Accommodating Beliefs
13.05.2021Religion can be a hot-button issue in many conversations since a lot of people are very sensitive towards their religious beliefs and do not compromise on anything intolerant being said…
Read moreReligion can be a hot-button issue in many conversations since a lot of people are very sensitive towards their religious beliefs and do not compromise on anything intolerant being said…
Read moreFor Mental Health Awareness Week, Craig Eblett, Director of Digital Delivery for Shared Platforms at DWP Digital, shares his experiences and journey exploring different elements of mindfulness and, how reframing…
Read moreLocal Authorities are under unprecedented financial pressure, caused by reductions in funding coupled with rising demand for services. At the same time, the expectations of the Citizen have been shaped…
Read moreLast month DWP Digital held our first ever Data community of practice virtual event. The 3-day event also featured a range of guests from other communities of practices, including engineering…
Read moreDynamo convened four senior experts from government and technology business on 21 April for a special webinar to debate the government’s digital response to the COVID pandemic. An engaging,…
Read moreGuest blog post by Peter Neal, Founder of The Experience Bank Group A question for Shareholders, Investors, Chairs and Chief Executives of SMEs…. Is your board capable and ready to…
Read moreMelissa Johnson, Digital Engagement Manager from DWP Digital talks about why we need to make wellbeing and mental health awareness a natural part of our everyday practice. Conversations surrounding mental…
Read moreGuest blog post by Paul Hands, Head of Technology at Corterum. Adapting Agile for a new industry Or more accurately: How we cannibalised some of the basic concepts and ceremonies…
Read moreAmbika Natarajan is a Senior Digital Project Manager in Portfolio and Delivery Assurance at DWP Digital. To recognize International Day for the Elimination of Race Discrimination, Ambika shares her journey…
Read moreBy Fareeha Usman, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Innovation Manager, Dynamo North East. People who are “neurotypical” have a brain that works according to the conventional standards of our society, anyone…
Read moreDawn Dunn, Cluster Engagement Manager, 24th February 2021 February’s spacecraft landing on Mars could be the only excuse to have missed the launch of Bottlepay; a Newcastle based start-up revolutionising…
Read moreGuest blog by Dr Martin Brown, Senior Vice President Consulting Services, CGI UK The recent announcement about the milestone installation of the ten-millionth smart meter onto the secure national network by the…
Read moreGuest blog by Mark Thompson, Director Consulting Services at CGI UK. In September 2020, CGI sponsored the Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival for the fourth consecutive year, where we ran a Design…
Read moreSophie Mazrekaj, 10th February 2021 The thread that ran through the first two Advisory Board Meetings of the year – and will no doubt continue to advise all of Dynamo’s…
Read morePhil Jackman, 4th February 2021 Initiating, developing and supporting clusters is one of the cornerstones of Dynamo’s work. From fairly humble beginnings a few years ago we now have several…
Read moreGender has diversified itself. People are becoming more aware than ever regarding different sexual orientations that exist today. Nowadays, people from the LGBTQIA+ community can find safe-space to express their…
Read moreGuest blog by Rich Hampshire, Vice President Consulting Expert at CGI UK This blog is going to be a bit of a diversion for me. Some of you may well…
Read moreGuest post by Simon King, Head of User Centred Design at DWP Simon King draws on his experience setting up DWP’s Innovation Lab. He shares 8 key rules to consider when…
Read moreStephen Southern, Senior Technical Architect, shares his career journey through his different roles at DWP, highlighting the importance of the data in transforming services. I joined DWP way back in…
Read moreSam Hehir shares what it’s like to be a security architect at DWP Digital, providing a deeper insight into the world of security in the largest government department. I’ve worked…
Read moreBy Fareeha Usman, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Innovation Manager, Dynamo North East. Ethnocentrism is a belief that one’s ethnicity or culture is superior to another. Ethnocentric people judge and compare…
Read moreFareeha Usman, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Innovation Manager, Dynamo North East. Intersectionality – an introduction Intersectionality – a term that that was first coined by the black feminist scholar…
Read moreGuest blog by CGI’s Rich Hampshire, Vice President Consulting Expert Following the first blog in this series on making sense of the jargon and the challenges facing organisations on their race to…
