Global Ambassador for the Global Council for Responsible AI

I have the privilege to have been accepted to serve as a Global Ambassador for the Global Council for Responsible AI. As a Global Ambassador I will play a critical role in representing my country, supporting local engagement, and shaping international efforts for responsible AI development.  Working with the Global Council for Responsible AI will help build a future where AI serves humanity and upholds our most important values. I will help them as a leader and have commitment to advancing ethical, transparent, and accountable AI which is invaluable. 

The Global Council for Responsible AI (GCRAI) is the world’s most inclusive and expansive organization dedicated to advancing the responsible development, deployment, use and governance of AI. They are not simply observers of change; they are architects of the AI-powered future. With 72 global chapters and over 700 ambassadors, they are becoming the largest international governing body shaping what it means to innovate responsibly.

Global Ambassadors Role

Champions for public awareness and education who activate local and digital communities, spark engagement, and support our fundraising efforts to expand our impact.

What Makes the Global Council for Responsible AI

Human Dignity at the Core

They are stewards of human dignity, building technologies and frameworks that honour the full potential of life.

Ethical Stewardship

They lead with living ethics that adapt to the needs of humanity and the planet.

Leadership by Integrity

With representation in over 194 countries, the leaders embody respect, service, and principled action.

Community Honour and Global Representation

They honour cultural wisdom, underserved communities, and diverse worldviews, ensuring no voice is left behind in the future we are shaping.

Gold Standard Workforce Certification

Through their exclusive certifications, they offer the global benchmark for responsible AI readiness, combining innovation, ethics, real-world experience, and proven career outcomes.

Long-Term Legacy Focus

They are shaping a legacy designed to serve life. Every decision is made with future generations in mind.

The Mission

Shape the Future Where AI is Supporting Humanity in the Best Possible Way

Who is involved

• Visionaries, innovators, and technologists committed to ethical impact
• Policymakers, educators, researchers, and stewards of human-centered governance
• Founders, investors, and builders seeking sustainable, principled innovation
• Leaders who care about humanity’s future.

 

 

Microsoft Data Platform MVP 2025

I am incredibly thankful for the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Data Platform Award this year. It has been an incredibly tough year caring for my very ill mother, who has sadly now died. Being able to try and help the community has been the one thing that has given me purpose whilst caring for mum. I know she would be so proud and pleased that I have been been recognised with this award. My grateful thanks go to Microsoft for the award and the community with whom I work.  

Data Toboggan Cool Runnings 2025

Data Toboggan Cool Runnings is on Saturday 12 July 2025. Our first Cool Runnings summer event was in 2020. This was one track. Today we have 3 tracks of talks over a 12 hour period.

 

Our Piste Maps are out with our agenda

Bramberg

Pradaschier

Rigi Kaltbad

Agenda: https://bit.ly/DTCR2025-Agenda

Register now: https://bit.ly/DTCR2025-Register 

The SQLBits 2025 Charity

I am not attending SQLBits this year, the first time ever due to the sad loss of my mum the week before. 

It is incredibly kind of SQLBits to set their charity in celebration of her remarkable life.

SQLBits’ charity of 2025 is the National Museum of Computing, the world’s largest collection of working historic computers, based at Bletchley Park. This fantastic charity has been chosen by longstanding SQLBits helper, Dr Victoria Holt, in honour of her mum, Joan Frances Holt (nee Clark), who she sadly lost last week.

If you would like to donate this is the page here.

Read more about her remarkable story and this remarkable charity here https://lnkd.in/gsjRpFMP

My inspiration in life

Mum’s computing years

At this sad time I wanted to share that my amazing mother, Joan Frances Holt (nee Clark), died on Monday after a 8 month long struggle with arterial disease and blood cancer. A person who was always timid, humble and never talked much about her accomplishments. She started out life being born at the start of the second world war, playing on the streets decimated by incendiary bombs in Portsmouth and only recently discovered more details about her dad who was awarded the Imperial Service Medal (ISM) for long and faithful service in HM Dockyards following his 20 years in the army. She was married to dad for 64 years.

Seven months after leaving school in March 1958, mum started as an Assistant Experimental Officer (AEO) at Aldermaston. A post normally only available to people with degrees, but mums maths was outstanding and was referred for the job by her headmistress at Portsmouth Grammar School. She learnt to program on the Ferranti Mk 1*, with a list of instructions with their binary equivalents, considered an old computer even then. The Ferranti Mk 1* had a large number of valves requiring servicing frequently that could only be run for a short time, which took punch cards. Mum worked on the very latest, state of the art, computer, the IBM 704 mainframe which was among only 2 in the country, the other being at Harwell, mum thought. There were 2 people operating the machine which had several huge magnetic tapes standing in cabinets about 6ft high, a printer, card input and output machines and a central console.  Mum was impressed to work on this. She attended a programming course on the IBM 704 and from printouts asked to draw a graph from the information in 2 columns. The start of modern-day analytics. She learnt how computers were constructed and how the data was stored. The main content of course training included programming the computer to carry out instructions using a symbolic assembly code, to read card input and produce a printout of results.  At the end of the 2 weeks, she had to write a program to calculate sin x. She had to use the machines to type out the program on punched cards, which were then converted to binary by an assembler on the computer.

