An inside look at Scotland’s biggest tech showcase
This November, I attended DIGIT Expo 2024, ‘Scotland’s must-attend technology event’ for companies and people in the industry in Edinburgh. The event consisted of a series of keynote speaker talks and panel discussions across different rooms, and an exhibition hall for company representatives to network, and to showcase their latest developments.
The event came with a particular focus on Generative AI. Many organisations noted working on, and creating, AI projects for social good. Dr Laura Gilbert, Director of Data Science at 10 Downing Street, talked about the government’s plans for AI. She brought up important projects in development, including ‘MedGuard’- an AI assistant intended to help pharmacists reduce harm to patients requiring multiple prescriptions. By analysing a particular patient’s data, MedGuard can identify the risks associated with a drug treatment for the patient.
Police Scotland is also working to bring AI to the public sector. At the event, they promoted their new, new free-to-use technology, ‘Police CyberAlarm’, targeted at smaller organisations. It collects communications data while also protecting personal data, to identify suspicious activity. The intention behind this technology is to help Police Scotland analyse trends and predict cyber attacks, and therefore to identify and prosecute cybercriminals. The technology has already been implemented successfully in England and Wales.
Hazel Savage from SoundCloud presented on Musiio, an AI tool for music analysis. There are currently very few content restrictions in place on the platform, designed to make releasing music easier for artists. The volume of these releases (there are currently over 400 million audio tracks on soundcloud), means many are never listened to. Musiio aims to help modern musicians reach their intended audience by having AI ‘listen’ to their music and assign tags, which include genre, key and mood. SoundCloud users can then search and filter through songs according to these tags, allowing artists to reach more listeners.
Ethical concerns regarding AI were also discussed. Speakers acknowledged the usefulness of generative AI in business, and many spoke about upskilling the workforce to work alongside these tools. Some expressed concern over job security, as generative AI models are trained to do complex tasks previously done by human workers.
Further ethical issues were brought up across the day’s sessions. Development of new AI needs to be transparent, so users know exactly how their data is being used. Bias is a recurring issue with AI, so data scientists need to recognise underlying biases in their data and make AI fair, so all groups of people are accurately represented and can get equal use out of the software. Musiio follows the Alethia Frameworks for ethics in AI, which says that AI systems must be beneficial for society, trustworthy and accountable.
Though AI was a large part of the event, there was certainly a business focus as well, with various companies networking and promoting directly to corporate organisations. Marnie McCormack from JPMorgan Chase gave an insightful talk about leadership. She highlighted the value of building relationships and investing in people. It was a sentiment echoed throughout the day and one that will surely resonate with many students.
It was amazing to see the massive number of tech experts and enthusiasts come together to talk, listen and learn. Scotland Women in Tech were at the exhibition, an organisation that celebrates women in the tech industry, running regular events. I also learnt about DressCode, a charity working with schools to encourage girls to get into computing and close the gender gap in tech. I would encourage students to look into these organisations and similar ones, to find a supportive tech community. There was a wonderful sense of community throughout the day, and I was glad to meet people, all with unique backgrounds and careers.
DIGIT Expo returns to the SEC in Glasgow in June 2025 with DIGIT Expo West.
