The City is at the vanguard of a new industrial revolution in open data and AI

By leveraging the expertise of the City, we can pioneer the Fourth Industrial Revolution, writes Lord Mayor Michael Mainelli

As well as being an enthusiast and early adopter of technology (even predicting the internet in his 1898 short story From The London Times of 1904) Mark Twain gifted the world many great aphorisms. Among my favourites is one of his most simple: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” 

Getting started so that we can get ahead is exactly what we’re seeking to do through the 695th Lord Mayor’s Smart Economy Networks Initiative, one of six initiatives promoting international standards that provide stability and security at the heart of this year’s mayoral theme: Connect to Prosper. 

The economy of the last 20 years has been driven by mobile, social platforms, and the cloud. The next 20 will be propelled by smart economy networks based on artificial intelligence, open data and shared ledgers. Countries that embrace this incoming wave will prosper by increasing productivity and trust while reducing cost, creating a simpler, smoother, more secure system for customers and businesses.

The UK has been a pioneer in open banking, with adoption reaching almost 8m active users, including almost one fifth of the UK’s SMEs. We’re also Europe’s pre-eminent fintech hub, attracting more fintech investment than the next 13 European cities combined. To get ahead, we must bring that experience to bear. 

Value will be created by the digitisation of assets and contracts combining different types of high-quality data. Fundamental to success will be enforcing the principle that an individual owns and controls their own data and should be able to access it, give third parties the permission to access and combine it from different sources and share in the economic value derived from it. To make this work we need standards and infrastructure, with more shared data spaces, perhaps using smart ledgers, where data can be safely exchanged and those exchanges reliably validated. 

Last year the City of London Corporation’s Vision for Economic Growth set out a roadmap to a digital-first economy, including through the accelerated adoption of digital verification and identity frameworks. More recently in March a report co-authored by a working group led by Dr Ruth Wandhofer – From Fintech to Ubiquitech: Accelerating the wider UK digital economy – highlighted the challenges and opportunities of moving from fintech to smart data across all aspects of the economy, from cyber security and fraud controls to international trade systems. 

That’s where the 695th Lord Mayor’s Smart Economy Networks Initiative comes in. We’ve convened interested businesses and institutions to pilot the development of open data and identity standards in business and trade using X-Road infrastructure donated by Estonia – arguably the world’s most digitally advanced society. To start the initiative is focusing on demonstrator projects in a number of key areas, notably where open data is already most advanced and where the incentive and opportunity for cross-border services is greatest. Just as a few examples, we’ve been looking at digital asset verification with Mattereum; trade and supply chain verification with HMRC; and collaborative authorised push payment fraud and credit risk reduction with the Estonian Embassy, Mifundo and Salv.  

There is a longer version of that Twain quote, the tail of which is often neglected: “The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

By leveraging the different areas of expertise in our City and breaking down this task into manageable chunks, we can ensure the City remains exactly where it belongs: at the vanguard of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.