This will be a busy week for cyberspace – mostly due to the FCO’s Cyberspace Conference in Central London. Intellect is privileged to be involved in this activity and the event surrounding it. A number of our members will be exhibiting and attending a reception hosted by UKTI, ADS and Intellect. On 02 November 2011 we will speaking at the conference about how to enable businesses to use cyberspace safely.

The internet is clearly critical to the UK’s businesses and its citizens. We can’t function without it.  According to a recent report by McKinsey ‘if internet consumption and expenditures were a sector’ its weight in GDP would be bigger than the energy or agriculture industries. (more…)

Technorati Tags: cyber security, cyber security strategy, cyberspace

Procurement policy hardly gets the pulse racing at the best of times. It is not exactly surprising that police procurement, with all the associated internecine battles between the Home Office, the police service and the police authorities, has often been viewed by politicians as best avoided. It is refreshing then, that the Home Affairs Select Committee has chosen to wade into this quagmire, with its report into the New Landscape for Policing coming up with some intriguing recommendations.

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Technorati Tags: Home Affairs Select Committee, NPIA, police, Police ICT Company, procurement

According to recent figures put out by the EEF, the electronics sector has seen weaker orders intake over the past three months, with associated concerns about output expansion for the next three months. Companies are indeed tightening the belt due to growing challenges in the global economic environment (the cost of gold has increased dramatically) and are taking their time to make investment and recruitment decisions. However, whereas big and medium size companies are better placed to offset losses, the case is slightly different for single-sited UK SMEs, where the loss of an important customer could be business-critical. The relatively short-term nature of SMEs’ order books in the electronics sector is certainly eroding confidence for some businesses. The UK government should acknowledge that and support smaller manufacturing companies, and allow them to thrive as in Germany where SMEs have been the catalyst for economic growth.

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Technorati Tags: DSEi, electronics, manufacturing, SMEs

Yesterday’s post-riots debate in Parliament thrust the role of communications and social media into the spotlight, with suggestions that networks such as BBM should be closed down to prevent rioters communicating. Labour MP Tom Watson called the move “Luddite” and the users of social networking sites erupted in disbelief according to the FT. I was at an Arab IT conference in Damascus earlier this year just after the Egyptian’s closed down their networks. The “hands-off our network.” chatter here does bear a striking resemblance to the chatter there and across the Arab region at the time. But the reality is that things are different here. There is a wider understanding across much, if not most of society of the benefits we enjoy from fast, secure and private communications, and extensive use of social media; from getting a good picture of what’s going on in the street to organising clean-up parties. The Metropolitan Police is using its flickr pages to display images from the disturbances of people they want to identify and Sussex police has 30,000 twitter followers, up from 19,000 a month ago.

Intellect and the tech industry we represent have been working closely with the government since 7/7 to improve intelligence gathering in our connected world, always of course within the legal framework that society has decided it wants. I’d be surprised if, with years of experience of dealing with tech-savvy international criminal gangs and terrorists, the UK authorities need more powers and know-how to deal with communications between rioters. As for turning off the networks – well that really would be Luddite.

Technorati Tags: copycat criminal activity, London riots, Looting and violence, parliament, riot management, rioting, tottenham

Last week saw the publication of the Sixth Report of the Defence Committee on the Strategic Defence & Security Review and the National Security Strategy. As usual, the HCDC (House of Commons Defence Committee) took evidence from a wide variety of ex and serving military officials, defence companies and academics. This inquiry also follows the publication of the Equipment, Support & Technology for UK Defence & Security Green Paper (ESTUDS) and the Defence Reform Review (DRR) – two other major defence strategy documents.

The common view from all of these reports is that the MOD is operationally and financially overcommitted. Intellect agrees that the MOD does, indeed, have many problems, however, the past year has also given us much to be positive about.

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Technorati Tags: Defence Commitee, sixth Report

 Earlier this month Warwick University was invaded by more than 1200 people with a healthy obsession in outer space, including an MP, Astronaut and two Mars rovers. This wasn’t a Star Wars or Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy convention, but the UK Space Conference 2011 Organised by the Intellect events team, and commissioned by the UK Space Agency (more…)

Technorati Tags: Access to space, Arthur C Clarke awards, Esero UK, intellect, NASA, Policy, Space, Space business, Space industry, Space tech 2011, UK Space

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been very busy lately, the Secretary of State (SoS) for Defence, Dr Liam Fox in particular. This week the focus was not on current operations in Afghanistan and Libya but rather on structural reforms that the ministry must implement if it is to equip itself for current and future operations.

Dr Fox recently announced the completion of the long-awaited Defence Reform Review.
Although the supplier community has been patiently waiting for ‘Defence Reform: An independent report into the structure and management of the Ministry of Defence’ since the coalition came to power, the document provides the defence industry with only some of the information it requires to plan for the future. (more…)

Technorati Tags: defence reform review, Dr Fox, information, MoD

After her speech to the Police Federation in May was met by a stony silence, the Home Secretary came out swinging at the ACPO conference yesterday afternoon. Lambasting those chief constables that have moved more slowly on reducing bureaucracy than some of their more savvy peers, Theresa May soon had the protracted procurement process in her sights. The headline reform was the creation of a Police ICT company, the main conclusion of the long-awaited Wasserman Review.
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Technorati Tags: ACPO, NPIA, police, Police ICT Company, Wasserman

Recently I’ve been at the EU’s first Digital Agenda Assembly held in the Brussels’ Autoworld, surrounded by a superlative collection of cars and planes from the past century. Issues discussed included fixed/mobile superfast broadband, green IT, creative content, smart grids, cyber and many other ICT related themes. Rather than discussing about specific policies, I’d like to share some general thoughts on Europe’s ambitions and Britain’s role in technology-driven innovation.

Continental Europeans still chuckle when I say “the UK and Europe” but I’m serious. As a Southern European who has spent enough time in this country, I’ve changed from being a EU enthusiast to being pragmatically critical about this noble but thorny project. Neither cynicism nor tribalism would help here. Political realism should be the answer: too many “Europeans” still don’t grasp how hard is to keep a Union together but – fortunately or unfortunately – the UK knows better… (more…)

Technorati Tags: Digital Agenda, EU, ICT, single market

Twitter sparked the Arab Spring; it helped Ahmadinejad cripple his political opponents; it gave a running commentary on the assault on Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound; it enhances the Israeli military’s situational awareness; it is a medium for terror cells to communicate and recruit.

Twitter fuelled the anti-cuts protests in London; it allowed the Met Police to warn the public of the violent ‘Black Bloc’ tactics; it coordinated humanitarian relief in the wake of the Haitian earthquake and Pakistani floods; it is the favoured tool of the US State Department to monitor democratic opposition in authoritarian regimes. It is quicker to Tweet than call 999 and, as Ryan Giggs can testify, Twitter has now outstripped UK law. And it does all this in 140 characters.
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Technorati Tags: Arab Spring, protests, Ryan Giggs, security, Twitter