In contrast, Mum and Dad both were involved in amateur filmmaking of cine films at Harpenden Cine Society in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Walking in the lake district and travelling in France became a regular occurrence for her, from her 20’s

A small snapshot into a varied and extraordinary life, always an adventurer, and above all family centric and loved so much.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7338818960726929409/

The Shape of Intelligence: Reflections on Microsoft Build 2025

Microsoft Build 2025 took place from 19 to 22 May in Seattle, Washington. It was a four-day event packed with announcements on AI, agentic platforms, and developer tools. 

This year’s Microsoft Build felt less like a tech conference and more like a glimpse into a future already unfolding. What emerged was a tapestry of tools and ideas woven not just for developers, but for thinkers, makers, and leaders who believe technology should feel like an extension of purpose.

Microsoft Fabric continues to evolve and not just as a platform, but as a philosophy. It’s now the connection between data engineering, real-time intelligence, and business insight. The new Digital Twin Builder lets us model the world as we experience it: layered, imperfect, alive. And with Cosmos DB now embedded in Fabric, the boundary between structured and unstructured data feels less rigid, more fluid. It was exciting to see SQL Server grow with another release.

Some of the data and AI announcements from Microsoft Build 2025

AI Agents & Copilot Enhancements

Copilot Tuning – Preview: Customize Copilot with your own data and workflows for domain-specific tasks  

Multi-agent orchestration in Copilot Studio – Preview: Enables agents to collaborate across tasks  

Microsoft Entra Agent ID - Preview: Assigns unique identities to agents for governance  

Agent Store - Generally Available: Discover and deploy agents across Microsoft 365 endpoints  

Bring Your Own Models (BYOM) – Preview: Use over 1,900 Azure AI Foundry models in Copilot Studio

Data Platforms & Analytics

Power BI changes enable you to chat with your data. The preview of Standalone Copilot in Power BI was quietly revolutionary. Now, natural language becomes the interface. It’s not just about data literacy; it’s about data empathy. A new Copilot-powered experience for users to interact with their data through natural language, across any inputs, semantic models, apps and data agents they have access to.

Data agents in Microsoft Fabric serve as virtual business analysts, which you can bring right into Copilot Studio and deploy across Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot

Cosmos DB in Microsoft Fabric – Preview: Adds NoSQL capabilities to Fabric Databases  

Digital Twin Builder in Fabric Real-Time Intelligence – Preview: Create virtual replicas of physical/logical entities  

Standalone Copilot in Power BI – Preview: Natural language interface to query across reports  

Translytical Task Flows in Power BI – Preview: Enables write-back and automation from reports

AI Development & Infrastructure

SQL Server 2025 – Public Preview: AI-ready enterprise database with native integration. It is designed to securely power AI applications—transforming into a vector database in its own right.   

Azure Cosmos DB Vector Search – Preview: Store and query vector embeddings for generative AI  

Azure Database for PostgreSQL with Vector Embeddings – Preview: Generate embeddings via SQL for RAG apps  

Azure AI Foundry Agent Service – Generally Available: Build and orchestrate multi-agent systems  

Model Context Protocol (MCP) – Supported: Open protocol for agentic web interoperability  

To read the complete guide to all the new and events announced this year look at the Book of News. 

The rise of AI agents was at the heart of Build 2025. Not tools, not assistants but colleagues. With Copilot Tuning, organisations can shape agents using their own language, workflows, and values. It’s low-code, but high-trust. And with multi-agent orchestration, these entities collaborate across domains: HR, IT, marketing.

Open Protocols, Open Possibilities

Microsoft’s embrace of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and the launch of NLWeb signal a shift toward an open agentic web. It’s a vision where websites speak in semantic layers, and agents navigate with nuance. HTML gave us structure; NLWeb may give us meaning.

Discovery and the Scientific Imagination

Perhaps the most exciting announcement was Microsoft Discovery. An agentic platform for research and development offering a new enterprise agentic platform, which uses specialized agents and graph-based knowledge to accelerate research and development for scientists. 

Build 2025 wasn’t just about what’s new. It was about what’s next and who gets to shape it. 

The 2025 AI Index Report

The eighth edition of the AI Index report is out. The 2025 Index is the most comprehensive to date as AI’s influence across society, the economy, and global governance continues to intensify

In the report it covers 

• in-depth analyses of the evolving landscape of AI hardware 
• novel estimates of inference costs 
• new analyses of AI publication and patenting trends. 
• fresh data on corporate adoption of responsible AI practices
• expanded coverage of AI’s growing role in science and medicine.