Join Resham Kotecha, Global Head of Public Policy, ODI, and her policy team colleagues Gavin Freeguard and Matt Kilcoyne for a lively discussion on what the newly elected Government should be doing on data and AI.
In March 2024, we launched our policy manifesto in Westminster with a great line-up of senior MPs from across the political spectrum - minister Julia Lopez, shadow minister Chris Bryant, Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper and former ministers Damian Collins and Harriet Harman.
We were delighted to receive cross-party support for our policy manifesto and to hear senior Parliamentarians talk so passionately about building a stronger Data and AI ecosystem.
This webinar will build on the content of our policy manifesto - and take into account the manifesto commitments made by political parties during the General Election campaign. The event will give attendees the chance to feed in their views on what the new government should be prioritising when it comes to policy, legislation and regulation on Data and AI in its first year.
You can read more about the Manifesto Launch event here. You can read the ODI’s Policy Manifesto here.
Speakers
Resham Kotecha is Global Head of Policy at the ODI where she leads public policy work, along with efforts to work with governments to improve data ecosystems and data policy. Prior to working at the ODI, she worked as the Head of Policy at Wise, a FTSE listed FinTech company, leading policy work across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Resham has been a policy specialist for over a decade, working as a Director at UK Anti-Doping, as an economic adviser to an MP and Minister, and as a researcher to a Baroness.
Resham was appointed by the Cabinet Office to be a Social Mobility Commissioner, holding the Government to account on social mobility issues and shaping the Commission's strategy. She serves as Head of Engagement for Women2Win, an organisation working to get more women elected to Parliament. Resham serves as a Trustee of the Fawcett Society, the UK's leading charity campaigning for gender equality, and a Board member at the John Smith Centre, working to promote the positive case for politics and public service.
Resham has written for The Times, the Centre for Policy Studies and Huffington Post and regularly speaks at policy conferences.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Cambridge University and has been recognised as a ‘Global Shaper’ by the World Economic Forum for political work in trying to achieve a more representative Parliament.
Gavin Freeguard is a freelance consultant working on data policy, research and advocacy.
He is an associate at the Institute for Government, where he runs the Data Bites event series and was previously programme director for data and digital government, also leading the IfG’s Whitehall Monitor project which makes extensive use of government open data; an associate at Connected by Data; and a member of the Public Digital network. As a consultant he has worked for other organisations including mySociety, the Ada Lovelace Institute, the Royal Statistical Society, and Full Fact.
Before joining the IfG, he was political adviser on culture, media and sport to Rt Hon Harriet Harman KC MP, and before that, senior editor at the Media Standards Trust and deputy director of the Orwell Prize. He is a trustee of the Orwell Foundation, a member of the UK Open Government Network steering group and a member of HM Treasury’s User and Preparers Advisory Group for government financial reporting, and has also served Administrative Data Research UK and the Office for Statistics Regulation in advisory roles.
In February 2021, he joined the ODI Policy team as a Special Adviser.