DigitalScotland 2023

Dr Sanna Rimpiläinen, Research and Skills Manager at the Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre (DHI) in Glasgow, leads on one of DHI’s key strategic areas, Skills and Future Workforce Development agenda. This work focusses on the development of a future pipeline of talent to support the digital transformation of health and care services in Scotland, engaging with a vast network of partners in schools, further and higher education, in digital health and care industry, the health and social care sectors, Scottish government and the third sector. She also manages the DHI’s Research and Knowledge Management team, whose outputs inform and underpin work carried out by the DHI and our partners. The team also administers master’s studentship funding in digital health and care for the Scottish universities, working to strengthen that domain across the Scottish education landscape.

Dr Rimpiläinen has a PhD in Education. Her work at the DHI pulls together the different strands of her career, including interdisciplinary research expertise and interest in workforce development questions with different aspects of technological innovations from inception and production to appropriation and use in diverse learning and working practices.

Geoff Huggins is Director for Digital at the Scottish Government.  Previously he was Director of the NHS Education Scotland Digital Service working to create the NHS National Digital Platform.  From 2013 to 2018 he was Director for Health and Social Care Integration and from 2017 to 2018 also Director for Digital Health and Social Care.  Prior to that he was Head of Mental Health for nine years.  From 1991 to 1998 he worked for the Northern Ireland Office working on security and political development.  He holds degrees in law and criminology from Queen’s University, Belfast.  He is a non-executive director of Cornerstone, Penumbra and the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership.  He runs a little, takes photographs and watches films.  

Before moving to Scottish Government, Joy held a number of posts across UK government. She is an experienced transformation lead. Driven by her passion for delivering excellent public services, Joy has been involved in designing some extraordinary services, recognised by their many awards. As Head of Digital Transformation, Joy’s goals include ensuring all services are designed in collaboration with the people who use them and that people are always encouraged to challenge the status quo.

Roger Halliday started as Scotland’s Chief Statistician in November 2011 and Served as Scottish Government’s Chief Data Officer role between 2017 and 2020.
Since March, he has jointly led a Covid Modelling and Analysis Division in Scottish Government and is the Chief Executive of Research Data Scotland.
Roger qualified with a degree in statistics in 1993 from St. Andrews University and joined the Government fast stream as an assistant statistician. He worked for various UK Government Departments and at the Scottish Government in a number of statistical and policy making roles.
He became an honorary Professor at the University of Glasgow in 2019.

Doreen leads Scottish Government’s involvement in the Open Government Partnership at both a National and International level. In Scotland, Open Government supports the reform and development of trustworthy public services, the renewal of democracy, promotes openness, transparency and the use of innovative participative processes to help transform how people interact with public services. 

Doreen moved into Scottish Government during the extraordinary times building up to Scotland’s Independence Referendum, which as an Archaeologist and Historian, seemed a really interesting way to observe history at first hand.  The change has provided her with a broad perspective on the world in which we live and the systems that affect us over time.  

As a volunteer Doreen is also a co-founder and chair of Wellbeing Economy Scotland, because change matters and how we have a society that works for people and planet – working with an extraordinary team of people who are inspiring the change in Scotland and beyond. 

Paul has been working in the senior digital leadership team at Registers of Scotland for 4 years. A technology enthusiast who believes in delivering success through service aligned, autonomous, high performing teams. 

Registers of Scotland have been through several “digital transformation” iterations over the last ten years. Their journey has seen the delivery of several transformational services which benefit Scottish Citizens and underpin the Scottish Property Market, such as SCOTLIS and Digital Submissions Service.  

With many lessons learned on the way, and many more inevitably to come, Paul and the Registers of Scotland team would like to share their digital transformation journey with you. 

Steph is a data science enthusiast with specific experience of the healthcare domain. She has been extensively involved in developing and building collaborations across organisations as well as experience in project and programme management. Steph has a diverse background ranging from astrophysics to genomics in academia and film & TV to dance in the arts and the third sector. Steph led on Data Lab’s efforts in support of the Scottish Government in developing Scotland’s AI Strategy and is currently leading on its delivery through the Scottish AI Alliance, a partnership between The Data Lab and the Scottish Government. She is also the regional lead for Scotland for Women in AI UK.

Michael has worked in AI for over 20 years as an academic, focusing primarily on methods to coordinate the activities between multiple intelligent agents in both cooperative and competitive settings, such as transportation networks, supply chains, and markets. Over the last few years, his research has aimed at developing systems that are better aligned with human values, e.g. fairness and diversity, contributing to the development of more responsible AI technologies. Since 2018, he has led the development of The Bayes Centre, a data science and AI innovation hub that brings together nearly 500 researchers and industry experts. Michael is part of the leadership team of the Scottish AI Alliance, and represents the University at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and AI. 

