Concept for digital transformation

This is the concept page for digital transformation within the environment sector.

It describes our ambitions, the definitions we use, and the general principles and approach we are taking.

What are we trying to achieve?
We want Scottish environment organisations to be more resilient and ready to move quickly and collaboratively on tackling the climate and nature crisis. This is essential for Scotland's contribution to progressing the Sustainable Development Goals, as articulated in Scotland by its National Performance Framework. Our approach:
 * To encourage shared learning and innovation in order to scale up to reverse biodiversity loss
 * To collaborate with citizens and organisations on the digital transformation of the environment sector
 * To provide mobilisation and energy to the environment sector around the opportunities for digital innovation

Our guiding principles:


 * Working through existing brands and initiatives where possible
 * Focus on collaboration and engagement
 * Gender and diversity balance at events
 * Securing voice of young people
 * Minimising techie jargon
 * Innovative and interactive models for engagement
 * Open government approach to design - accountability, participation and transparency
 * Facilitating remote participation where possible to maximise inclusion

What do we mean by digital transformation?
Digital transformation is a slightly jargony term, and can mean different things to different people. So it's important to define clearly what we mean for this initiative.

We are approaching digital transformation from three angles; improved science, slicker operations and better engagement

What this might look like and what could it entail?
There are already a number of real-world examples of where collaboration could help and what would result from that. For example:


 * Community hubs that use technology to get survey information faster and involve more people directly in their work
 * Collective funding to help smaller organisations to move over to cloud-based platforms for example by providing expert advice.
 * A space for people to share lesson’s learnt through big infrastructure projects.
 * Collaboration on machine learning projects such as habitat recognition through remote sensing images.
 * Ways in which organisations might be able to reach the public more effectively by engaging them in surveys, or asking them to count species, harvesting the images and producing interactive maps.

Check out the new digital resource knowledge bank for a list of existing initiatives.