November 29th saw the great and the good of public sector data gather at One Great George Street in the heart of Westminster for the Think Data for Government conference. The speaker line up was amazing, the agenda on point and the discussions and insight shared was extremely useful in the context of current conversations taking place across government departments as we move into 2023.
There were 10 sessions across the day with 28 speakers from a very wide range of government departments including DWP, UK Health Security Agency, ONS, The Scottish Government, GDS, Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, DWP Digital, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, Local Government Association, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Care Quality Commission, NHS National Services Scotland, Public Health Wales, Home Office, Central Digital and Data office, Cabinet Office, Audit Scotland and the Open Data Institute… experts at every turn.
As always, post conference we reached out to the 450 registrants for the conference and asked them for feedback on all aspects of the conference. This is what they told us:
- 80% said that the overall conference was either very good or excellent
- 100% said that the conference was very well or extremely well organised
- 95% said that the length of the conference was about right
- 100% said that they would attend again
- 65% said that they would attend in person with 35% wishing to attend virtually next time
- 90% of our audience rated the virtual delivery of the conference either very good or execllent
We also asked our delegates:
Please let us know what specifically you liked about the event.
If you liked this content…
- It was a great opportunity to hear from a wide range of data experts working across government.
- I loved the format of the panel discussions. They were well led, with natural interactions, and they encouraged questions from the audience in an organic way (whether virtual or in-person).
- The use of panel discussions over set ‘presentations’ provided a great way for a more dynamic exchange of ideas.
- It was the best hybrid event that I have attended. As a virtual attendee it can sometimes be frustrating when you cant hear speakers or questions, but this was not an issue.
- I especially liked the networking opportunities, food and refreshments, location, many of the speakers
- Time keeping was good, so I could drop in and out efficiently, which is important when attending a conference virtually.
- Great to meet people in person from a “data” background and discuss relevant issues with them.
- Although not ideal it is comforting to know that all areas are experiencing the same issues, particularly with skills
Were there specific sessions that you found interesting?
- Data for Levelling Up, Biometric Data, Data Dashboards
- I enjoyed the interview with Johanna Hutchinson, as well as ‘open, shared and sustainable data to support decision making’.
- The session on Data in Social Care was a highlight but enjoyed them all
- The capability and Innovation sessions.
- I found the session on personal data captured by video or photograph very interesting
Are there any relevant topics you would suggest we cover at the next Data for Government event in April 2023?
- Building a career in data and government
- Building data capabilities -or data literacy- for citizens or colleagues. Best practice in sharing data and linking data sources.
- I would like to see more on the single view of citizen and how we can link this through systems
- Predictive analytics
- How open data is used effectively in government.
- Some lower level, implementation related talks might be useful for some attendees. E.g. a (senior) data engineer from Dept X. talking about how they solved a specific data problem, tools/ techniques used, lessons learned and the value it brought. Something to inspire people to try new things in their own areas. High level strategy talks are good but sometimes difficult to take away actionable insight.
We would like to say thank you to our conference sponsors, Okta, Somerford Associates and Made Tech for supporting this conference and ensuring that these important conversations are heard across a wider public sector audience.
We are already working on the agenda for the next Think Data for Government conference which is taking place on April 18th 2023. If you missed the November conference, you can still register and view the session recordings online. Register here.