This is a post by Neil Campbell, our Information Security Officer
When the team arrives in the office every morning, I’d like to think they have three things on their mind: breakfast (who doesn’t?), the morning update and what they are going to achieve that day. However, a morning in late September also introduced an additional consideration for some of the team; the challenge of communicating through a translator.
This is a post by Kate Ho, our Product Owner
We’re not going to be talking about our progress or about new features as normal today. That’s because it’s the 13th October – an important day in the calendar for us to celebrate women in technology. It is Ada Lovelace Day.
It’s simple. Today is an opportunity to share stories about women working in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) that inspire you, so that we can start to raise awareness of role models for the next generation to look up to.
We’ve been incredibly lucky in the past few years; our list of potential role models in the tech industry, that are women, has grown exponentially. Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook), Marissa Mayer (Yahoo!), Meg Whitman (former eBay, now HP CEO) are just a few women in high profile companies that have become household names in the last few years.
This year, we wanted to highlight some people that are closer to home: the three women that work in our product and experience teams at mygov.scot. Their passion, drive and determination to realise our vision is inspiring not only to me, but also to those that want to work in the technology industry. On top of that, it also demonstrates that you don’t need to be a developer to work in tech; there are lots of roles that require technical skills, that don’t involve coding everyday.
This is a post by Kate Saunderson, one of our user researchers.
Are we on-route to digital transformation within our Justice system in Scotland? Some of the mygov.scot team recently had the opportunity to explore this topic at the Digital Justice: Modernising the Criminal Justice System conference. My key takeaways: users first (not technology), a digital strategy without relationships will fail, cyber crime is everyone’s problem.
Users first (not technology)
Conversations about digital transformation can often jump straight to technology; that is not the case with the Digital Justice strategy. Led by Elspeth MacDonald, Deputy Director, Criminal Justice Division, the digital strategy sits within Government’s ‘Making Justice Work’ programme. The strategy’s agenda is to shape the change of the Scottish justice system with the vision of transforming citizens experiences with the Justice System. Elspeth believes users should be at the heart of that transformation, ensuring change is always led by user needs.
This is a post by Rui Cardoso, one of our Business Analysts
On Thursday, as part of our efforts to establish relationships with Scotland’s digital community, I went along to the final day of this year’s Festival of Code 2015 in Edinburgh. The event was organised by Young Rewired State and is a week-long global hackathon – all aimed at getting young people to start coding.
The Prewired event, held at CodeBase in Edinburgh, was a trial run for 11 different groups, represented by kids between 10 and 19 years old, to talk about what they had been working on during the week-long event. It was an opportunity for people to practice their presentations in front of a friendly crowd, before heading off to Birmingham for the real competition (and a fun weekend). All were likely dreaming of being victorious in the finale.
