{"id":181,"date":"2010-09-09T21:53:43","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T20:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lornemitchell.com\/blog\/?p=181"},"modified":"2010-09-11T10:43:58","modified_gmt":"2010-09-11T09:43:58","slug":"digital-scotland-and-the-royal-society-of-edinburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=181","title":{"rendered":"Digital Scotland and The Royal Society of Edinburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just returned from the Next Gen ’10 roadshow in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n

The most interesting thing for me ( which I had compeletely missed before I went there) is that Scotland has approached this whole problem of upgrading the broadband network by commissioning the Royal Society of Edinburgh to look at the problem afresh.\u00a0 Unlike The<\/strong> Royal Society (based in London), the RSE has maintained the “Scottish Generalist Tradition” and have brought an eclectic set of wise folk to apply new thought and rigour to working through the issue of broadband in Scotland so that it serves the wider context of society and the economy.\u00a0 Technology is a means to a greater end, not an end in itself.<\/p>\n

The Digital Scotland interim report can be found by first clicking on the RSE logo below and then clicking on the link right at the bottom of the page “Read Interim Report”:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Unlike the Digital Britain report which was written in the time of a dying administration by economist-politicians, bureaucrats and quangos, and then attacked by the new administration to become a nearly totally ineffective set of recommendations, Scotland has approached the problem with refreshing renaissance-style method that only a body like the RSE can do.\u00a0 It is an elegant combination of mathematical logic combined with rounded, objective reasoning – and moves the debate forward so that Scotland might well take the thought-leadership position when it publishes its final report once the current comments have been digested.<\/p>\n

One conclusion that I came away with is that the whole debate about where fibre goes should be re-focused around Fibre to the Community<\/strong>.\u00a0 Many of the more rural areas in Scotland would benefit tremendously by digging a single fibre into the community.\u00a0 The current ambitions of Jeremy Hunt and the Con-Lib coalition government for the UK to become the leader in Europe for broadband by 2015 – without any central government funding – becomes even more challenging when one compares us to Finland – which was very well articulated by Professor Michael Fourman in his detailed analysis backing up Digital Scotland at the conference.<\/p>\n

One of the strange things is that the interim report talks of Fiber, not Fibre.\u00a0 I am not sure how this American English has managed to get into a perfectly good Scottish-English Language document.\u00a0 But Hey Ho – the world moves on!<\/p>\n

The Scots, Edinburgh and the RSE have a long tradition of great invention and enlightened thinking.\u00a0 This blog will keep a keen eye on developments North of the Border.<\/p>\n

(P.S.\u00a0 The talk that I gave on Sir Patrick Geddes will be put onto this post once I transcribe and edit it.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just returned from the Next Gen ’10 roadshow in Edinburgh. The most interesting thing for me ( which I had compeletely missed before I went there) is that Scotland has approached this whole problem of upgrading the broadband network by commissioning the Royal Society of Edinburgh to look at the problem afresh.\u00a0 Unlike The Royal … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Digital Scotland and The Royal Society of Edinburgh”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[35,7,26,5,27,28,32,24,31,36,38,25,22,8,23],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DQGK-2V","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":252,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=252","url_meta":{"origin":181,"position":0},"title":"Digital Scotland Rocks!","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"05\/11\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I was away in Edinburgh last week at the launch of the Digital Scotland report. \u00a0A fine piece of work which creates a new way of looking at Next Generation Access in the UK by suggesting that Scotland creates a Digtial Scotland Trust with a number of internet hubs which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Big Ideas","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=42"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":190,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=190","url_meta":{"origin":181,"position":1},"title":"The “S” Factor","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"11\/09\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is the \"warm-up\" speech I gave at the Next Gen Roadshow in Edinburgh earlier this week. Enjoy!","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=35"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":276,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=276","url_meta":{"origin":181,"position":2},"title":"Comment on the DCMS Business Plan for the Delivery of UK Broadband","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"11\/11\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I have posted on the DCMS website, commenting on their recently published Business Plan for Broadband. \u00a0Interesting to see if they actually publish it. \u00a0In any case, they cannot vet what I put on my own blog - so here is what I wrote: \"A perfection of means and confusion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Big Ideas","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=42"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":412,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=412","url_meta":{"origin":181,"position":3},"title":"Space: The Final Frontier","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"09\/02\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I live in the country. I live in the so-called Final Third. Ofcom call it a \"Market 1\" area - because BT is the only fixed-line service provider providing the physical lines that broadband and telephony run across. This week, three different views hit me that have changed my whole\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=35"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/34__600x450_dclg-point1.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":96,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=96","url_meta":{"origin":181,"position":4},"title":"Broadband: The Final Frontier","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"16\/07\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I hope you enjoy my first upload to YouTube! It mixes ideas on Next Generation Broadband with the structure of a Palindrome. If you have not seen one of these before, hang in there!\u00a0 You won't understand the real message until you get to the end. Thanks to other Palindromes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Broadband"","block_context":{"text":"Broadband","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1533,"url":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?p=1533","url_meta":{"origin":181,"position":5},"title":"How a \u00a32 coin changed the landscape of British politics FOREVER","author":"Lorne Mitchell","date":"07\/05\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2011, a Scottish couple, Colin and Chris Weir bought five EuroMillions tickets. \u00a0The tickets cost \u00a32 each. Colin and Chris won \u00a3161,653,000 pounds \u00a0 and celebrated the fact! So how on earth did that change the landscape of UK politics? Well, Colin and Chris gave \u00a33m to the Scottish\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Banking System"","block_context":{"text":"Banking System","link":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/?cat=88"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lornemitchell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/\u00c2\u00a32-300x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lornemitchell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}