Davie is based just outside of Glasgow and is the Leidos UK Director of Technology Strategy & Innovation. Creating innovative solutions to customers’ complex challenges is what he’s all about.

Davie started his Career in IT as a YTS in the ‘80s (think, an early version of Modern Apprenticeships). After many adventures in different industries including public sector, banking and manufacturing, to name a few, he joined Leidos. Davie is one of Scotland’s inaugural Digital Fellows. Davie was seconded to the Scottish Government Digital Directorate in 2018 as Chief Technologist. He is passionate about technology and the amazing things we can achieve by harnessing the collective power of people, process, information and technology through collaboration between Public and Private sectors, fellow tech companies, customers and our customers’ customers.

The pace at which technology evolves means there are always new ways to innovate that weren’t even considered yesterday…

His extracurricular activities include fine dining, mixed with the odd kebab, and he describes himself as a family man who is a PC gaming nerd and car enthusiast.

Brian joined the Scottish Government as Director for Corporate Transformation and Workplace in March 2021. He is an experienced leader in the world of business, IT, process & people change delivery. Building portfolios of change and transformation, and the teams required to deliver them, has been the central theme in his career. The majority of Brian’s career has been within Financial Services, primarily with Standard Life Investments/abrdn group of companies where he was Head of Change, followed by senior operations and change roles in Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank Group/Virgin Money plc, and Skyscanner Ltd.   

Antony Clark was appointed Audit Scotland’s Executive Director of Performance Audit and Best Value in May 2022after an interim 14-month period having joined Audit Scotland in 2003. As Executive Director, Antony is responsible for delivering a world-class programme of performance audits that respond to the key issues Scotland’s public sector faces and positively affect the lives of Scotland’s people. Prior to joining Audit Scotland, Antony worked for the Nursing and Midwifery Council in London from the mid 1980s until joining North Tyneside Council in 1991 as a community care planner. He joined the Audit Commission in the mid-1990s where he spent six years managing health and local government audits across the North of England. After a short period back in local government, working on political modernisation (elected mayors and cabinet constitutions), he joined Audit Scotland.

Lee Dunn is the Head of the Scottish Digital Academy, which is part of the Directorate for Digital at the Scottish Government. The Academy provides high quality professional learning and training in relation to service design, agile transformation and digital skills.

Lee began his career as a secondary school teacher of Design and Technology before taking up various posts as Data Lead for post-16 learning with the Scottish Government, Senior Lecturer in Education and Technology at the University of Glasgow and Head of Education Services at the Institute of Chartered Accountants Scotland. Before taking up his current post, Lee was a Lead Specialist Professional Learning at Education Scotland. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the Moderator for Education and Digital Skills at the UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab.

Lee is passionate about education and developing digital skills for learning, life and work.

Andrew began his career in Technology within Civil Engineering sector at Mott McDonald where he undertook roles focusing on Digital Infrastructure solutions, Innovation, Design and Delivery for the Highways agency and other public service agencies within the Transportation sectors.

Following this, Andrew performed Technology management & delivery roles across Construction and Utilities with New City Vision and Energetics Networked Energy.

Moving into Retail Energy and Trading sectors, Andrew held a leadership role with Gazprom Energy – Leading on Digital, Transformation, Integration and the Target Operating Model development across Europe, Americas and Asia Pacific.

Fulfilling a Board role at H Dawson Sons, he was Global Director of IT & Operations – Responsible for operations and transformation across the group covering Trading, Logistics, Retail and E-Commerce across UK, Africa, Europe, Australia China and India.

Before he joined Police Scotland in 2019, he worked at Global Engineering Solutions provider, Fircroft Group in the role of Group Chief Information & Digital Officer where he was responsible for Transformation, Technology and the business’s Global Operating Model overseeing operations in 45 countries.

In September 2019 Andrew was appointed as Police Scotland’s Chief Digital and Information Officer. Forming part of the Police Scotland Executive Command & Leadership Team, Andrew oversees a wide portfolio which consists of the following business areas: Change & Transformation; Digital Division; Service Design; Innovation.

He is also the Senior Responsible Officer for:  DDICT; Modernised Contact & Engagement; Digital Evidence; Sharing Capability; Digitally Enabled Policing; Body Worn Video; Mobile Working; Unified Communications & Contact Platform.

