DigitalScotland 2021

In order to continue the advancement towards digitization, Scotland perhaps needs to develop a roadmap for the integration of digital trust, identity and wallets, and in how data is shared across the public sector, especially in areas of health and social care. This, as much as possible, should be focused on the citizen, and aim to integrate with other evolving systems around the world, and respect privacy. Along with this, the evolution of new methods such as with homomorphic encryption could provide the public sector with the opportunity to better understand the demographics of the population, while supporting privacy-aware machine learning.

William (Bill) J Buchanan OBE FRSE  is a Professor of Applied Cryptography in the School of Computing, Edinburgh and the Built Environment at Edinburgh Napier University. He is a Fellow of the BCS and a Principal Fellow of the HEA. Bill was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to cybersecurity, and,  in 2024, he was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE).  His social media tagline reflects his strong belief in changing the world for the better: “A Serial Innovator. An Old World Breaker. A New World Creator.” Bill also has a strong belief in the power of education and in supporting innovation from every angle and currently leads the Blockpass ID Lab and the Centre for Cybersecurity, IoT and Cyberphysical.   Bill works in the areas of cryptography, blockchain, trust and digital identity. He has one of the most extensive cryptography sites in the World (asecuritysite.com), and is involved in many areas of novel research and teaching.  He has published over 30 academic books and over 450 academic research papers. Along with this, Bill’s work has led to many areas of impact, including a number of highly successful spin-out companies (including Zonefox, Symphonic Software and Cyan Forensics), along with awards for excellence in knowledge transfer and for teaching. He recently received an ”Outstanding Contribution to Knowledge Exchange” award and was included in the FutureScot “50 Scottish Tech People Who Are Changing The World”, along with being a regular keynote speaker at a range of conferences. Bill’s true academic passion is building, analysing and breaking cryptographic methods. 

Kim McAllister is a freelance journalist and event host, as well as a communications consultant for Connect. She has presented seven series of Clever About Cash on BBC Radio Scotland as well as contributing to other radio shows across the network. She writes business features for the Herald and has been published in many major newspaper titles. She spends a lot of her time producing podcasts for clients across the UK and is a trustee of The Yard, a charity for children and young people with disabilities. 

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.  

Jarmo Eskelinen is an urban data and smart cities expert leading the Data-Driven Innovation (DDI) initiative. DDI is a 15-year, £661m investment and innovation programme delivered by the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University and external partners. As part of the Edinburgh City Region Deal, DDI has launched a data innovation platform of six centres across ten industry sectors, from creative industries to fintech, agritech and robotics, to educate 100,000 data scientists, support 1000 to build success with data and launch or scale up 400 start-ups, establishing Edinburgh as the Data Capital of Europe.  

Nia is an experienced leader of digital transformation who has helped the Scottish public sector deliver services that are more efficient to run and meet the raised expectations of today’s customers. She now helps organisations transition to working in the cloud.
Before that Nia spent 19 years working in both the Welsh and English public sector delivering policy improvements, community development, digital connectivity and business transformation.

Mags Moore has been working in the problem-solving IT industry for 34 years, supporting government outcomes and public services. With a keen focus on technical and commercial innovation, and her heart firmly in Scotland, Mags has helped to make public services better for citizens and employees right across the UK.  

Mags is currently the Business Development Director for Sopra Steria’s UK Government and Transport business. Her experience in central, local government, healthcare and transport has helped to define citizen-led solutions, underpinned by the pragmatic application of digital innovation. The tech building blocks of this innovation are based on AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce and ServiceNow. With of course AI, data, cyber and ethics at the core.    

Her passion for leadership had led to her mentoring people from a wide variety of backgrounds. She is currently part of the Sopra Steria and Prince’s Trust partnership supporting young people into work. 

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.

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.

Sarah is Programme Director for broadband initiatives at the Scottish Government. She leads the team delivering the £600m Reaching 100% programme, which is one of the most ambitious digital infrastructure programmes in Europe, taking faster broadband to some of the hardest-to-reach communities in Scotland.  

Sarah also leads the team playing a key role in delivering Project Gigabit in Scotland. The UK Government funded scheme, which is being managed by the devolved administration in Scotland, will help extend access to gigabit capable broadband, building upon the successful rollout of R100. 

