The London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) is setting itself up as an innovation partner for teams dealing with social issues in the city.
Director Eddie Copeland highlighted the move at an event in London last week, celebrating the fourth anniversary of LOTI’s founding and setting out its direction for the future.
He said this is part of an increased emphasis on its role in innovation, building on the progress it has made with a range of projects focused on digital technology and data.
LOTI is a membership organisation for London boroughs that supports them in finding solutions to some of their major challenges. It has run a series of projects in areas including net zero, social care, housing and digital inclusion.
Copeland said it successfully deployed methods of using technology and data in its work and is now looking to use methods identified as valuable to innovation. These include behavioural science, design thinking, open innovation, and research and foresight – with a focus of identifying what could be best practice in the future.
He said the organisation has two new priorities in using these.
Offering the toolkit
“Number one is to help build London’s innovation foundations, just as we’ve done on data and digital, we want to offer across that whole toolkit so that every institution of London local government can use these methods for themselves whenever they need to,” he said.
“If Covid taught us anything it’s that we have to be on the front foot, ready to deal with whatever hits us next.
“The second thing is to offer ourselves to be an innovation partner to the teams leading the charge on some of London’s biggest issues.
“We’ve already been working on net zero, housing, social care, digital inclusion, and those teams need to heavy every tool to help solve them. We want to help connect them to the best innovation in the world, find those innovation opportunities, employ these methods and help them do it.”
He added some calls to action, including an invitation to potential funders to talk about support, a call to specialists to talk with LOTI about how they can become involved, and for businesses with solutions to take part in the open innovation processes.
“We would like nothing more than to be an entry point for the most innovative organisations in the world for all of our London boroughs,” he said.