Read moreCharlie Hoult kicked off this month’s meeting with a roundup of the North of Tyne bids in the pipeline. The first Digital Ecosystem Support Call focuses on working in Clusters,…
Read moreGuest blog post by Jon Ridley, Newcastle College University Centre’s Vice-Principal and Executive Director of Higher Education at NCG When I was asked to join the judging panel ahead of…
Read moreOctober’s board meeting saw a reflection on a busy September; starting with a review of the 11 #Cyberfest events that attracted more than 700 attendees. The board was reminded that…
Read moreFareeha Usman, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Innovation Manager, Dynamo North East. We are different, very different from each other. Some of us wear a mini skirt whereas some of us…
Read moreBy Rachel Burdis, Inward Investment Manager, Invest North East England At the end of September, the first of 12 UK Tech cluster reports was released, with the focus being on…
Read moreGuest blog by CGI’s Pulina Abeywickrama, SME Senior Consultant | Agile Project Manager Having recently been part of the CGI team facilitating a design sprint on how to accelerate Net Zero at…
Read moreLaura Kemp, Cluster Manager Home working has been significantly accelerated this year, with many businesses that would not have been likely to consider a home working model now accepting that…
Read moreIt can be difficult knowing where to start with automation; which process do you begin with? Should everything be automated? And what to do you do if the process isn’t…
Read moreGuest blog by James Milligan, Global Head of Technology, Hays Cybersecurity breaches have recently made global headlines, many of which have been attributed to a rapidly expanded online world because…
Read moreDawn Dawn, Cluster Manager, 25th September 2020 Following the summer recess, Andrew Besford opened the September Board Meeting with a positive flourish, announcing a total of 85 entries for the…
Read morePhil Jackman, August 2020 The biggest issue faced by the economy is not Coronavirus, nor indeed Brexit but the realisation that we can do without many of the things that…
Read moreJoe Rice, Twitter’s Lead Product Solutions Sales Manager, August 2020 The UK’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) supports families and children in the UK through its Child Maintenance Service…
Read moreGuest blog by Alan Nunn – Communications Subject Matter Expert at CGI. The Internet of Things (IoT) has been the subject of countless forecasts that predict exponential growth of devices and…
Read moreLaura Kemp, Dynamo Cluster Manager, July 2020. Are we returning to our offices anytime soon? What does the future of work look like? If you weren’t considering this question pre…
Read moreGuest blog by Graham Hainsworth – Director Consulting in CGI’s Water Sector Business Talk to anyone in the industry right now, and the message is the same: we need to…
Read moreGuest blog by Chantal Constable – Vice President Retail Banking and Payments in CGI’s banking sector business I’m sure we’ve all become accustomed to hearing the word ‘unprecedented’ since our…
Read moreClare Nicholson, Dynamo Account Manager, 14th July 2020 Yesterday we held our last board meeting before our usual summer break for August. We had a great turnout with 25 of…
Read moreGuest blog by Balaji Kuppuswamy, Director of Consulting Services – Life Sciences at CGI Recently I have been considering an important question arising from the pharmaceutical industry: is it the…
Read moreBy Rachel Burdis, Inward Investment Manager at Invest North East England Having recently started as the Inward Investment Manager at Invest North East England, I, like a lot of people…
Read moreSarah Thackray, 22nd June 2020 It seems a lifetime ago now when, back in December 2013, I first met Charlie Hoult and he told me about the group he and…
Read moreSophie Mazrekaj, 18th June 2020 There was a great turnout for our third virtual Advisory Board meeting which was held last week on Zoom. Connecting remotely is the norm for…
Read moreGuest post from Andrew Moorby, Managing Partner of MHA Tait Walker Don’t compound the problems One of the most commonly heard expressions at the moment is “it’s a strange world in…
Read moreGuest blog by Mark Madden, Digital Transformation Director within the Emerging Technologies Practice at CGI I recently discussed what the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic could be on in-flight digital…
Read moreBefore COVID-19, 5G was a priority not only for most mobile network operators but also for government and industry. Now, the pandemic will inevitably impact 5G deployment plans and present…
Read morePhil Jackman, April 2020 This document is an attempt to explore a methodology to create a business comeback plan, which is in many ways the reverse of business continuity plan.…
