Digital Opportunities Topic Advisory Group

Digital technology is a key enabler in achieving net zero targets. The evolution of digital technology has enabled more insights and in many cases data in real-time, than ever before. Key disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented and virtual reality have enabled complex data to be automatically analysed and also visualised to extract knowledge, previously only available to the elite professionals. A key challenge is how to best exploit such disruptive technologies within land use, climate change, energy, and business development to offer new opportunities in developing a strong evidence base for informing new policies and understanding their implementation. The Digital Opportunities TEG targets these emerging areas for review with the aim to feed into the hub WPs for developing clear guidance and a consensus view on opportunities and ways forward. This group has the focus of synthesising knowledge via experimentation and reviews, and in sharing the opportunities and challenges in utilising digital technologies.

 Key challenges:

•   Foster understanding of capabilities and mitigated risks for stakeholders in employing Artificial Intelligence, decision-support tools and emergent digital opportunities.
•   Horizon gazing on how multiple disruptive technologies (digital and others) can address net-zero challenges from effective land-use, e.g. how AI can be used to optimise novel energy storage, e.g. sand batteries for storage of energy (as heat) when on-farm wind or solar produces excessive levels above rates of live consumption.
•   Establish the challenges that are barriers to adoption or implementing policy.
•   Scope foot-hill projects on the journey to collecting evidence/data in mitigating barriers to adoption; barriers from landowners, farmers, policy makers.
•   Establish/curate datasets to encourage the ‘AI/digital’ community and SMEs in engaging with LUNZ challenges.
•   Develop training material on how to interpret data, how to use tools for analysis, visualisation; business intelligence; add to the Net Zero literacy developments.
•   Identifying candidates for secondments across multidisciplinary areas (e.g. digital, policy).

 Key activities:

•   The Digital opportunities TEG will initiate planning for the LUNZ Metadata for Machines Workshop which will establish metadata schema. This is a key activity as it defines how data should be collected, sufficiently labelled, from sensor to survey data.
•   Open data challenges will be hosted to engage with the academic and SME digital communities and raise LUNZ awareness; e.g. encourage ‘digital’ ECRs to pivot to LUNZ challenges and assist in developing capacity and capability.  
•   Speed-dating between stakeholders to assist in matching challenges with digital solutions; scoping foothill projects.
•   Practical training modules on applying business intelligence; via lunch and learn or seminar series.
•   Podcasts on demystifying digital technologies for stakeholders; e.g. AI, explainable AI and ethics.
•   Encouraging hub members to support data gathering to establish, to an extent, a data lake; support anonymised open-data challenges.
•   Develop evidence reviews, position papers and technology roadmaps for LUNZ.