative AI transformation initiative aimed at supporting local businesses in adopting artificial intelligence technology. This could be local firms and GP surgeries, but crucially also sole traders – for example that landscape gardener who does amazing work making Luton resident’s gardens beautiful, but has to spend time doing the paperwork and things he doesn’t really enjoy. This partnership can help him use AI to do things like budgeting and marketing so he can spend more time curating more beautiful gardens and growing his business. It just goes to show how collaborative working (both within the Council between DDaT and Economic Regeneration colleagues) and externally needn’t be difficult and can benefit us all! For more information on this project, take a look at the University’s press release.