WIREDGOV

LOTI is an opportunity to examine how industry and local public services can work together to improve outcomes and drive innovation.

Recently, the highly anticipated London Office for Technology & Innovation (LOTI) launched during the first evening of London Tech Week. We heard from the Mayor of Hackney, Phil Glanville, and Greater London Authority’s Chief Digital Officer, Theo Blackwell, on their vision for LOTI and how boroughs can experiment, collaborate and adopt successful digital solutions across the capital. 

LOTI will act as a collaborative vehicle to strengthen the London boroughs’ ability to innovate, build common capability and to scale up digital innovation across the capital’s public services. It will be led by Eddie Copeland, who is currently Director of Government Innovation at Nesta. Eddie Copeland has a deep understanding of both the opportunities and the challenges of implementing new digital technologies to address the City’s most pressing problems. 

LOTI provides an important step towards London being at the forefront of tech innovation to create smart places and communities where citizens want to live, work and thrive. As previously stated, if done right, LOTI could provide a model for other regions to adopt to scale-up innovation and best practise. 

For LOTI to realise its ambition to improve London’s capacity to experiment and collaborate on digital and data innovation, it needs to be able to access the latest innovations, which often means small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). That is why we have been calling for greater market engagement in its development. Local public services need to harness the expertise and innovation that SMEs can bring in order to ensure that public service delivery keeps pace with demand and expectations. LOTI could be that vehicle for London. We look forward to working with the LOTI team to grow London’s thriving tech ecosystem and improve outcomes for all London citizens.