Industry news

The Post Office inquiry heard from two former Fujitsu staffers yesterday

A software developer at Fujitsu who raised the issue of bugs within the Horizon software that the Post Office rolled out from the late 1990's has told the inquiry into the Post Office scandal that the company did not fix the bugs because it was too expensive and too time consuming. It isn't the first time the inquiry has been made aware of damaging decisions being made due to worries about cost.

Read the full article on Computing here.

Accenture has bought London-based Redkite Data Intelligence Limited. The purchase complements that made nearly two years ago by the firm of UK cloud and digital transformation consultancy Infinity Works. The acquisition sees 230 professionals join Accenture’s Data & AI practice in this country. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Founded in 2018, Redkite’s capabilities range from data strategy development to architecting and implementing modern data platforms.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

Supply Wisdom, the market’s only full-stack, real-time risk intelligence SaaS platform powered by AI, today announced that enterprise software executive Tom Thimot has been appointed Chief Executive Officer. Atul Vashistha, Founder, Chairman, and former CEO of Supply Wisdom, will remain as Chairperson of the Board.

Supply Wisdom’s full-stack AI-based SaaS platform turns open-source data into risk intelligence and is the market’s only software to cover all major risk domains in real-time: financial, cyber, operational, ESG, compliance, Nth party, and location-based risk.

Read the full article on SupplyWisdom here.

Atos has announced a three-year strategic partnership with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to leverage technology and expertise in pursuit of twin sustainability goals: supporting biodiversity conservation, and helping companies decarbonise their operations.

Four main initiatives have been announced. The first sees Atos developing “responsible IT solutions” for WWF and its partners, spread across three projects: combining AI and geospatial imagery to automate biodiversity surveillance; developing a machine learning algorithm that focus on hotspots for the emergence of zoonoses (diseases that jump the species barrier); and improving existing spatial monitoring and reporting tools already widely used by 50,000 WWF agents in wildlife and ecosystem conservation projects across 80 countries.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

CGI has announced two strategic partnerships today, in the fields of healthcare and education.

Firstly, a tie-up with specialist Field Service Management software provider Totalmobile, designed to “reshape how health and care services are delivered” across the latter’s UK client bases, in an era of growing demand for services that often exceed staff capacity; and secondly, with Edinburgh Naper University, to bring the latter’s research capabilities to areas such as “improving health and security outcomes for society” by leveraging CGI’s own IT and business advisory services expertise.

On the education front, the Edinburgh Napier partnership sees the university sign up to CGI’s Sustainability Exploration and Environmental Data Science (SEEDS) programme.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

The CSPS is one of the largest public sector pension schemes in the UK.

Under the new contract, Capita will modernise pensions administration systems through enhanced system design and digital innovation.

We will integrate generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technology to transform the pension experience for CSPS members, providing them with personalised and engaging digital channels to better plan and manage their retirement savings.

Enhancing the end-to-end customer experience will create more intuitive and innovative interactions for both our client and pension members, while providing the insights to support a data driven approach for employers within the scheme.

Read the full article on Capita here.

Staff at OpenAI have called on the board of the company to resign after the shock dismissal of former boss Sam Altman.

In a letter, they question the board's competence, and accuse it of undermining the firm's work.

They also demand Mr Altman's reinstatement.

The sacking on Friday of a man who is one of the leading figures in artificial intelligence (AI), shocked the tech world.

Natwest and IBM are enhancing the bank’s virtual assistant, Cora, with generative AI to enable customer access to a wider range of information through conversational interactions.

The move is part of the bank’s wider strategy “to help customers achieve financial wellbeing through personalised support”.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.

The long-awaited Procurement Act 2023 (“the Act”) has finally received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023.

This will see the UK adopt its own bespoke set of rules to govern public procurement from October 2024.

The new regime will not only move away from the universal language of the EU Directives but will also consolidate the currently separate sets of regulations governing public sector contracts more generally and those specific to utilities, defence and concessions.

Read the full article on TLT here.

Capita has won a three-year extension to operate Eircode, its contract with Ireland’s Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) to develop, rollout and operate the National Postcode System in Ireland. Capita first won the contract back in 2013 in what has become one of its highest profile and most significant public sector contracts in Ireland.

Read the full article on TechMarketView here.