Posts Tagged ‘Dan Fox’

It may be big, but how should we use it? Data, elections, growth and 2015

21/06/2013, 10:12:07 AM

Last week Dan Fox’s proposal on data development loans was voted top f the policies for supporting entrepreneurship at the latest Pragmatic Radicalism event, chaired by Chuka Umunna MP the shadow secretary of state for business.

“Described by pollsters as a weather-vane constituency, it is contemporary information technologies making a difference this week. Jill tapped the side of her Google Glass display and began directing canvassers. “The Harrises. Last time we spoke to them, they complained about the daily commute. Can you get up that chart of rail fares and investment?” Swiping away at his iPad, Jack strolled off, armed with all he needed to connect, both electronically and emotionally, with the voters at number 23. On the opposite kerb, two of his colleagues were not having quite as much luck generating an augmented reality view of the lighting and paving repairs that had taken place on the street since Labour had taken over the local council in 2013.”

Election Sketch, The Times, 9 May 2015

For those who still feel that the biro and clipboard are unnecessary luxuries on the #labourdoorstep, the thought of handheld devices brimming with electronic data being at the centre of elections is at best bewildering. But data is now, as we all know, “Big”. It is all around us and has a permanence in our daily lives akin to a new way of communicating, helping us to understand what we and others are doing and will do. Campaigning is not insulated from this. Last year, Obama For America, set the standard for using Big Data in identifying, motivating and expanding the numbers of your voters. Labour looks set to reflect these techniques.

However, before we get too caught up in a vision of campaignbots traipsing around the marginals like canvassing Terminators, we should also consider the policy significance of Big Data. Although it has not been a great couple of weeks for data of any kind – in the news for all the wrong reasons as the full extent of the surveillance of the personal variety has been exposed – this must not distract us from the thousands of positive, world-changing uses of mass data collection and analysis.

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Broadband of brothers: citizen soldiers and cyber warriors

23/04/2012, 07:30:37 AM

by Dan Fox

Dan Fox’s skills-focussed ‘Cyber Reserves’ proposal won the Pragmatic Radicalism Defence Top of The Policies, last month.

An active national security policy is an expensive business. So given how uncertain our world has become, in terms of both the economy and the threats we face, and how active our armed forces have been this last decade, it is not surprising that defence is permanently at the top of the political agenda. Last October’s Strategic Defence and Security Review has been followed by Labour’s own consultation.

But one of the most significant initiatives of recent times has received relatively little attention outside of military circles: Future Reserves 2020 (FR20).

With conscription and national service distant memories in the UK, the military reserve no longer occupies a place in the popular imagination similar to that in countries (such as America , Canada, Israel and some of our European partners) where citizen soldiering is more commonplace.

The citizen soldier is a complex concept, with a millennia-old tradition. It is grounded in the idea that the diversity, effort and volunteer commitment of all can be mobilised in defence of communities, societies and nations when required, or kept prepared in reserve.

To be sure, for many who have not chosen a regular military career in the first place, the commitment to training and then serving even part-time with the army, navy or air force to defend our land, sea and air, is problematic. There is, however, another environment where dealing with the dangers we face requires a range of experience and approaches.

Protecting cyberspace is not just a military responsibility, but a Cyber Reserve, based on the principles of civilian volunteers already entrenched in the current reserve forces, can have a crucial role to play.

Even the most diligent of military observers is unlikely to be familiar with the Special Works Teams of the Royal Engineers, covering railways, power, fuel, water, ports and construction. But, comprised of reservists with relevant civilian qualifications and careers, these units have, since the 1960s, contributed to the construction and protection of critical infrastructures.

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