• Jeremy Wright will also announce government’s contribution to new fund, which will be up to £30 million, to spark a wave of tech innovation
• World-first ‘data trust’ could see conservationists sharing audio and image data to help tackle illegal wildlife trade
• This is part of Government’s modern Industrial Strategy which will harness the power of technology to help make a real difference to people’s lives

Pioneering digital technologies such as artificial intelligence could be used to crack down on global challenges as part of a world-first ‘data trust’ programme to be piloted in the UK.

More than £700,000 will be invested in the initiative to tackle issues such as illegal wildlife poaching and food waste mountains. The funding will help organisations such as WILDLABS, Tech Hub and WRAP design the frameworks required to exchange data between organisations in a safe, fair and ethical way.

The aim of the scheme, which will be run by the Open Data Institute and the Government’s Office for Artificial Intelligence, is to exploit the power of data exchange between organisations with the raw data and those with expertise to process it to tackle major global issues.

Exploring the potential of data trusts was a key commitment of the AI Sector Deal, a joint policy by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The Industrial Strategy sets out Grand Challenges to put the UK at the forefront of the industries of the future, ensuring that the UK takes advantage of major global changes, improving people’s lives and the country’s productivity.

The news comes ahead of a speech in which the Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright will announce a package of measures to spark a wave of innovation in tech for social good.

This includes the government’s partnership with the Social Tech Trust to establish a fund of up to £30 million to provide access to finance and position the UK as a global leader in socially transformative tech. A further £1 million will be available to incentivise organisations to use tech to help tackle loneliness and bring communities together.

Digital Secretary, Jeremy Wright, said:

Technology is already making our lives easier in many ways but there is still so much untapped potential that we can deliver for social good.

As a world-leader in emerging technologies, the UK is best placed to foster these opportunities. The new policies announced today, backed by new funding, will encourage industry to deliver technological innovation to address issues as diverse as animal poaching, food waste and loneliness.

Business Secretary, Greg Clark, said:

From cutting food waste to tacking illegal wildlife crime, our innovators are working to harness the huge potential of data and artificial intelligence to solve international challenges.

Our modern Industrial Strategy identifies our unmatched heritage and strength in AI as a huge opportunity for the UK. We are leading the world in its development and use, benefitting from the highly skilled jobs and economic growth this technology creates.

The Open Data Institute defines data trusts as a legal structure which provides independent, third-party stewardship of data for the benefit of a group of organisations or people.

The new plans include:

A partnership between leading conservation charities , WILDLABS Tech Hub and technology experts to reduce the level of illegal trade of wildlife by sharing image data to assist border control officers around the world in identify illegal animal products from their smartphones.

Audio data could be used to train algorithms to detect gunshots or the underwater sound of illegal fishing vessels coming into protected areas then real-time alerts will be pinged to rangers.

WRAP will be working with food and drink businesses to track and measure food waste to develop solutions which could see savings passed on to consumers, reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and water usage.

Royal Borough of Greenwich and Greater London Authority will be looking at how data collected through their Sharing Cities Programme, could help make certain data available in a data trust, including energy consumption data collected by sensors and devices in buildings; data about parking space occupancy and the availability of charging bays for electric vehicles. This third pilot is funded by Innovate UK through the ODI’s R&D programme.

Jeni Tennison, CEO at the Open Data Institute said:

Increasing access to data can help people, communities and organisations make better and more timely decisions – such as which energy supplier to use, the route a bus should take, or whether to invest in creating a new product. But the people and organisations that have data, use it, and are affected by its use need to trust that it is stewarded well and shared equitably and for agreed purposes.

Data trusts are one potential way to increase sharing of data and unlock more social and economic benefits from data while protecting other interests such as people’s privacy, corporate confidentiality or, as in the pilot we’re doing on data about endangered animals, our environment. The ODI is also looking at other approaches to increased access to data, including data sharing models such as those adopted by the European innovation programme Data Pitch, where large organisations share data with startups in order to fuel innovation and answer specific challenges.

