Technical Challenges in delivering a Digital Built Britain | A seminar with Dr Matthew West

We were delighted to host a seminar with Dr Matthew West on Friday 13 September at the University of Southampton. This was a fantastic opportunity for students and staff alike to hear him explore the issues that building a 'digital Britain' raises, and the approaches that have been taken in other industries to meet the requirements they give rise to.

Dr Matthew West is Director of Information Junction and is also an advisor on Digital Built Britain for the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure.

Abstract

Digital Built Britain is about delivering seamless, fit for purpose information to those who need it throughout the built and natural environment and those services that depend on them. One key challenge is ensuring that data is consistent, so that data from anywhere across the built and natural environment can be brought together and used immediately, without the need to translate. Another key challenge is that we will need to be able to implement Digital Built Britain incrementally. This means we will need to be able to “think big but act small”. Specifically, we need approaches that enable us to extend the scope of Digital Built Britain without having to rework what has already been done to ensure backwards compatibility, something that has been a problem for previous initiatives.

You can read more about this event in a blog written by our Digichamp, Ian Coombs.