National Digital Twin - a potential framework

[iain miskimmin]

Great to have a forum to put these things in - thanks for the welcome!

I have been working with the Royal Engineers for some time conducting Infrastructure Assessments, which build up a relatively quick cross sector network analysis so that we can understand its criticalities and vulnerabilities. This methodology is easy to learn, needs little or no technology and could provide the skeleton framework of our national digital twin at facility level. ( and below when required)

The key benefits with this is that whilst creating the framework, it would become clear where the priorities lie and where we need to spend the time, resource and effort first.

Whilst there are some great single sector or single owner examples out there, when we bring them together to understand their impacts on each other, the lack of a consistent methodology makes it difficult to see our country as a whole during periods of crisis.

This is very relevant today because it it can also identify the human networks and vulnerabilities that are potentially crippling to the nation during the COVID19 crisis. Knowing which key workers make that particular network node vulnerable across multiple sectors, means that we could have more time to either train up a replacement or automate that role. Not a nice thought, but very pertinent at the moment.

Happy to expand on this as questions arise.

stay safe all.