With a commercial background in fibre and mobile deployment, Sarah promotes an inclusive and holistic environment on the regional boards and working groups that she sits on. She’s an advocate of collaboration and brings a unique mix of skills, experience, and knowledge to her work with a keen eye on delivering improved outcomes for the public sector and the citizens of Scotland. 

Colin Birchenall is the Chief Technology Officer of the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government. In 2016 the Local Government Digital Partnership appointed him and Martyn Wallace to establish the Digital Office.
He has a particular interest in the role that digital technology can play to deliver better outcomes such as quality of life, the economy and the environment. He has first-hand experience of demonstrating how technology such as the Internet of Things (IoT), data, cloud computing, and mobility can enable public services to be transformed by enabling greater transparency, better decision-making, place-based approaches, partnership working, and prevention/early-intervention.
Colin brings eight years of experience of local government technology transformation having worked with Glasgow City Council, where he recently acted as the lead architect for the £24M Innovate UK Glasgow Future Cities Demonstrator. Prior to this he spent ten years in the telecommunications sector based at Adastral Park in Suffolk.

Thomas Rysgaard Christiansen is a Partner at Netcompany, working with governments across Europe to drive digital strategies and transformation. He joined Netcompany in 2023 as the Group lead for digital government, overseeing key initiatives, including the large-scale EU EUDI-Wallet project. Before joining Netcompany, Thomas gained extensive international experience in both the public and private sectors. Most recently, he served as CEO of KOMBIT, Inc. for 14 years, leading the procurement, development and implementation of efficient, integrated, and user-friendly IT solutions for Denmark’s state and local governments. Drawing on his technical and business expertise, he played a pivotal role in modernizing critical case management and self-service systems, while ensuring the implementation of new digital infrastructure across all Danish municipalities. A strong advocate for digitalization and a connected public sector, Thomas brings extensive experience from both the public and private sectors to his approach to digital transformation. He is an active member of expert boards and facilitates several networks focused on digital development and transformation. 

Jude McCorry is CEO of the Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland. She has over 20 years’ experience in the Technology sector and started her career with Dell computers in Ireland, she joined the Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland in April 2020 from The Data Lab where she was Director of Business Development working with industry and academia to maximise the value of data for Scotland.
She is one of the founders of the Unicef Data Hub for Children, and always ensures there is a social aspect to everything she does in order to benefit the people of Scotland or further afield. Jude is a board member of Parkinson’s Scotland and the Policy Board at SCDI.

Phil Ford is the Head of Digital Economy and Financial Services at Skills Development Scotland, leading a team to shape cross-sectoral strategies to ensure skills planning, investment and delivery are demand led in support of industry priorities.  Phil has previously worked as a Regional Skills Planning Lead for SDS in the south east and south of Scotland. This role involved close partnership working with a range of stakeholders, to develop Skills Investment Plans to ensure that regional supply meets current and future demand. He has previously worked in several senior roles in the Construction Industry Training Board and most recently as the Strategic Partnerships Director for Scotland. In this position he was responsible for driving forward a £2m Joint Investment Strategy with the Scottish Government to address skills and training needs in the construction industry and working closely with politicians to influence policy development.

David is the Managing Director of Beyond Blue and Global Head of Cyber Futures at KPMG.
Over his 35 years in security, he has played a leading role in developing the UK’s cyber security strategy, including as the Head of Cyber and Space for the Ministry of Defence and the chair of the National Cyber Resilience Advisory Board for Scotland.
Cyber security has been his passion over the years, and he has worked with the largest firms in the world to bring cyber security to life as a topic for executives and boards.
David was made an OBE for his contribution to national security and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and the Institute for Information Security.

Deryck Mitchelson is a highly experienced digital executive with a global technical, product development and security background through small, medium and FTSE 100 companies.
A proven track record of transforming distributed businesses through high periods of growth and change. Prior to working at NSS, Deryck was Global CISO and CIO for Wood Mackenzie where he delivered re-platforming of legacy enterprise systems (B2B and B2C) onto the public cloud. He previously worked as Chief Operating Officer for brightsolid and Group CIO of media giant DC Thomson.
Deryck has full responsibility for National digital and security services for NHS Scotland including managing the National NHS Information Security team. In this capacity he acts as Senior Information Risk Officer for NSS.

