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CSaP's Policy Leaders Fellows (including Permanent Secretary and Director General level officials from Whitehall and Brussels, and the Chief Executives of the TSB, Nesta and Infrastructure UK) met for their second roundtable in Michaelmas Term. The subject of discussions was technology, innovation and growth – specifically the future of the internet and its role in the birth and death of industries.
Fellows took part in a number of one-to-one and small group meetings arranged in response to their individual policy questions; they then came together with researchers for a roundtable discussion covering:
- the internet as a general purpose technology, from which no industry is immune
- the relevance of Metcalfe's law alongside Moore's law
- the central importance of systems thinking to understanding and operating in the networked world
- the fundamental challenge to how government operates (and how it uses data), and the need for government to be an "intelligent customer"
- the fundamental challenge to how companies operate, and the need to link operations in ways that take advantage of networks
- the direct challenge to disciplines (particularly economics) familiarly used to explain the world
- how the internet can work as a federation of systems, and the challenges of identity, trust and symmetry.
Policy Leaders are elected to the Fellowship for a two-year period, and the group is expected to grow to around 20 members. CSaP is currently investigating sustainable funding options for this programme. Naming opportunities will be considered in recognition of major donor support.
Banner image courtesy of Julio Martinez on Flickr
Thumbnail image courtesy of Ministerio TIC Colimbia on Flickr