Tom Symons
@tomsymons.bsky.social
Head of Policy Insights at @thefea.bsky.social
Education, innovation, government, tech, policy and the unrelenting woes of Southampton Football Club. May contain cats. All views my own.
Education, innovation, government, tech, policy and the unrelenting woes of Southampton Football Club. May contain cats. All views my own.
Pinned
Tom Symons
@tomsymons.bsky.social
· Jan 6
Play renaissance: this is the year play gets serious
After a decade in the wilderness, play is about to rocket up the political and policy agenda in England
www.nesta.org.uk
I was lucky enough to write one of nesta's 2025 Signals - had a lot of fun writing about how this could/should be the year policymakers in England take heed of the grassroots social movement in children's play and with a policy commitment to good play in childhood www.nesta.org.uk/feature/futu...
Today we launched the final report for A Fairer Start Local - innovation partnerships with the brilliant Leeds, York, Stockport & GMCA. I wrote this for the LGC on the lessons we learnt on innovating well, hopefully useful for the emerging Opportunity Mission!
www.lgcplus.com/services/chi...
www.lgcplus.com/services/chi...
Tom Symons: Six lessons for early years innovation | Local Government Chronicle (LGC)
True partnership between families, communities, professionals, policy makers, funders, researchers and innovators is needed, writes the deputy director of
www.lgcplus.com
April 15, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Today we launched the final report for A Fairer Start Local - innovation partnerships with the brilliant Leeds, York, Stockport & GMCA. I wrote this for the LGC on the lessons we learnt on innovating well, hopefully useful for the emerging Opportunity Mission!
www.lgcplus.com/services/chi...
www.lgcplus.com/services/chi...
Reposted by Tom Symons
British politics - and Labour in particular - has not adjusted to how much the Trump crisis will change domestic politics and reshape the whole agenda
www.ft.com/content/fc7a...
www.ft.com/content/fc7a...
March 6, 2025 at 1:41 PM
British politics - and Labour in particular - has not adjusted to how much the Trump crisis will change domestic politics and reshape the whole agenda
www.ft.com/content/fc7a...
www.ft.com/content/fc7a...
Reposted by Tom Symons
[Hmm...] The Public Benefit Innovation Fund - $20M to catalyze AI innovation and digital infrastructure to improve equitable access to social services www.publicbenefitinnovationfund.org#our-work
Public Benefit Innovation Fund – PBIF
The Public Benefit Innovation Fund is a philanthropic venture fund and R&D lab. We provide seed funding and technical support for researchers, nonprofits, academic labs, startups, and technologists wo...
www.publicbenefitinnovationfund.org
February 25, 2025 at 10:47 AM
[Hmm...] The Public Benefit Innovation Fund - $20M to catalyze AI innovation and digital infrastructure to improve equitable access to social services www.publicbenefitinnovationfund.org#our-work
Reposted by Tom Symons
As someone who has reported on AI for 7 years and covered China tech as well, I think the biggest lesson to be drawn from DeepSeek is the huge cracks it illustrates with the current dominant paradigm of AI development. A long thread. 1/
January 27, 2025 at 2:12 PM
As someone who has reported on AI for 7 years and covered China tech as well, I think the biggest lesson to be drawn from DeepSeek is the huge cracks it illustrates with the current dominant paradigm of AI development. A long thread. 1/
Reposted by Tom Symons
⚡ Join us for our free Future Signals event in London on 27 February.
Learn more about the tech & trends that could transform 2025, hear from the experts who curated them, and connect with industry leaders shaping the future at our immersive, interactive event.
Register: bit.ly/42mtNtH
Learn more about the tech & trends that could transform 2025, hear from the experts who curated them, and connect with industry leaders shaping the future at our immersive, interactive event.
Register: bit.ly/42mtNtH
January 23, 2025 at 3:51 PM
⚡ Join us for our free Future Signals event in London on 27 February.
Learn more about the tech & trends that could transform 2025, hear from the experts who curated them, and connect with industry leaders shaping the future at our immersive, interactive event.
Register: bit.ly/42mtNtH
Learn more about the tech & trends that could transform 2025, hear from the experts who curated them, and connect with industry leaders shaping the future at our immersive, interactive event.
Register: bit.ly/42mtNtH
Excellent to see MPs like @tomhayesmp.bsky.social starting to talk more seriously about the role of play in a good childhood. Providing another opportunity to plug nesta's 2025 Signal www.nesta.org.uk/feature/futu... (next week we'll have more on our work on play in Leeds too!)
January 23, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Excellent to see MPs like @tomhayesmp.bsky.social starting to talk more seriously about the role of play in a good childhood. Providing another opportunity to plug nesta's 2025 Signal www.nesta.org.uk/feature/futu... (next week we'll have more on our work on play in Leeds too!)
I was lucky enough to write one of nesta's 2025 Signals - had a lot of fun writing about how this could/should be the year policymakers in England take heed of the grassroots social movement in children's play and with a policy commitment to good play in childhood www.nesta.org.uk/feature/futu...
Play renaissance: this is the year play gets serious
After a decade in the wilderness, play is about to rocket up the political and policy agenda in England
www.nesta.org.uk
January 6, 2025 at 10:25 AM
I was lucky enough to write one of nesta's 2025 Signals - had a lot of fun writing about how this could/should be the year policymakers in England take heed of the grassroots social movement in children's play and with a policy commitment to good play in childhood www.nesta.org.uk/feature/futu...
Reposted by Tom Symons
Right - EPC reform!
You know those energy performance certificates that you see on Rightmove? They’re terrible, everyone in the energy sector hates them.
But actually reforming them is tricky. My colleague @tomleach.bsky.social tries to chart a way forward
www.nesta.org.uk/blog/epcs-ne...
You know those energy performance certificates that you see on Rightmove? They’re terrible, everyone in the energy sector hates them.
But actually reforming them is tricky. My colleague @tomleach.bsky.social tries to chart a way forward
www.nesta.org.uk/blog/epcs-ne...
EPCs need radical reform - here’s four ways how
The system has become too complicated. It's time to make EPCs useful.
www.nesta.org.uk
November 15, 2024 at 9:34 AM
Right - EPC reform!
You know those energy performance certificates that you see on Rightmove? They’re terrible, everyone in the energy sector hates them.
But actually reforming them is tricky. My colleague @tomleach.bsky.social tries to chart a way forward
www.nesta.org.uk/blog/epcs-ne...
You know those energy performance certificates that you see on Rightmove? They’re terrible, everyone in the energy sector hates them.
But actually reforming them is tricky. My colleague @tomleach.bsky.social tries to chart a way forward
www.nesta.org.uk/blog/epcs-ne...
Reposted by Tom Symons
Failed to resist jumping into the debate about dashboards, nerve centres, and missions in government. Inspired by @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social and others
medium.com/@jamestplunk...
(I'm trying a new era of not posting this on Twitter at all, so grateful for RTs to help me hold out!)
medium.com/@jamestplunk...
(I'm trying a new era of not posting this on Twitter at all, so grateful for RTs to help me hold out!)
Dashboards or not
I’ve been mulling the question of whether or not we like dashboards, and how we should think about data in the context of missions.
medium.com
August 27, 2024 at 11:44 AM
Failed to resist jumping into the debate about dashboards, nerve centres, and missions in government. Inspired by @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social and others
medium.com/@jamestplunk...
(I'm trying a new era of not posting this on Twitter at all, so grateful for RTs to help me hold out!)
medium.com/@jamestplunk...
(I'm trying a new era of not posting this on Twitter at all, so grateful for RTs to help me hold out!)