Kate Forbes MSP is from Dingwall, although she spent part of her upbringing in Glasgow and India. Until she was elected as MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Kate was employed as an accountant in the banking industry. Prior to that she studied History at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh with a focus on human migration.

As a backbencher, she has served on the Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, the Health and Sport Committee and the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. She also served as Parliamentary Liaison Officer for Finance and the Constitution.

As well as leading a campaign to ban plastic straws, Kate has participated in several cross party groups at Holyrood including Crofting, Gaelic, Human Trafficking, Palliative Care and Rural Policy. A fluent Gaelic speaker, Kate made history earlier this year by becoming the first female MSP to give a plenary speech entirely in Gaelic in the current Scottish Parliament chamber.

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.

Gillian Docherty is chief commercial officer at the University of Strathclyde.  Gillian has responsibility for Innovation & Industry Engagement, Research & Knowledge Exchange Services, Campus Services and Marketing & Development. As a member of the Executive Team, she works across the institution to drive forward the University’s sector-leading activities with industry and support Scotland and the UK’s economic recovery from the global pandemic. 

As a leading international technological University, we are extremely proud of our network of partners across business and industry in the UK and globally. Our approach to collaboration is accelerating the development of new technologies, helping companies compete internationally, informing public policy and supporting the economy. 

Prior to joining the University in 2022, Gillian was the Chief Executive of The Data Lab, Scotland’s innovation centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence with a mission to help Scotland maximise value from data and lead the world to a data-powered future. 

Gillian is Chair of CodeBase, who help people build better tech startups and make startups accessible to everyone. 

Gillian is a member of the Scottish Governments National Strategy for Economic Transformation Delivery Board and Trade Board. 

Gillian was appointed an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2019 for Services to Information Technology and Business. 

Derek is a Chartered Manager and Electrical Engineer with over 20 years telecoms industry experience gained by developing and leading successful multidisciplinary infrastructure and service delivery teams.  He leads the Digital Infrastructure Team whose focus is to leverage their collective knowledge and network to support the delivery of the Scottish Government’s 5G Strategy and inform future policy development.

I am an Agile Coach working with the Scottish Digital Academy to deliver training, coaching, mentoring and support across the Scottish Government and the Scottish public sector. I deliver high value training for individuals, teams and organisations to think about how they deliver their work in todays complex, emerging and fast changing environments supporting them to embed and consolidate new ways of working. I have experience working in high profile digital, agile environments including DWP’s Apply for Personal Independence Payment, Digital Hub Transformation and Digital Talent as well as across the Scottish public sector. I love my work, am a keen advocate of agile values and principles and the new ways of working they can create and foster.

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.

Richie McBride is Motorola Solutions’ Senior Director for Mobile Video Solutions, with responsibility for our body-worn and in-car camera products. Prior to its acquisition by Motorola Solutions in 2019, Richie was the Managing Director and co-founder of Edesix Ltd., a market leader in the provision of body-worn camera solutions for those in public facing roles, such as police, security personnel, emergency services workers and the transport industry.

Ian joined the Metropolitan Police in 1989 where he served in West and South London for the first 15 years of his service in frontline operational roles. The second half of his career was spent in West Yorkshire Police, specialising in neighbourhood policing, partnerships, public order and firearms command roles. The last four years of his service was spent leading the delivery of mobile policing. Ian now works for Motorola Solutions as a senior consultant in public safety software solutions with a particular focus on situational awareness and mobility.

Joey Pan is Huawei’s Director of Industry and Public Affairs. In this role he is responsible for developing partnerships with academic, technical and business organisations in the UK to promote joint innovation and sustainable growth in the ICT sector. Joey is also a Board Director of techUK.

 Over the past 15 years, Joey has held different positions within Huawei, both in China, Africa and Europe. Prior to this he was Vice President of Global Government Affairs in charge of relationships with key international organizations.

Hugo is passionate about the role data, analytics and technology has in accelerating data-driven innovation from Advanced Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for civil and social benefit, particularly within Scotland, but also across the UK.
Hugo leads a team of specialists, working on a daily basis to simplify the process of turning data into actionable insight, improving outcomes and mitigating risks. He has rich and varied business background, including insurance broking, specialist underwriting and risk management, combining commercial acumen with an understanding of how technology delivers meaningful value. He led the partnership with, and has established SAS within, the Bayes Centre, University of Edinburgh, and is also based at SAS R&D Glasgow.

