AI-Up Barnsley: Tech Town, Six Months On

At the start of the year Barnsley became the UK's first government-backed Tech Town, driven by the idea that local industries, companies and communities would be transformed and futureproofed with trailblazing training, investment and opportunities in AI. (If you missed the announcement, we wrote about what it means for the town in Tech Town Barnsley: harnessing the power of AI). With frozen February now a distant memory, we're reflecting on the successes, updates and news on the Tech Town initiative so far.

A town hall open to all

Earlier this week, Barnsley Council hosted its first Tech Town Hall, a meeting open to all to discuss AI, the Tech Town initiative, and how it affects people's everyday lives and jobs in Barnsley. The meeting was brilliantly led by Carrie Sudbury, Chief Executive of Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce, and was attended by local business representatives, members of the public, and public sector employees including from Barnsley College.

The atmosphere was friendly and inclusive, providing an excellent space to discuss both high-level thoughts on AI and specific examples within Barnsley. For example the development and successes of VERA AI assisting with customer service at Barnsley Council's contact centre. The session started with some interesting statistics from a survey of Barnsley residents on their thoughts on AI, which were positive-leaning but broadly mixed or unsure, showing there is a lot of room to tailor education and communication about both the scheme and AI in general to our communities.

AI in the NHS: faster notes, human oversight

Tom Davidson, Director of ICT at Barnsley Hospital, gave an excellent fireside talk on how AI is being used within the NHS, and its strengths and limitations. He referenced Ambient Voice Technology being used in patient consultations, and how it drastically reduces the time a clinician needs to accurately create written summaries, reports and notes, which in turn significantly increases the time they can spend speaking to a patient, troubleshooting and ultimately diagnosing and treating them. This not only maximises productivity but improves patient experience.

He did caveat that all reports and summaries always need to be checked and verified by an actual person, and that this is embedded into the workflow to ensure accuracy, guardrails and robustness. This human element, combined with safeguarding trust, was a key theme throughout the town hall across every application of AI. He likened AI to having the "intelligence of a cat", which, although amusing, is a reminder that AI cannot replace the human brain (quite yet, perhaps when it reaches the intelligence of a dolphin or mouse).

Looking to the future, Tom expressed a sincere desire that in time the NHS will be able to choose locally-grown technology more often over large international companies, but that at the moment more work is needed on local tech infrastructure, resources and the ability for companies to attract and retain tech talent. There is hope that Tech Town will support training and talent retention for local companies in both the short and long term, so that eventually they may overtake their competitors in Silicon Valley. Who needs Silicon Valley anyway when we have the Dearne Valley?

Breaking the "fear factor" for businesses

Imelda Fossu, facilitator of Enterprising Barnsley's IgniteAI programme, followed Tom with her industry-leading insights into the benefits of AI for SMEs and larger companies, and how it is transforming the way people work (if they want it to). For Imelda, a key factor in getting the benefits through to people was breaking down the "fear factor" around the technology: taking time to understand their knowledge and competency level, encouraging education, and having tailored, in-depth discussions about what people want to achieve in their businesses and communities to maximise productivity, enjoyment and creativity in their work.

This included using AI agents as "junior assistants" to help with diary management and iterative tasks, which sparked a debate on whether AI is undermining the career prospects of young people by taking away their "foot in the door" opportunities, or conversely giving them the chance to skip a step on the career ladder. The jury was out on that one, but everyone agreed AI cannot replace a good tea run (yet).

A Yorkshire tech future

Imelda also touched on what the rapid development of AI could mean for Yorkshire and the wider North: the idea that our industrial-powerhouse past has left us with infrastructure that can be adapted to create localised data centres, which would be more sustainable and more immediately beneficial to the local employment ecosystem than larger, decentralised ones. There wasn't time for a wider discussion on the sustainability factors around AI, but that's one for another blog post.

Round tables: AI at work and at home

Tom and Imelda's candid talks inspired the room, and the final session comprised round-table discussions on AI at work and in everyday life. Generally, people were happier to use AI in everyday life (travel planning, fitness regimes, even marriage counselling) than in a work setting. Concerns such as data security and transparency were common themes across every table, along with ensuring AI education and ethics are part and parcel of its continuing growth, to avoid it becoming a technological "wild west". There was scope for much more discussion, on the impact of AI on the creative industries and on tech jobs specifically, but time was running short, the tea had run out, and the many busy people in attendance had places to be.

Our take: AI is a very good tool, not a replacement for you

One theme ran through every talk, whatever the speaker's field: AI is a powerful tool, but it still needs a human in the loop. Tom's point that AI-generated clinical notes are always checked by a person stuck with us, because it matches what we see every day. AI is genuinely clever, often impressively so, but it's not always correct, and that's as true for a developer as it is for anyone else. It's certainly how we think about it at Rolley.

Where it gets risky is when AI is left to run on its own. It has genuinely lowered the barrier to spinning up a project, which is great for prototypes and proofs of concept where speed matters more than longevity. But "it runs" and "it's built to last" are not the same thing. Code generated without an experienced eye can be unmaintainable, or hide a serious flaw (a security hole in the database, say) that you'd have no way of spotting, because why would you? A developer would catch it long before it reached production.

So yes, we use AI, but we don't leave it alone to do its thing. It's a bit like a chainsaw: in trained hands it's powerful and makes short work of the job, but let someone loose with it who doesn't know what they're doing and the damage can be serious. The value isn't in replacing the developer, it's in giving a good developer more leverage, which is exactly what we do when we build custom software for our clients.

What's next

Overall the session was insightful, informative and engaging, and we look forward to the next Tech Town Hall for more on how AI is transforming our employment ecosystem and communities in Barnsley. What we'd like to see is more engagement with local businesses and more publicity around events and training. There's so much knowledge and expertise to be tapped into, and most people are willing to share and connect to help others find training and employment in tech. The more people engage with this initiative and share their thoughts, the better. We are humans, not robots, after all.

Thinking about building AI into your own product, the right way? Let's talk.