The Digital Secretary will also announce new measures to boost tech driven by social purpose during his speech at Doteveryone in London this morning.

This is part of his vision for ‘tech for good’ which will champion technology as a force to change lives for the better, increase engagement between the social and tech sectors and ensure charities understand how they can use technology to achieve their mission.

These include:

A Social Tech Venture Fund, administered by the Social Tech Trust, which will see government and industry invest up to £30 million to support innovative solutions to encourage people to be healthier and help them to build connected communities. The Social Tech Venture Fund will increase access to finance and position the UK as a global leader in socially transformative tech;

£1 million to incentivise organisations to develop solutions to tackle loneliness and bring communities together; Government backing for a new Digital Agenda Impact Awards to showcase and celebrate tech for good innovations from across business, government and charity organisations;

A collaboration with the Centre for Acceleration of Social Technology (CAST) and its network of social sector partners to explore how best to support charities to embed digital in their strategy, services and culture;

Naming the organisations to benefit from a share of Government’s £1 million Digital Leadership Fund, which aims to boost charity leaders’ digital knowhow and how they can use technology to benefit their respective causes. Winners will include Age UK, Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and Cornwall Museums Partnership.

Charities are already using digital technologies to support their work. Breast Cancer Care developed the BECCA app, which gives patients information and emotional support after their treatment has completed. More than 15,000 women have used the app in the first year and the creators hope to reach 20,000 more by 2020.

Today’s announcement builds on work the Government has already done in supporting the use of tech for social good. This includes helping to bring together the private, charity and public sectors to embrace technological advances to improve people’s lives and the country’s productivity.

Notes to editors

Quotes from organisations involved in data trust pilots

Sophie Maxwell, from WILDLABS Tech Hub said:

AI has the potential to revolutionise wildlife conservation and strengthen the technological tools needed to end wildlife crime. In order to harness this opportunity, however, we need to be able to distribute large-scale, well-curated data sets to machine learning experts. WILDLABS partners are very excited about collaborating with the ODI and Office for AI to deliver simple mechanisms that make it easy and safe for the conservation community to share data. It’s collaborative efforts like this that will help us save threatened species around the world.

Mike Falconer Hall, New Product Development Manager at WRAP said:

WRAP’s work focuses on forging powerful partnerships and delivering ground-breaking initiatives to support more sustainable economies and society. Carefully building and understanding the evidence which galvanises action is at the heart of everything we do. These pilots will give us the opportunity to build on our experience and explore different ways to create an environment where organisations can confidently share their data.

The Open Data Institute (ODI) is using funding from the Office for Artificial Intelligence and InnovateUK to support its work on the data trust pilots. This is part of Government’s modern Industrial Strategy, putting pioneering technologies at the heart of plans to build a Britain which is fit for the future.

Data trusts operate by allowing multiple individuals or organisations – such as supermarkets, conservation charities or local authorities – to give some control over data to a new institution – the trust – so that it can be used to create benefits, either for themselves or other people, or both. That benefit might be to create new businesses, help research a medical disease, or empower a community of workers, consumers or citizens.

The Office for Artificial Intelligence is based in central government and responsible for overseeing implementation of the UK’s AI strategy, policy.

About the Open Data Institute

The ODI was co-founded in 2012 by the inventor of the web Sir Tim Berners-Lee and artificial intelligence expert Sir Nigel Shadbolt to show the value of data, and to advocate for the innovative use of data to affect positive change across the globe. It is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan company headquartered in London, with an international reach. We work with companies and governments to build an open, trustworthy data ecosystem, where people can make better decisions using data and manage any harmful impacts.

The AI and Data Grand Challenge

The Industrial Strategy sets out Grand Challenges to put the UK at the forefront of the industries of the future, ensuring that the UK takes advantage of major global changes, improving people’s lives and the country’s productivity. Artificial intelligence and data is one of the four Grand Challenges which will see AI used across a variety of industries and put the UK at the forefront of the AI and data revolution.

