BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants.   

Recent  BarCamps have focussed on Central and Local Government

We are now looking to organise a Bristol BarCamp and the first planning meeting will be held at i-Shed, The Bristol Pervasive Media Studio on 10th July from 4pm.

Personally, I want to see if we can have a Bristol BarCamp that brings together Councillors, Local Gov and Public Sector Managers, Social Web and Eco experts to come up with some green-digital-bristol-innovation but that’s just my thing…  it is an open planning meeting so come along and say what you want from Bristol BarCamp.

Confusingly, I am posting this from Kevin’s Wordpress account.  If anyone wants to email me to discuss then its stephen.hilton@bristol.gov.uk

Thanks to Dave Briggs for spotting this…

Do you work in local government?

Are you free on 7th August?

Fancy popping down to Victoria in London to visit the Google offices?

Oh, and get to hear from the real experts about how to make the most of Google services, whether search, analytics, maps, advertising, widgetising content, and more?

For the princely sum of, er, nothing?

Then you’re in luck.

Pencil that date in your diary. Keep an eye on #googlelocalgov on Twitter. More information will be released as it is confirmed.

This will be a ticketed event, and it will be first-come-first-served when it comes to places. You can’t afford to miss this one!

Digital Mission Bristol
Mon, 29th June, 5-7pm (networking till 8.30)
eOffice Bristol, 11-19 Wine Street, BS1 2PH
FREE REGISTRATION

As part of a series of regional workshops to publicise the Digital Mission trips to the USA in 2009/2010, the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) and Chinwag will be visiting Bristol on Monday, 29th June.

Digital Missions are a series of trade missions organised Chinwag and UK Trade and Investment (UKTI). They are specifically designed to help UK-headquartered digital SME’s expand internationally, understand foreign markets, attract investment, find partners and develop business relationships.

The Digital Mission team, experts from UKTI and past Mission companies will offer an opportunity to find out more about the benefits for your business.

With doors opening at 5pm, the evening will include talks from the UKTI and previous Digital Mission attendees, with the bulk of the event centring on a nuts and bolts overview of the Digital Mission from the application stage to the flight home.

The seminar will be followed by an informal networking session with drinks and nibbles, providing the opportunity to grill any of the speakers or previous attendees you didn’t catch in the Q&A session.

To attend this free event please register at: http://dmbristol.eventbrite.com/

For more information about the Digital Missions please visit: http://digital-mission.org/

On the eve of Lord Carter’s final Digital Britain Report our latest city data shows that Bristol’s residents are ready and waiting… 3 in every 4 are already regular Internet users who have used the Web in the last week.

Residents are most likely to access the Web at Home (76% in the last 6 months), Work (48%) and in School/College/University (17%).  Approaching one in six (13%) have accessed the Internet for FREE in one of Bristol’s Libraries.

A more detailed look at the data shows that men are significantly more likely to use the Internet at home than women (81% compared to 76%) although there is no significant difference in the number of men and women who say that they do not use the Internet.

Older residents are the most likely to say that they do not use the Internet, with 56% of those over the age of 65 saying this compared to only 2% of 18-34 year olds.

Those who do not work full time, disabled people and those who live in social housing are also all significantly more likely to say that they do not use the Internet.

15% of Bristol residents do not use the Internet at all.

Source = Bristol Place Survey 2008/9 (IPSOS MORI/Bristol City Council)

You can follow the Digital Britain announcement live here

Here at Connecting Bristol, we are involved with the Bristol Green ICT (energy for efficiency) project. As part of the project a Green ICT Solutions Database has been complied and will shortly be published on the Green ICT section of this site. The database contains over 100 green ICT solutions, ranging in difficulty and capital cost.

Before the full database is published, we wanted to give a taster of some of the solutions presented:

• Consider switching to blade servers - Blade servers are entire computers contained on a card that can be inserted into a larger device. This can reduce space requirements by a factor of 20 and consume about 10% less power than rack mounted servers. You can also consolidate server use by repurposing existing servers for other tasks.
• Use Energy star equipment - 20-60% less energy is used by an energy star monitor than a non energy star monitor. For a printer to qualify for an energy star rating it must: use 25% less energy than non-energy star printers, be able to print on both sides, run cooler and last longer.
• Defragment hard discs - Defragmentation of discs reduces the amount of travel required from the hard drives, reducing energy use.
• Set up individual printing accounts - Set up individual printing accounts through ‘Follow Me’ printing. Users can be told how much printing they do in relation to colleagues. Consider publishing a league table of prolific printers.

We will keep you updated when the full database is ready to be downloaded.

2020 is the target set by the government for every UK home to be fitted with a smart meter.

