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London mayor Sadiq Khan has appointed the capitals first ever chief digital officer (CDO), it was announced Friday.
The role that was first outlined in Khan’s election manifesto will be taken up by Theo Blackwell in a bid ‘drive the digital transformation of public services’ to ‘make London the world’s smartest city.’
Blackwell previously worked at the government backed accelerator Public Group and before that was Head of Policy & Public Affairs for the video games industry’s trade body, Ukie.
As the CDO Blackwell will be responsible for:
- Providing strategic leadership on the digital transformation agenda for London’s public services, across the Greater London Assembly group and the wider public sector.
- To convene on behalf of the mayor, across London local government, to build support for and take-up of innovative, technology and data-led approaches to service delivery and public engagement.
- And develop and promote partnership between the public, private and community sectors to enable and support the development of new public service oriented technology and innovation.
In a statement Khan said: “I am determined to make London the world’s leading ‘smart city’ with digital technology and data at the heart of making our capital a better place to live, work and visit.
“We already lead in digital technology, data science and innovation and I want us to make full use of this in transforming our public services for Londoners and the millions of visitors to our great city.”
Of his appointment Blackwell said his new position was ‘an amazing opportunity to make our capital even more open to innovation, support jobs and investment and make our public services more effective’
“The pace of change over the next decade requires public services to develop a stronger relationship with the tech sector,” he added.
Our purpose is to fully harness London’s world-class potential to make our public services faster and more reliable at doing things we expect online, but also adaptable enough to overcome the capital’s most complex challenges.
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