Digital City Festival is in full swing across Greater Manchester, with tech leaders from the likes of techUK, Manchester City Council and Praetura Ventures speaking at The Tech Debrief event yesterday.
Hosted at Bruntwood SciTech’s The Bright Building on Tuesday 28th March, industry leaders and decision-makers across the tech world united for a series of dedicated panel sessions and talks from delving into tech for good, emerging technologies to demystifying AI and tackling the tech skills gap.
After a morning welcome and introductions, a tech for good panel kicked off the morning chaired by Manchester City Council’s Digital Strategy Lead, Sherelle Fairweather. Speakers joining the panel included Kira Allmann, Senior Digital Strategy Officer for Manchester City Council; Ben Davies, Group Marketing Director at Praetura Ventures; Gemma McCall, co-founder and CEO at tech for good developer Culture Shift and Pauline Archer-Weill, Senior Service Designer at Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Kira sparked a debate about the expression ‘tech for good’, is it devoid of meaning as tech “is not developed for evil”? As the tech industry has evolved, the panel agreed that there needs to be greater levels of scrutiny. “Technology has gone unchecked,” explained Gemma. “Regulation is the only way. Left to their own devices, technology and social media organisations don’t do the right things or behave ethically.”
Every company should be measured against tech for good initiatives moving forward, “not just surface level, nitty gritty KPIs”.