Jason Whittet leads the city advisory practice for AWS based out of London. He previously led the Smart City Innovation Center at Arizona State University for AWS. He’s worked in smart cities for 100 Resilient Cities at the Rockefeller Foundation, General Electric and IDC Research. He previously spent 10 years in government service with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He studied political science at ASU and has a Master’s In Public Administration from Northeastern University. He currently services as the Co-Chair of the Data Supercluster for the US National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Robbie has been Head of the Digital Connectivity Division in the Scottish Government since 2018, leading the delivery of a number of flagship infrastructure projects that are enhancing Scotland’s digital infrastructure and extending access to connectivity. Robbie has worked in several roles across Scottish Government – previously managing European Structural Funds programmes and helping to set up SPRUCE, the first investment fund specifically established to support urban development and regeneration activity in Scotland.

Jon is the CTO at Brightsolid and has over 20 years’ experience of enterprise technology environments. For the past 8 years he has focused on helping customers across all industry sectors design, build/migrate, secure, manage and optimise applications and services in public cloud environments. He is an experienced technology leader and an expert in the major public cloud providers. At Brightsolid, Jon is accountable for the delivery of our hybrid cloud products and services. 

Ross joined the Scottish Government in 2000, initially in agriculture, moving to Digital Communications in 2007 working on the intranet and website, latterly as Website Manager for gov.scot. Ross moved to the Cloud First Programme within Digital Directorate as Product Manager in 2018.
The Cloud First Programme’s main aim is to promote cloud & support public organisations to move to the cloud. Ross also has a leading role within the Cloud Community which has been established across the public sector in Scotland.

Rachael Greaves is the CEO and Co-Founder of Castlepoint Systems. She is a records and information management and cyber security thought leader. Rachael designed the Castlepoint command and control products. Rachael has consulted on large-scale records, security and audit projects in government and regulated industries with complex integrated environments. She developed Castlepoint in response to the tension seen in organisations between compliance, usability, sustainability and cost. 

Rachael is a Certified Information Professional (CIP), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Certified Data Privacy Systems Engineer (CDPSE), and is certified in project, change, and records management. 

Kim McAllister is a freelance journalist and communications consultant at Connect. She presents Clever About Cash on BBC Radio Scotland and contributes to a number of BBC shows including Radio 4’s Inside Science. She regularly writes for the Herald and other business titles. Since the pandemic hit, Kim has been involved with a wide range of events online, from chairing the three day annual international conference of the British Occupational Hygiene Society to hosting business recovery webinars for the Herald. Her space podcast series “Scotland’s Secret Space Race”, which she made with the University of Edinburgh, is the no 6 physics podcast in the UK and she is currently working on a special edition.

Shona Croy is Strategic Advisor and Project Director for Orkney Islands Council, with responsibility for renewables and connectivity. Orkney is the worst internet blackspot in Scotland with just 64% of premises connected to superfast broadband compared to the UK average of 94%. Only 1% of households have ultrafast broadband, compared to the UK average of 59%, and locals face the slowest download speeds in the country. 

Given the challenges of living and working in a rural area, delivering improved connectivity across Orkney is a high priority for the Council, to mitigate against the effects of distance and isolation, to allow businesses and the public sector to modernise, and to deliver improved quality of living including improved opportunities for remote learning and employment for residents. 

Shona has been at employed by the Council for over 30 years and has worked in a variety of roles primarily in the field of economic development. She has extensive knowledge and experience of the issues facing remote communities and in developing measures to overcome market failure.  A strategic and practical thinker, she has developed and delivered a number of innovative projects in Orkney. 

Paul is an entrepreneurial technologist with a substantial track record for applying innovation across multiple market sectors spanning academia, government, SMEs and international PLCs.

Paul’s early career was with UK MoD, then with QinetiQ where he held a number of leadership roles CEO of QinetiQ Inc. Subsequently, Paul has founded and ran an SME and then was the inaugural Executive Director Innovation and Investment at the UK Defence Solutions Centre. He joined CENSIS in 2019 where he has been pivotal in the development and implementation of digital solutions across the public and private sectors in Scotland.

Paul’s business skills include leadership, substantial international P&L experience, capital raising and realising value from technology.

Paul is a member of the Board at South of Scotland Enterprise, Scotland’s enterprise agency for Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders. Earlier in 2022 the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) appointed him to its Science Engineering and Technology Board (SETB). The SETB is responsible for identifying and championing new research challenges at the cutting edge of engineering and physical sciences for future investment.

Paul is a co-founder of the Smart Things Accelerator Centre, a dedicated Scottish IoT accelerator for SMEs, scale up and start up companies.