David is currently responsible for delivering solutions for cBrain’s public sector customers across 4 continents. After joining IBM by accident, he has been working in public and private sector digital transformation for more than 20 years, since the first days of ‘e-business’.

Prior to joining cBrain, David was responsible for Strategic Change programmes in the office of the CTO in Cabinet Office and later as part of GDS. This involved driving through changes in procurement, project methodology, security, governance, and open standards, as well as establishing the first international MOUs with other leading digital nations.

David also spent 5 years as Head of Innovation at DWP, leading initiatives as diverse as gamification, fraud identification, and establishing assisted digital services for jobseekers.

David currently lives in Denmark with his family, and spends his free time ensuring there are sufficient wifi, cash, and transport options for his children.

Professor Chris Pearce is Vice Principal (Research) at the University of Glasgow where he is responsible for research strategy and policy development. Chris is also Professor of Engineering in the James Watt School of Engineering and holds the Royal Academy of Engineering / EDF Energy Research chair. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and a Chartered Engineer.
Chris is co-Director of the Glasgow Computational Engineering Centre, on the Board of the Scotland 5G Centre and the Board of the Scottish Research Partnership of Engineering. He leads the University’s Smart Campus project, with a vision to create a campus that is open, connected, adaptable and sustainable.

Paul became the CEO of the Scotland 5G Centre – the national centre for the acceleration of the deployment and adoption of 5G in Scotland – in May 2020 and has quickly made his mark on the 5G ecosystem. He is passionate about mobile telecommunications and delivering socio-economic benefit to a broad range of stakeholders to enable digital connectivity.

Previously, as founder of his consultancy practice, Paul advised both private and public-sector organisations on major strategic initiatives, taking advantage of the latest wireless capabilities to develop coherent plans to deliver organisational goals and increased business value.

Paul began his career on the first graduate training scheme run by Orange, now EE, and rose through the company to become head of strategic development. There, he played a key role in establishing the UK’s first deployments of 4G services in rural communities.

He was recently recognised as one of the Connected Britain Top 100 influencers.

Melinda Matthews Clarkson has spent her 28 year career as a leader in technology. She is currently the CEO of CodeClan where she leverages her passion for people and her business skills to drive growth into the Scottish Digital Economy. She has held roles as a VP of Sales, Global Executive of Business Development & Enablement, Director of Marketing and VP of Alliances and Partnerships. She leverages her experience in Digital Marketing, Supply Chain, Commerce, and the Internet of Things with her ‘can do’ attitude in bringing offerings to the marketplace that will drive quality customer experience. Melinda has led a wide range of businesses from small high-growth teams; global expansions; acquisition integrations; new product and program initiatives; to large international sales teams focused on technology and the use of software to make companies more profitable and customer-oriented. Melinda has a BS degree in Sales and Marketing Education; has certifications from UCLA Women in Leadership, Executive Coaching, and Mentoring from Edinburgh Coaching Academy, and has been recognized in the Top 100 Women in CRN Software Channel publication from 2014, 2015 and 2016. She was recently nominated by Scottish Women in Technology as CEO of the Year 2018. Melinda is a collaborative executive and has been successful in balancing employee morale with aggressive strategic growth. Melinda lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is a dual citizen of the USA and Great Britain. She is a sponsor for Smart Works Charity that focuses on assisting women back into the workforce. She is an active cheerleader for Girl Guides and STEM organizations and jumps at any opportunity to inspire and mentor women to be the best they can be. When she is not thinking about technology, she can be found in her garden, on her yoga mat, or in the kitchen creating wonderful tasty dishes.

Anne is Head of Digital Economy in Glasgow City Council and is focused on ensuring Glasgow is competitively placed digitally to embrace opportunities and confront challenges in the City.  This includes attracting and encouraging investment in digital infrastructure as well as working with City partners to enhance and grow digital skills, improve the digital maturity of Glasgow’s businesses, support the already flourishing tech sector in the City, and increase the digital participation of our citizens in economic, civic and social life.
Previous roles in the Council include the City Deal Programme and Programme Manager for the development of the Glasgow Operations Centre as part of the Future City Demonstrator.
Graduating from Heriot Watt University with a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, she started her career in PA Consulting Group working throughout the UK and Europe with finance, oil and gas and public sector clients. She moved to Luxembourg, working for a Eurobond clearing house before returning to London and, subsequently, Glasgow working in both financial services and Scottish Enterprise.