Read moreAs we settle into some kind of normal, albeit a temporary one, with teams working remotely and staff redeployed where necessary, we can begin to think of business as usual.…
Read moreUsually the Dynamo advisory board meets monthly on the second Monday, however May’s meeting was moved to a Tuesday to ensure we were available to attend the launch of the…
Read moreAlan Griffiths, CGI 7th May 2020 The country’s lock down is creating loss of business, income and jobs for many, translating into the inability – or fear of – keeping…
Read moreDynamo North East normally holds the Advisory Board meeting at a different member’s office every month. It’s a great way for us to build a deeper understanding of local organisations…
Read moreThe Apprentice of the Year competition is hands-down our favourite time of year. It’s a time to recognise and reward excellence, and to really reflect on and showcase the exciting…
Read morePhil Jackman, 2nd April 2020 A lifetime seems to have passed by in the last few weeks, everything that we took for granted has been turned on its head. Social…
Read moreSophie Mazrekaj, 24th March 2020 This month, England’s No. 1 college Gateshead College kindly hosted the Dynamo Advisory Board meeting. First, we heard from Dawn Dunn, Dynamo’s Fintech Cluster Manager.…
Read more2020 got off to a fantastic start for Dynamo’s Service Delivery Centre cluster with our first sector specific event, which sold out in days! Automation Innovation, hosted by BT at…
Read moreThe Times they Are a Changin’ Dawn Dunn, Tuesday 11th February 2020 The February meeting of Dynamo North East had a slightly fintech-y flavour when it was hosted at Sage…
Read moreMike Chadwick, Supply Chain Consultant at Indigo Software Who could have expected Greggs’ Vegan Sausage Roll would become the iconic snack for a new generation of plant-based foodies and spawn…
Read moreDawn Dunn, 29th January 2020 The dictionary gives two very different interpretations of “collaboration” : a) “the action of working with someone to produce something” OR b) ”traitorous cooperation with…
Read moreIndigo’s Chief Technology Officer, Carl Green, shares his vision for Indigo’s software development as the company enters its fifth decade as a WMS (warehouse management software) solution provider. We asked…
Read moreOn Monday 27th January we were pleased to be hosted by Northumbria University in their brilliant Sandyford building conference space for the second Dynamo Digital Construction Innovation Day. The day,…
Read morePhil Jackman, Monday 13th January This month’s Dynamo advisory board was held at NBS in The Old Post Office opposite St Nicholas’ Cathedral in Newcastle. Not to be confused with…
Read moreAndrew Waite, 24th November 2019 Back in the annals of time (2011) I wrote about my first experiences at a security conference; the first UK BSides in London. To say that…
Read moreAndrew Besford, Monday 30th December Data science is now seen as an important theme in virtually every industry. Bringing together techniques from statistics, computer science and other disciplines, it promises…
Read moreSophie Mazrekaj, Monday 16th December This month, global shipping insurer North P&I kindly hosted the Dynamo Advisory Board meeting at their enviable offices overlooking the Gateshead Millennium Bridge on Newcastle’s…
Read moreIt’s widely accepted that there’s a shortage of talent in the tech sector in the region and we’re not unique in facing this problem. What does make us unique however;…
Read moreAndrew Besford, Tuesday 12th November 2019 Every month we hold the Dynamo Advisory Board meeting at a different member’s office. Yesterday, Orange Bus kindly hosted our November meeting at their…
Read moreCyber Skills for App and Web Developers On the 26th of September myself and two other members of tombola attended the event titled: Cyber Skills for App and Web Developers,…
Read moreFounder Seb Hall created Cloud Employee, as a solution to the UK tech skills gap by entering the tech talent pool in the Philippines. Izy, Marketing Manager from Tech Recruitment…
Read moreThe Open Web Application Security Project, or OWASP, is a worldwide not-for-profit charitable organization focused on improving the security of software. The mission is to make software security visible, so…
Read moreOn 10th September, the (ISC)2 North East England Chapter teamed up with Dynamo North East for the second year running to take part in the #CyberFest series of events. The…
Read moreYou can decide for yourself now and for the next few weeks at PROTO, Gateshead, thanks to forward-thinking artist Charlotte Windle Mikkleborg’s collaborative project with British Airways; Fly. The fully…
Read moreMore than five years ago now, when I was still working at Durham and involved with the North East ICT Managers’ group, we became aware of a new tech group…
Read moreRT @TechDiaryNE New on techdiary.co.uk/ne Thu 20 May @dynamonortheast: Selling Cyber Security Services to the Public Sector at Online (remote) techdiary.co.uk/event/4417468…