Sarah is the Programme Director for Digital Infrastructure at Scottish Futures Trust, a centre of infrastructure expertise. She leads a team of industry and commercial specialist that support the Scottish Government in the development and delivery of their digital infrastructure strategies that covers international connectivity, data centres, fibre broadband and advance wireless infrastructure. Taking an active leadership role across major infrastructure programmes, Sarah brings a unique mix of skills, experience, and knowledge to bear to deliver improved outcomes from Scotland’s public sector infrastructure. 

Sarah sits on the Scotland 4G Investment Programme Board and Scotland 5G Centre Governing Board with a drive to ensure that 4G and 5G are tied into the broader tech scene in Scotland and that best practice is shared across the UK. With a commercial background in fibre and mobile deployment, she promotes an inclusive and holistic approach across the regional boards and working groups that she sits on and encourages collaboration across all her work.  

Highly respected and trusted leader, Alisdair is recognised by his peers as one of Scotland’s prominent professional advisers in Scotland’s digital and technology sector. As the Director leading the development and growth of the Glasgow City Innovation District (Scotland’s first Innovation District), Alisdair is a board adviser to several of Scotland’s leading, prominent Digital Product SMEs. Alisdair also founded Framewire, Scotland’s first advisory practice focused on developing Scotland’s Digital and Tech Ecosystem as well as mentoring the founders of Scotland’s leading digital technology businesses. Alisdair is also recognised for his passion and dedication to developing the growth of Scotland’s Tech Ecosystem and Tech Clusters and is currently focused on scaling Glasgow’s Digital and Tech sector as part of the Glasgow City Innovation District. 

Alisdair is the co-founder of the internationally acclaimed Turing Festival (now Turing Fest) and at the inaugural Scottish Tech Startup Awards was awarded the first Tech Ecosystem award where his peers recognised his expertise and commitment to developing Scotland’s tech ecosystem. Alisdair was a finalist in the Barclays Entrepreneur Awards and has been inducted into the BIMA 100 as one of the UK’s leading digital tech leaders. Alongside being a board member of BIMA in Scotland, Alisdair is a board member of digital tech companies Amiqus, Cut Media and VeryConnect. Alisdair is also a member of the ScotlandIS policy steering group, which provides strategic advice to the UK and Scottish Governments on developing Scotland’s tech sector and is a member of Johnston Carmichael’s Tech Advisory Board. 

Steve Roud is a change agent who specialises in digital technologies. He is a past chair of SOCITM Scotland which is a professional body that represents digital leaders across the public services. Steve has achieved success with public sector organisations such as Angus Council, NHS NSS and Aberdeen City Council.​

After spending more than 30 years in public services, Steve has expertise in leadership, portfolio delivery and transformation.​​

Steve has an MSc in Leadership as well as a  PgDip in Information Technology and  a BA in Information Management.​

Linda brings an entrepreneurial mindset, with a wealth of experience in pushing commercial growth and engaging with governance to CodeClan.

In her role as Chief Marketing Officer, her main objectives are to build a recognisable and highly commended brand to reflect the valuable and life-changing activities that take place at CodeClan. Linda leads the commercial side of CodeClan, building the partner network to support CodeClan students and Alumni, bringing in industry insight and building a positive reputation throughout the tech industry.  Also working with CodeClan partners to upskill and reskill employees to support the skills needed in Scotland.

Kimberley is the Head of Business Intelligence at Glasgow City Council, looking at how data from across the whole organisation can be used to support both council and city transformation.   She leads a broad range of innovative data analytics projects for the council that provide opportunities for informing policy, transforming services, and delivering better outcomes for the people of Glasgow. She is a champion of Open Data and her team directly manage Glasgow’s open data programme.  She is a member of the Digital Glasgow Board that is responsible for overseeing the development of the Digital Glasgow Strategy, and is also actively involved in developing data analytics capabilities across Scottish Local Government in collaboration with the Scottish Local Government Digital Office. Kimberley has 25 years valuable experience of programme and project management, including 14 years in local government implementing major IT change programmes.

Stephen is the Founder of Calba, your partner in agile.

He strongly believes in focusing on people before process and tools, influenced from his past experience as a personal development leader with charities Venture Scotland and Raleigh International.

He started his career as a software engineer in 1980s with Hewlett-Packard, who were pioneering new manufacturing techniques, many of which we term as agile or lean today. He has worked on agile and digital transformations with organisations across Europe, Japan and North America, and lived in Silicon Valley for 5 years.

Stephen founded Calba in 2010 and Lean Agile Edinburgh in 2013.