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.

Alistair is a tech entrepreneur and investor who has been involved in founding, scaling, and exiting a number of businesses, primarily in the B2B software sector. He has extensive international experience and has led organisations delivering SaaS solutions to thousands of customers around the world. Alistair has been an active angel investor in Scotland and across the UK and also spent some time working as an Investment Director with responsibility for the Software and Internet sector at Mercia Technologies PLC. In Spring 2020 he was a founder of the Scottish Tech Army, which was established as a volunteer-based COVID-response initiative to deliver digital solutions to organisations on the front line of dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland. Alistair is now the CEO of the Scottish Tech Army, which has evolved to deliver its mission of mobilising Scotland’s tech talent for good on an enduring basis.

Sarah is the Director and Head of New Investments at an Archangels, a prominent business angel syndicate which has been at the forefront of early stage investing in Scotland.  It comprises more than 100 investor members and typically co-ordinates the investment of more than £17 million per year in exciting early stage Scottish companies with a focus on technology and life sciences.   Sarah has extensive international experience of financing and manging early stage opportunities in the healthcare technology sector.  Sarah also sits on the Board of Data Driven Innovation and the Scottish Social Growth Fund.  Before joining the Archangels, Sarah worked in the Innovations Division of the Wellcome Trust, Advent Life Sciences venture team and Parke-Davis Neuroscience Research Centre.

Mike Crockart is the Service Owner of the Scottish Government’s ScotAccount, a safe and secure way for people to prove who they are and that they are eligible for a public service or benefit online. Mike has a wide experience encompassing many roles across the private and public sectors from police officer to programmer to politician. Before his move to Scottish Government, he was Member of Parliament for Edinburgh West and served on the Scottish Affairs and the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committees in Westminster. Prior to that he spent 12 years with Standard Life as a developer, project manager and latterly Service Support Manager for Standard Life’s Healthcare systems. 

Jen Campbell is a Product Owner working on the Scottish Government Payments Service, an ambitious project to replace multiple, independent systems and processes with a common service for use across the public sector. She also leads the organisation’s Product Management Practice and is working to build professional standards and share experience among Product Owners/Managers working in Scottish Government and its agencies.

Prior to joining Scottish Government in 2018, Jen worked as a Technology Consultant within the Financial Services industry, working on large-scale digital transformation programmes as well as strategy and regulatory change projects.

Mike serves the AWS Government Transformation Team (GTT) as a Transformation Lead.  He has a combination of Public and Private sector digital transformation experience spanning 20 years.

He led the UK Government’s Digital Transformation programmes from 2011 to 2015 as part of the GDS team within the Cabinet Office.  This involved establishing new agile ways of working, setting up new commercial frameworks and establishing national cross government programme that delivered 20 new digital services in 400 days.

Mike has also worked in the field of consultancy working on strategic projects in the Public Sector and on large-scale software delivery programmes in the commercial sector.

Starting his career in enterprise infrastructure and working in regulated environments (Financial, Services, Government, Commodity Trading)  Mike has a strong understanding of how to balance governance and risk management with agile delivery and transformation to achieve tangible benefits and results.

Muhammad Ali Imran (M’03, SM’12) Fellow IET, Senior Member IEEE, Senior Fellow HEA is Dean University of Glasgow UESTC and a Professor of Wireless Communication Systems with research interests in self organised networks, wireless networked control systems and the wireless sensor systems. He heads the Communications, Sensing and Imaging (CSI) research group at University of Glasgow and is Director of Centre for Educational Development and Innovation. He is an Affiliate Professor at the University of Oklahoma, USA; Adjunct Research Professor at Ajman University, UAE and a visiting Professor at 5G Innovation Centre, University of Surrey, UK. He is also the Principal Investigator for Scotland 5G Centre’s Urban Testbed in Glasgow and an advisory board member for UK5G. He has over 20 years of combined academic and industry experience with several leading roles in multi-million pounds funded projects. He has filed 15 patents; has authored/co-authored over 400 journal and conference publications; has authored 2 books, edited 8 books and authored more than 30 book chapters; has successfully supervised over 40 postgraduate students at Doctoral level. He has been a consultant to international projects and local companies in the area of self-organised networks.

