15th August 2014 London, UK
On the first floor of the Foreign Office main building, civil servants used to pull down maps from a burr walnut cabinet to pore over them and discuss the latest news from our embassies. Whilst the original maps have long ago been shipped off to The National Archives, the Foreign Office’s love of a good […]
11th August 2014 London, UK
Hello there, I’m Phil Buckley, a Digital Transformation Manager at the Foreign Office. On 1 August we released a new application form for the Chevening scholarship programme and I wanted to tell you a little more about it. Why we had to change the system I mentioned in my post introducing Service Transformation at the […]
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6th August 2014 London, UK
A key part of the FCO’s digital strategy is to build digital skills and knowledge across our network – over 13,000 people in nearly 270 offices around the world. In the Digital Transformation Unit we knew that we wouldn’t achieve this just with classroom training courses or lectures delivered in London, so we’ve taken an […]
18th July 2014 London, UK
This is the last in a series of 3 blog posts about the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. See blog 1 and blog 2. “Hi, Marjourie how are you?” “Hi, I’m fine, thank you Toby” “How are things in Goma (East DRC) today?” “Fine…not good actually…we had a busy night. Four more […]
4th July 2014 Toronto, Canada
As we look forward to Toronto’s Smart Week 2014 in October, it’s worth reviewing what’s been going on in the UK around the Internet of Things. Briefly, the term Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the rapid proliferation of network-enabled devices and the Internet-like structures that enable them to communicate with each other. For example, […]
25th June 2014 Toronto, Canada
This article originally appeared in the Whitsun 2014 (Vol 71 No 2) edition of Science in Parliament, the journal of the UK’s Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. You’re browsing a news site, and see the following link: 12 risky British discoveries that changed our world. Do you click it? Even though it’s recognisably link bait, carefully […]
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18th June 2014
Britain is one of the most advanced digital economies in the world. The British Government’s Chief Technology Officer, Liam Maxwell, was in Canberra this week to brief Australian ministers and officials on some of the latest developments in the UK. He described how all of the many different departmental websites had moved successfully onto a […]
28th May 2014
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and our global diplomatic network lead the way in the development of digital diplomacy (or “Twiplomacy” as it is sometimes called: Twitter + Diplomacy). Some people, retired diplomats amongst them, have been critical of “tweeting ambassadors”. Yet our experience has been a positive one. Whether we like it or not, we […]
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28th March 2014 London, UK
This week the Foreign Secretary William Hague welcomed student Gopal Rao to the Foreign Office. The meeting was the result of a competition launched by the Foreign Secretary earlier in the year to thank his 200,000 Twitter followers for their comments, engagement and ideas. The prize – a meeting with him and the chance to […]
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25th March 2014 Paris, France
In the last few days we’ve had two events here in the residence on the theme of the digital revolution and how it’s changing our lives. First of all we had an event to celebrate innovation and technology and young talent applying itself to the problems we are facing.