Further information on the winners of the Digital Leadership Fund

Superhighways (c/o Kingston Voluntary Action) Kingston Voluntary Action will partner with London Plus, National Association for Voluntary and Community Action and the Foundation for Social Improvement to support small local charities to expand existing training – from basic software skills through to helping leaders embed digital tools and services.

Tech Trust Tech Trust will expand its occasional Charity Digital Tech Conference webinars to be a regular programme and create a live stream of the events so up to 200 organisations can take part remotely, increasing accessibility of the service for charities.

Social Enterprise Kent Social Enterprise Kent will host two-day Digital Leadership workshops for local social enterprises centred around cyber security. This will help charities create a digital strategy, take advantage of online tools, and learn how to best utilise social media. They will fund 15 social sector courses, reaching 105 social enterprise leaders.

Cosmic Cosmic will host 10 three-day Digital Leadership workshops, produce an e-learning platform for South West charity leaders and host a Digital Charities Summit in March 2019 to share learning.

Voscur Voscur will expand their training programme to 110 organisations through five two-day workshops, supported by a webinar series and host virtual drop-ins.

Cornwall Museums Partnership Cornwall Museums Partnership will expand their Rural Proofing Digital Leadership Programme by subsidising 90 places on 4 new Digital Leadership Insights and Ideas Seminars, a two-day Digital Leadership Deep Dive Board Retreat and a new Digital Leadership e-learning module for rural heritage organisations.

Age UK, Midlands Age UK Midland will expand their Be Digital programme and roll-out their face-to-face workshops to train leaders in teams rather than individually, to share learning throughout the Age UK network, embedding digital in their organisation.

Age UK, South Lakeland Age UK South Lakeland will expand their training beyond Cumbria to nearby districts with digital skills gaps by hosting 27 additional workshops for up to 30 people.

The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association Guide Dogs’ will expand their Digital Transformation programme to digitally upskill their trustees and senior leadership on e-learning platforms and face to face workshops to enable them to provide meaningful digital services to 500,000 visually-impaired citizens.

DotEveryone DotEveryone will improve their existing training programme material and deliver five additional workshops.

Media Trust Media Trust will increase the reach, relevance and accessibility of their digital marketing strategy training workshops and target socially and economically disadvantaged areas that have a high level of charities.

School for Social Entrepreneurs The School for Social Entrepreneurs will expand the reach of their two-day workshops, benefitting more charity leaders

Social Misfits Media Social Misfits Media will expand their current training programme by partnering with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and Lightful to equip 360 leaders across 120 organisations in five regions.

Examples of ‘tech for good’ companies who have benefited from Government support:

Government helped to establish Bethnal Green Ventures an early-stage investor in companies and organisations that use technology to radically change people’s lives for the better. It is best known for its 12-week accelerator programme, which provides investment, co-working space and intensive mentoring and support. To date, Bethnal Green Ventures has supported 95 ventures, investing £1.9 million and having a combined positive impact on 18 million lives.

GoodGym supports runners to get fit by doing ‘good’. Its platform helps runners to help others by enabling them to come together to tackle problems as part of their run. Partner organisations like AgeUK refer isolated older people who are then matched with runners on regular visits. GoodGym is a charity and free to participate in though many runners donate £10 monthly.

Nationwide’s ‘Open Banking for Good’ is a challenge fund calling on fintechs to use Open Banking technology to help address financial inclusion issues. Nationwide has made £3m available to fund solutions. This financial inclusion fintech fund was formed as part of Cabinet Office and DCMS’s Inclusive Economy Partnership.

The technology can detect invisible traces of drugs, including psychoactive substances, soaked into clothing and paper – a technique increasingly used by criminals attempting to smuggle drugs into prisons.

Staff have undergone training to operate the machines, and will be taught how to handle and preserve evidence. A positive result gives officers grounds to carry out further investigation, which could result in sanctions or criminal prosecution.

The Prison Service and Ministry of Justice are now considering whether the technology should be rolled out across the entire closed male prison estate.

The introduction of the scanners is the latest development in the ‘10 Prisons Project’, which aims to reduce drugs and violence, while improving standards, in the country’s most challenging jails – providing a template for the wider estate. The roll-out of x-ray body scanners at the 10 prisons is also underway.

