SkillsPlanner formally launched: Seme4’s £1.3m collaboration with government and industry to address skills shortages

Seme4’s collaboration between central government, local councils, universities, contractors, suppliers, industry bodies, training providers and Ethos (a network of social entrepreneurs who find innovative and sustainable solutions to complex problems), SkillsPlanner, has been formally launched.

Stage 1 of the project will last 2 years and will focus on the skills gap in the construction industry in London and South-East England and includes large-scale projects such as HS2, the Thames Tideway Tunnel and Crossrail.

Seme4 is providing the software infrastructure for the project, which will allow current and future employment needs to be shared widely. This will enable better planning and delivery of training and skills provision and reduce costs for both government and industry.

£827k of the £1.3m was secured by successfully bidding for funding from Innovate UK‘s Collaborative Research and Development Programme, which provides investment for innovative and collaborative research and development projects that increase the resilience, quality of life or economic performance of urban areas.

Slides from the presentation given by Seme4 founding partner and founder of the Open Data Institute Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt at the launch event can be found here.

A video of SkillsPlanner partners and customers discussing the project can be found here.

Wendy Hall awarded British Computer Society Distinguished Fellowship

Professor Dame Wendy Hall has been made a Distinguished Fellow by the British Computer Society, the British Chartered Institute for Information Technology.

http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/55671

She was recognised for her work in science and engineering policy and education, being one of the first computer scientists to carry out research in multimedia and hypermedia and her role in championing women in Information Technology.

Other notable Distinguished Fellows include Bill Gates, Sir Tim Berners Lee, Martha Lane-Fox and Vint Cerf.

Wendy Hall named in Debrett’s top 500 most influential people in 2016

The Debrett top 500 is a list of the most influential people in the UK who “inspire, influence and instigate change beyond expectation.”

Professor Dame Wendy Hall was named in the Engineering and Technology category. The list is compiled by independent experts in each category.

More details can be found by clicking on the following link:

http://www.debretts.com/people-influence/debretts-500-2016/engineering-technology/prof-dame-wendy-hall-dbe