Steve has been with Cisco for 15 years and looks after the Cisco Security business in Scotland. Passionate about ‘doing the right thing’ for the customer, something that is part of the Cisco culture.

Before Cisco, Steve helped design some of the largest Optical networks on the planet, aged prematurely when working on ATM networks and laments the demise of IBM OS/2, a misunderstood OS ahead of its time.

Andy leads the division which is a strategic partner to government in the application of digital transformation to improve the productivity of operations and to help deliver essential services to millions of customers.

Bob Stewart is a Professor at Strathclyde University where he leads a 5G Software-Defined-Radio team, and where he is also the lead on the University 5G Industry Cluster within the Glasgow City Innovation District.
He has more than 30 years of experience in wireless and mobile, from 1G to today’s 5G architectures. He was previously a Visiting Professor at UCLA Extension School for 20 years, and a founder and the Director of the tech company Steepest Ascent Ltd, prior to acquisition by MathWorks in 2013.
Most recently Bob led the University’s 5GRuralFirst project activity, and now chairs and manages the 5G New Thinking project co-funded by DCMS with lead partner Cisco.

With over 25 years local government technology experience, Ricky Taylor is currently the ICT Business Relationship Manager with East Renfrewshire Council. He is also part of the Scottish Digital Office Strategic IoT leadership group and co-chair of the Scottish Digital Office Smart Infrastructure Group.

As Chief Technology Evangelist (CTE) for the Worldwide Enterprise & Commercial Field Organisation, Matt provides guidance on NetApp’s strategy & technology to a diverse range of companies and our Partner Community. Matt is also part of the worldwide and EMEA leadership team providing advice and guidance on technology and transformation.

His role as the CTE is not so much about showing people how technology works but rather to get people interested enough so that they want to know how technology works.

He is a sought-after keynote speaker who combines his knowledge of the IT industry with anecdotes and stories. On stage, Matt is known for bringing technology to life with witty, easily understandable examples.

Matt started his career in technology as an aircraft engineer and has since accumulated over 25 years of IT experience, 14 of which have been spent with NetApp. Prior to his current role, he oversaw a number of significant IT projects, managed a team of System Engineers responsible for providing installation and onsite support, as well as being responsible for IT outsourcing contracts. This experience has put him in contact with all levels of IT leadership, enabling Matt to understand, communicate with and support clients across a wide range of industries and sizes with their IT strategies.

Matt Watts shares his experiences and industry learnings on his personal blog www.watts-innovating.com.

James is the Vice President of EMEA for Immersive Labs and is responsible for rapidly scaling out the business across the region. Working across all sectors: Immersive Labs equips, exercises and importantly evidences human cyber talent as it relates to SOC teams, IT teams, Dev Ops teams, Executives and the Workforce in general. Prior to Immersive Labs James spent 20 years working with two of the industry’s largest Cyber Security vendors to help protect and partner with hundreds of companies/organisations across all sectors. 

As a product manager, Cheryl has delivered some of the most interesting and innovative changes for Registers of Scotland over the past 6 years. Leading cross functional teams to design, build and adapt critical and enduring services such as Scotland’s Land Information Service and the Digital Submission Service. These award winning services are depended upon by customers and help to underpin the Scottish economy.

An advocate for innovation and improvement, her recent move into product leadership sees her responsible for reimagining products, striving for real sustainability and delighting customers using cloud hosted technologies.

Erik has been part of FrontDesk since 2014 and is known for his vision as an advisor when it comes to gaining maximum effect in an organization using the FrontDesk solution to the limit. Erik has been the lead on creating efficient workflows on more than 100 implementations in Denmark, Norway and Germany.

James, one of the original Scottish Team at CityFibre has led, established and developed CityFibre’s business and partnerships in Scotland especially within Public Sector.

Prior to joining CityFibre James was Partnership Director for BT Scotland having held other past roles in Offshore Treasury Banking, Internet Security and Construction. James previously served as a Board Member for ScotlandIS (Scotland’s Digital Technologies Industry) and The BT Scotland Management Board.

CityFibre is the UK’s builder of Gigabit Cities and the largest national alternative provider of wholesale full-fibre networks, CityFibre invests in, designs, builds, owns and operates alternative communications infrastructure.