This project is part of a much wider £70 million drive to restore stability to the prison estate.

Prisons Minister Rory Stewart said:

Drugs in prison, particularly psychoactive substances, have been a game-changer – they drive self-harm and extreme violence, putting both prisoners and prison officers at risk.

My key priority has been to toughen security and searching. We need to make it much more difficult for anyone to get drugs into prisons. So, in the 10 priority prisons, I am emphasising the use of technology to search letters, bags and people – including visitors and prison officers – as well as netting to prevent drones and throw-overs.

This improved physical security combined with good existing work on intelligence and drug treatment is already making a difference in some of our most challenged prisons. And, if this pilot is successful, I would hope to introduce the same measures across all our local prisons.

The machines will allow staff to observe emerging drug trends, providing them with intelligence which can be passed on to security colleagues who will investigate and act. They will also help prisons identify where, and by whom, drugs have been stored and handled. This will assist decisions on which prisoners and cells require further investigation.

The 10 Prisons Project was announced in August 2018 and is being funded by an initial £10 million investment.

Various measures have already been implemented. Each prison now has extra specialist staff and teams in place, including a drugs strategy manager, additional entry searching staff and more dog handlers.

These prisons are also investing in changes to the prison environment to improve decency and provide clean and appropriate sanitation as well as refurbish cells and shared areas.

The wider estate is benefitting from a range of investments, including £16 million to improve conditions for prisoners and staff and £7 million on new security measures, such as security scanners, improved searching techniques, phone-blocking technology and a financial crime unit to target the criminal kingpins operating in prisons.

This has come against a backdrop of rising prison officer numbers, with more than 4,300 now recruited since October 2016 and staffing levels at their highest since 2012.

Notes to editors:

• Geographical groups of prisons in Yorkshire, the north Midlands and London have been selected for the project. The prisons are: Hull, Humber, Leeds, Lindholme, Moorland, Wealstun, Nottingham, Ranby, Isis and Wormwood Scrubs.
• We are on course to spend the full £10 million budget by the end of this financial year.

Digital Secretary to set out how new digital technologies including artificial intelligence could be used to tackle global challenges

