"Going for Growth: Can We Make Britain Wealthy Again?" I enjoyed @matthewclifford and @amolrajan's discussion on AI, British exceptionalism, and the chance for us to return to being the richest big country in the world again. 1/2 bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

I'd add that it was importantly at MIT, outside the UK, (building on work by many people, notably in Leeds, Sheffield, and Manchester), that @annastansbury pushed the transport theory of everything into the mainstream. And not so much Ed Balls at Kings College London. 2/3

@annastansbury My favourite bit was the discussion about Bradford and the sessions I very slightly helped organise and spoke at which Matt came up for at the end of last year. It's too easy to say lines like "everyone should stay in Bradford, Britain's great and you can thrive anywhere". 3/4

@annastansbury "economic opportunity in Bradford is still very limited. Honestly, as the country is today, it's hard to escape the agglomeration of economic opportunity in London... but the reasons for that we are able to address through investment in transport infrastructure." 👍🇬🇧 4/4

@annastansbury More people live within 30km of Bradford than live within 30km of Stockholm. Yet Stockholm is at the cutting edge of the world's tech ecosystem and many times more productive than Bradford. We can aspire to the 4x better transport of Stockholm here in West Yorkshire.

@annastansbury It will, of course take more than just that. But we can just do the transport separately. And do the other things, like making sure the Digital Catapult really commits to Bradford instead of scuttling away after a few years, separately and on top of that.

@annastansbury And we have, in Bradford and in Leeds and in Manchester and in Rochdale and right across the land that gave rise to the industrial revolution and much of our modern liberal world, people who are still incredibly entrepreneurial and ready to do it again. tomforth.co.uk/entrepreneuria…

@annastansbury As many people will have seen, we're now closing @OpenInnovates. It's been twelve years, starting as The Open Data Institute Leeds, changing name. I think we achieved a lot, and also learned a lot, about creating institutions. open-innovations.org/blog/2026-04-1…

@annastansbury @OpenInnovates An early project that we worked on @OpenInnovates, and part of what evolved into @TheDataCity, was mapping the UK's Internet of Things sector using web scraping. Then working out of Bradford Digital Catapult (shut down after 3 years) to stimulate growth... open-innovations.org/blog/2017-03-2…

@annastansbury @OpenInnovates @TheDataCity The official website output of that is long dead. But we're a bit better at keeping things online (and a bit less good at following the rules that say only one copy can ever be online) at @OpenInnovates. So our stuff is still there. open-innovations.org/blog/2015-12-0…

@annastansbury @OpenInnovates @TheDataCity Out IoT Nation Database is all still up on our branded site. Fascinating to see how far we've come, but also how useful this still is. And really fascinating to see what's become of the companies and people we worked with. open-innovations.org/projects/iot/

@annastansbury @OpenInnovates @TheDataCity I bring up Stockholm again because four fantastic people I met in Bradford as part of that IoT UK Boost Programme now live in Sweden. At Spotify, building Minecraft, developing electric ferries, Global Innovation Lead at Ikea. So much talent gone which Britain could have kept.

@annastansbury @OpenInnovates @TheDataCity Maybe I should have gone too. Or Paris. Or Amsterdam. 🤷