CityFibre ( Established 2011) recently reached a key milestone in its roll-out of fibre-to-the-premises having one million connections ready for service.  By 2025, this world-class digital infrastructure and nationwide build programme is expected to be substantially completed and will address approximately a third of the UK market including up to 8 million homes.

CityFibre promotes healthy market competition with an open-access, supplier neutral network model. With dense duct and fibre footprints in over 50 cities throughout the UK, it provides a portfolio fibre services to its customers which include service integrators, enterprise and consumer service providers, local authorities and mobile operators.

Adrian Cooper is Business Solutions Architect and Field CTO for UK Public Sector for NetApp. In this role, he is responsible for developing technical relationships with customers and partners across the public sector to support them in their digital journeys and to get the most out of their data.

Adrian has worked in the IT industry for more than 30 years, with the last 9 years spent at NetApp in Senior management roles in Solutions Engineering. Prior to that, he held Director-level roles at Memorex Telex, EDS Global Field Services, a&o and Simplexo.

Together with the our global team, Mads has built the North American branch of FrontDesk. FrontDesk’s platform creates an exemplary customer experience for more than 7 million people in large cities such as Toronto and Ottawa. Our clients love the versatility of FrontDesk as they continue to exceed expectations for residents, whether they come for marriage licences, COVID vaccines or even fitness sessions.

Gary is a seasoned technologist, working at Fujitsu fostering innovation for a number of its key account as well as internal product development. Recently Gary has been working with FinTech Scotland and Scottish Enterprise in tackling the barriers of making scale-ups become enterprise ready. Looking at how not only can innovative SMEs sell to enterprise customers but making it easier for risk adverse enterprise companies buy from SMEs, particularly in high regulated industries like Financial Services. 

André Rogaczewski founded Netcompany in 2000 and has overseen its evolution into one of Northern Europe’s most successful IT consultancies. With his technical background, a master’s degree in computer science and a true vision for society’s digital future, he has led the company through tremendous growth and built a unique delivery model unmatched elsewhere in the IT industry.

André is a strong advocate for digitalisation and digital competencies and holds several influential positions, including Chairman of the Danish ICT and Electronics Federation and Chairman for The Technology Pact. He founded and chairs ‘Digital Dogma’, a cooperation of leading Danish companies educating and upskilling employee IT and technical competency.

In addition, he has been a key figure in delivering digital recommendations for Denmark to the Danish Government as a leading member of the Danish Disruption Council and the Danish Government’s partnership for digitisation.

John is CGI Vice President of Consulting Services in Scotland responsible for ensuring the delivery of service excellence to a number of large public organisations as well as ensuring ongoing business transformation through technical enablement.
John has been involved in technology deployments for nearly 25 years across all business sectors and has been with CGI since early 2018.

John is also heavily involved in Industry Advisory Groups for Digital Skills Hubs around Scotland.

Craig is a Director of Consulting Services for CGI in Scotland with responsibility for supporting existing, and new, clients on their digital transformation journey through the scoping and agreement of new projects.

Craig has over 10 years’ experience working directly with public sector clients across Scotland and the UK, and now leads a team of talented professionals out of Edinburgh.  Craig specialises in Local Government technology and services and sits on the CGI Smart City and Connected Communities Steering Group.

Craig is a graduate of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews, where he was awarded a national Software Engineering prize for his final year project.

When not working, Craig is a keen outdoor enthusiast, with a particular passion for sailing where he has previously represented Scotland and Great Britain in competition.

Dr Miguel Bernabeu is Deputy Director at The Bayes Centre (https://www.ed.ac.uk/bayes/) and Senior Lecturer at the Usher Institute, The University of Edinburgh. Originally trained as a computer scientist, he holds a DPhil in Computational Biology from the University of Oxford and postdoctoral experience at UCL. In 2015, he joined The University of Edinburgh as a Chancellor’s Fellow where he established his first research group at the Centre for Medical Informatics, Usher Institute. Since May 2021, he’s seconded to The Bayes Centre as Deputy Director and Director of Research. His research interests spans a broad range of applications of mathematical modelling and machine learning to biomedical topics from fundamental question in developmental vascular biology and cancer to the real-world evaluation of AI systems for medical image analysis.