- Jonathan Ebsworth
Keeping humans at the centre of digital transformation
A Technology-enabled Revolution
We are in the early stages of a technology-enabled upheaval known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It’s hard to understate the scale of impact this will ultimately have on our world, but now we are near the start of that journey.
There has been talk of digital transformation for years, but for many businesses their ‘transformation’ has been limited to a fragment of their operations. There is so much more to be done.
The Fourth Industrial revolution is powered by a collection of technologies which are maturing at more or less the same time. They include Cloud and ‘Big Data’, social media, smart mobile devices, the Internet of Things, robots, robotic process automation, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR). Perhaps the greatest potential force for transformative change is Artificial Intelligence (AI).
We are massively excited by the potential power of this revolution – but are conscious that big opportunities brings significant risks.
Challenges Facing Business and Society
Substantial consequences of this transformation are already beginning to show. Over 85,000 jobs were lost from the UK High Street in 2018 and that pace is accelerating. Retailers aren’t alone: many roles will change significantly in the coming years. We are facing massive adjustment in society. We need to decide how we will respond; individually, as communities and as businesses.
AI opens up new capabilities to predict, to monitor, to diagnose and to automate, but too little thought is going into determining what kind of society we want to create and sustain. How will we play our part on this dynamic global stage.
So why set up techdotpeople?
The digital journey thus far has failed to deliver anything like the full benefit anticipated. We believe that while many of these programs were launched with the very best intentions, with people’s needs at the centre; too often that focus vanished in the relentless rhythms of technology delivery. We want to help business and development teams learn how to keep people in focus throughout the journey. We want to show how the most innovative solutions can be designed, built, deployed and enhanced successfully with people constantly in mind. It is only then that the full digital dividend can be drawn.
We want to promote a beneficial collaboration between humans and technology. We want to help business be intentional about their role in the future digital economy and to arrive there with increased agility. We see this as the best way to unlock more of the digital dividend.
We want techdotpeople to help our industry, businesses and politicians to see and to seize the opportunities offered collaboration of people and technology, while delivering benefit for many, not just a few. In particular we want to help shape the agenda around the ethics of innovation, increasing the sense of deliberate responsibility felt by innovating business and generating greater transparency.
Part of our values are to give some of the benefit we gain from this work, back to support the disadvantaged and under-represented. We want to see technology used to help tackle some of society’s biggest challenges.