Buckinghamshire Ringway Jacobs (Contractors), Transport Systems Catapult, Aylesbury Garden Town, Aylesbury Vale Council, Coldharbour Parish Council, Bucks and Thames Valley LEP and Enlight The council would work with Transport Catapult Systems and an innovative partner to manufacture recycled plastic/composite columns to mount lighting sensors, 5G antenna and large format schemes in public areas. They will also use sensors to collect data across their highway network including the use of a central management data system to collect data on air quality, road surface temperature, ANPR, CCTV. They will also include the application of gulley sensors at various locations to help improve efficiency in highways maintenance service. In addition they will use new kinetic energy recovery from the carriageway to harvest energy in roadside battery units. The Live Lab will also introduce new solar energy generation including solar roads and footways. The bid includes a new turbine to help harvest energy to power street furniture using the wind. It will also include on-street charging points, a new e-bike hire scheme and a trial at Aylesbury of autonomous pods. £4.49 million Central Bedfordshire Ringway Jacobs (Contractors), Morgan Sindall, Jacobs and Vinci The bid would test solar power in a number of footways to create and store energy. The bid also would install a surface course in Flitwick town centre using solar or kinetic power capability. They would include a “Power Road” solution, already piloted successfully in France, to use geothermal energy connected to water pipes laid just below the surface to de-ice car parks/bus stations in sub-zero weather conditions. £1.05 million Cumbria University of Nottingham, University of Central Lancashire, University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia), University of California (USA), MacRebur Ltd and Gaist To extend Cumbria’s existing trial of the use of plastic roads. The trial will also would produce a guidance document on the use of this new surface material solution and also an APP. £1.6 million Staffordshire Amey (Contractor), Keele University and UI This project addresses the issue of how the concept of a Smart Highways network can be extended from primary roads to a local road network. The project will be developed around the private road network on the “small town” living laboratory of the Keele University campus. The project will develop, test and demonstrate how such a network can be enabled to retrofit Smart Highway design, construction and maintenance to support the use of alternative approaches to both people and freight transport. A control centre to function as an asset and data manager will be integrated with sensor and control technologies. The living laboratory will be adjacent to a proposed public transport hub to enable rapid roll-out of development The Highways and AV living laboratory base at Keele University will focus on the development, testing and demonstration of Smart infrastructure and its interaction with new service propositions, CAVs and people and alternative fuels with a particular focus on rural and small community roads. The objective will be to develop new approaches to: instances of congestion and incidents; improved user / customer experience / perceptions and health; improved real-time network understanding (assets and their use); improved citizen engagement; optimisation of network assets and whole system performance and improved air quality through the development of carbon reduction approaches. To deliver these objectives the project will establish a new control centre to act as an asset manager and data broker between different services and provide the platform to which new technology can be tested, as far as possible in a plug and play approach. This will be integrated with the deployment of a number of different sensors across the Keele Campus road and energy network to establish what is required for a minimum viable product. £3.95 million Kent Amey (contractor), University of Birmingham, MAP16, UI and Rezatec The bid would be for a local highway asset management technology incubator and would create a centralised digital hub for all asset management data. This would link to dynamic network sensors which are linked to assets such as drainage, winter service (gritters) and gulleys. It should lead to more efficient highways maintenance service and allow funding to go further.   Reading Siemens, University of Reading, 02 Telefonica, Peter Brett Associates, Wyra, Smarter Grid Solutions, Wokingham BC, Bracknell Forest Council, West Berks Council, Slough Borough Council, Royal Borough of Windsor Council, Thames Valley LEP and Shoothil The proposal will utilise existing infrastructure and smart communication technology. Existing sources of data from traffic signal detectors will be fused with mobile phone data in order to provide a multi-modal view of real time movement across the Thames Valley. This will link with air quality data to produce a public health exposure model. The data is expected to inform transport, environment and planning projects throughout the Thames Valley region. £4.75 million Suffolk Kier Infra (Contractor), Kier Housing, University of Suffolk, Proving Services and Future Highways Research Club, CU Phosco, Telensa, enLight, British Telecom, British Standards Institute (BSI), Institution of Lighting Professionals and HEA Adapt or replace lighting columns to make them suitable for use as charging points or Wi-Fi hubs. Plus trialling sensors from multiple suppliers to see which work best in various conditions. All trials to be scalable so suitable for rolling out nationwide. £4.41 million Solihull and Birmingham (part of Transport for West Midlands) Joint Bid Hanwha Corporation, T.I.S (Mansfield Ltd), 4sight Imaging, University of Birmingham (along with Walsall Borough Council, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council and Warwickshire County Council TfWM would support and lead the collaboration. The team would take data from video analytics pilots in 10 selected local road corridors, collect, analyse and model it. The pilots would build up a picture using video analytics to work out point to point vehicle journey times during different time windows. Analytics will also learn journey times. As well as number plate recognition it will identify other features and colours from vehicles such as e.g. logistics company brands. Further lines of investigation may include monitoring of cycle usage and pedestrians, which would be of benefit in programmes such as the West Midlands rollout of Next Bike regional bike share schemes. The team will bring analytics through to push messaging via existing applications like WAZE, City Mapper and Google who would help target messaging; as well as vehicle manufacturer navigation systems (OEMs) and variable-message signs on local roads. The messaging would enable people to make travel decisions with a higher degree of accuracy. The result would be to re-mode, re-time, re-route or remove their journey. Video analytics would enable the team to monitor the impact of the messaging around areas of planned disruption. At the same time the project would look at human behaviour– using ethnographic and market research along the selected corridors and seeing how people react and take action as a results of the messaging. This would build out from a piece of work on personas undertaken by Exploring Intelligent Mobility. £2.65 million

Scanners which detect drugs on clothes and mail are up and running at 10 of the most challenging jails, Prisons Minister Rory Stewart announced today (Thursday 31 January).