@timdavies
@timdavies.org.uk
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Tim has spent the last 20 years working at the intersection of technology, participation and governance as both a researcher and practitioner. From piloting digital tools bringing youth voice into local decisions, to developing data standards that enable community scrutiny of billions of dollars of public spending, or writing about the political dynamics of open data initiatives, his work has explored how shared social challenges need participatory, collaborative and collective responses.
Tim was lead for the World Wide Web Foundation’s Open Data in Developing Countries research network (2013 - 2015), and led development of the Open Data Barometer. He was co-editor of The State of Open Data: Histories and Horizons (2019), and founding director of the Global Data Barometer project. From 2015 - 2018 Tim was a co-founder and director of Open Data Services Co-operative, a worker owned team providing the technical backing to initiatives including 360Giving, the Open Contracting Data Standard and OpenOwnership.
Tim is a former fellow of the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, and a senior fellow of the Datasphere Initiative. He is a graduate of the Oxford Internet Institute (Social Science of the Internet), and Oriel College, Oxford (Politics, Philosophy and Economics).
He lives in the People’s Republic of Stroud where he is involved in various Green politics, on the board of Create Gloucestershire, and a school governor.
Recent posts
This is a follow-up bulletin from the People’s Panel on AI, sharing updates and insights from the last three months, featuring our policy brief on learning from the panel, video of panel members Janet and Sharif speaking at the TechUK Digital Ethics Summit, and more insights from the panel in the combined Perspectives from the AI Fringe report.
This is a brief follow-up bulletin from the People’s Panel on AI, sharing the full summary findings report by panel facilitators Hopkins Van Mil, as well updates on next steps for the People’s Panel. You can find earlier bulletins from the People’s Panel here and in case you missed them the AI Summit week rush, the Panel’s recommendations are in Bulletin 5.
This is the fifth People’s Panel on AI Bulletin, and our last daily update - covering the Panel’s presentation event. You can find earlier bulletins from the week here. Look out for one more update soon with the final report, and please do take a few minutes to provide your feedback through the anonymous evaluation survey.
This is the fourth bulletin from the People’s Panel on AI, sharing observations and insights from Connected by Data as an observer. You can find earlier bulletins here.
Today, the panel focus turned from exploring AI, to thinking about the ways industry, academia, government and civil society can respond.
This is the third bulletin from the People’s Panel on AI, sharing observations and insights from Connected by Data as an observer. You can find earlier bulletins here.
Today, as well as joining plenary sessions at the AI Fringe, the People’s Panel members have been engaged in lots of small-group work: from hands-on learning with generative AI tools, to one-to-one conversations with scientists at the Hopes and Fears lab.
This is the second People’s Panel on AI Bulletin. You can find earlier bulletins here. In this update, reflections from our first half-day on:
But first, a quick summary of the day.
On Wednesday, the 12 members of the People’s Panel on AI met on Zoom for the first time, in a two-hour introduction and context-setting session. Next week they’ll spend four days in London engaging with the AI Fringe, to engage with experts, and follow updates from the AI Safety Summit.
Earlier, we held a briefing session to provide more background about the panel. You can find the recording here.
From Tuesday -> Friday next week we aim to share a daily bulletin with you - providing insights, updates and questions coming from panel deliberations.
Opinion
Late last year the team at Brickwall (who produced Connected by Data’s intro video) got in touch with us to ask if we might collaborate on a commission from the Local Government Association (LGA) to put together scripts for a series of videos intended to explain artificial intelligence. Drawing on desk research, interviews and a session at UK Gov Camp, we put together a proposed approach based on three sections: introducing AI, AI in Action, and Implementing AI.
Challenge 9 of the Open Gov Challenge calls for a focus on digital governance: strengthening transparency and public oversight of AI and data protection frameworks.
It is abundantly clear that, as uses of data and AI continue to grow in power - both in the public and private sectors - that protecting and extending democratic control over these technologies requires a concerted effort.
Weeknotes
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