If you’re wondering what a ’smart meter’ is, it’s an advanced meter that identifies power consumption in more detail than a conventional meter; and communicates that information in real-time to the user and / or to the local utility company.

In simple terms it could help a lot of people and businesses save a lot of energy.

Connecting Bristol is already involved in a smart metering initiative through the EU FP7 DEHEMS project, and is working with Knowle West Media Centre to distribute smart meters to homes in South Bristol. Although the government target for deployment of smart meters is 2020 Bristol is keen to get going early.

The city’s library network also has nearly 200 Energy Saving Monitors, which library users can take home and simply plug into a socket to find out how much energy they consume at home and which appliances are the biggest energy guzzlers.

Tuesday 21 July | 3:00pm-7.00pm | Watershed | Free |  Book now

Hosted by the Creative Technology Network (CTN) and the Digital Communications Knowledge Transfer Network (DCKTN)

With 73% of people now feeling that broadband is as important a utility as electricity or water, we must ask whether mainstream broadband speeds, whatever the operator or technology, will continue to keep pace with consumer expectations. What services will consumers and business want in the future from their broadband?

The DCKTN’s role is to promote debate on future broadband technology and it is holding a number of events on Next Generation Broadband Access around the country. The results of these events will be used to inform the debate on the technologies, systems and industry structures needed to deliver future services and is highly topical in the light of the ‘Digital Britain’ report.

There will be presentations and themed workshop groups covering the connected digital region, intelligent transport, smart home environments, creative industries and future business, giving you the opportunity to discuss the future for broadband in the area that interests you. The focus of the event is on services rather than technologies; we want to establish what services you want, both as consumers and businesses. Come and join the debate and shape the future.

The output of the day will be captured and included in a report detailing the DCKTN’s recommendations for the future of broadband in the UK.

The DCKTN and CTN are jointly hosting this event in Bristol with support from Bristol City Council.

If you have any queries please contact info@creativetechnologynetwork.co.uk

Agenda

Chair: Philip Hargrave, CEO DCKTN

3.00-3.35   Registration | tea and coffee

3.35-3.45   Introduction | Philip Hargrave, CEO DCKTN

3.45-4.00   Next Generation Broadband Access | Ian Vance, Amazing Communications Ltd

4.00-4.30  The User Perspective

Stephen Hilton, Connecting Bristol Programme Director, Bristol City Council & DC10plus

4.30-5.30  Workshop groups

connected digital region

intelligent transport

smart home environment

creative industries

future business

5.30-5.50 Canapes

5.50-6.30 Summary

7.00        Close

• UK households with Broadband = 62.5% (source, Deloitte)
• People who think high-speed broadband is important = 73% (source, BBC)
• Conclusion - More people see value in high-speed broadband than currently have it?

We have created some new web pages to start to share our work on Green ICT here

On March 12, 2009, the European Commission adopted a Communication on mobilising Information and Communication Technologies to facilitate the transition to an energy-efficient, low-carbon economy.

Over the last year, we have been developing and piloting a methodology for measuring the impact of business-use of ICT on the city’s carbon emissions and seeking to increase awareness and use of “Green-ICT solutions”.

We now know that Bristol’s Business-use of ICT

• Uses 125million KWH of electricity to run
• Costs the city approx £11 million per year in energy costs
• Produces 67,258 tonnes of CO2, which works out as 3% of citywide emissions or 7% of industrial and commercial emissions
• This is equivalent to almost 19 million car journeys from Bristol to Bath
• And is enough C02 to fill 37,336 hot air balloons

The full outputs of this work will be published shortly.  For now, there is some information in this presentation, which we delivered at the Commission’s ICT for Energy Efficiency event in March.

The deadline for the Commission’s Consultation on ICT and Energy efficiency is 14 June 2009 at 24:00, Brussels time.  The Commission promises that all contributions will be carefully analysed and a summary of the outcome of the consultation will be published on DG INFSO’s website

The Washington D.C.-based Apps for Democracy has a collection of 47 Web, iPhone and Facebook applications for various democracy-related pursuits. Many use the city’s crime, safety, transport, tourism or parking data to create citizen-focussed benefits.

What’s particularly interesting is that these applications were developed by citizens in a competition. Apps for Democracy say they use a simple formula -

Open source + citizen talent + fame and fortune

Apps for Democracy calculate that these apps are worth $2.3million to the City and were generated for $50,000 worth of investment.  Watch their video here

Could citizen-driven innovation in ICT in Bristol make the city a better place to live, work, study, visit… or is it doing so already?

Thanks to Steve Clift’s new e-Democracy email bulletinfor the link