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- I’m Dan Carins, Policy Manager for Business at the West Midlands Combined Authority.
- I work in the Economic Policy team, working on all things connected to improving productivity in the West Midlands.  This involves working collaboratively with businesses, business representatives, universities, local authorities and many other stakeholders, as well as internal colleagues in Economic Delivery, skills, energy, transport, housing and the environment.
- A current focus is on supporting businesses to transition away from customers and markets in “sunset industries” and pivot into growth sectors and markets. This involves identifying companies by what they make/do and whom they sell it to rather than their SIC code; we are keen to map supply chains so we can identify actors within the West Midlands and work with them. Â
- Similarly, we are keen to understand the other side of this coin: resilience and risk.
- We are working with the Connected Places Catapult on their DIATOMIC project within our West Midlands Innovation Accelerator. This project includes aspirations to build a digital twin – yet to be defined. I’m keen to understand this opportunity and help shape it and use it.
- Finally, we have a corporate objective to use and build digital twins in the West Midlands to help us benchmark performance, model risk and opportunity and to shape investment proposals.
- It would be great to connect to people with experience of the above and who may be interested in getting involved.