Hello, and welcome to Catapult Network's Supercharging Innovation podcast. My name is Jeremy Silver, chair for this year of the Catapult Network. In this series, I've been talking with some of the UK's top industry and academic leaders, business people, and parliamentarians to get their views on the future of innovation. On today's episode, I'm delighted to welcome Chi Onwurah, MP. Chi is the Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and is also shadow minister for digital science and technology.
Jeremy Silver:Chi has previously held a number of positions in the shadow cabinet covering culture, innovation, science, and digital infrastructure. Chi continues to work closely with the science and business community on issues such as industrial strategy, digital inclusion, and online safety. Prior to entering parliament in May 2010, she had a successful career working in the global telecom sector. She graduated from Imperial College in Electronic and Electrical Engineering and worked as an electrical engineer in hardware and software development, product management, market development, and strategy for a variety of companies in a number of different countries, including the UK, France, the US, Nigeria, and Denmark. So, Chi, it it's an absolute pleasure to have you with us today.
Chi Onwurah MP:It's a real pleasure to be with you. I'm a huge admirer of the work or your work, but also but the work of the catapults generally. And it's really great to talk about innovation and science with people who are doing it.
Jeremy Silver:Well, let's get into that because there's lots to talk about and we're absolutely fascinated to hear your thoughts. But I actually wanted to start in a way with the way that your background and now your your political career kind of work together. You worked before your political career as a chartered engineer. You must have worked in a lot of different companies. And and so unlike a lot of sort of career politicians, if I can use that label, you you really understand the impact of technology on people's lives from the inside.
Jeremy Silver:How does that inform your work in politics, do you think?
Chi Onwurah MP:You know, that's a really great question, Jeremy. And I will say that when I was being as the MP for Newcastle Central was the proudest moment of my life. But there was a sense that I was leaving engineering, technology, science innovation behind, and there was a sort of sense of grief about that. But then actually, I mean, my entry into parliament in 2010 sort of coincided, if you like, with text expansion to to eat to eat the world, you know, like technology particularly. It's a so much bigger part of everybody's lives now.
Chi Onwurah MP:Actually, it's probably better to say it's a more known invisible part if you like. I mean, I I say that our lives for centuries, you know, progress of the human race has depended on innovation and science as as well as politics and politicians. The last 10 years, that's become much more visible and and COVID has sort of brought, you know, innovation, the importance of technology, science, and innovation front and center in everybody's lives. So a lot of the decisions, the policies that I'm working on are really in formed by my background in technology and my background in business and my experience of technology and innovation and the impact around the world. And so I I just wanna give one example of that because it's the one that sort of really sticks with me.
Chi Onwurah MP:In 2000, I was working in the US and the dotcom crash happened and the and the the company I was working for went bust. And then I went to work in Nigeria to build out the GSM network, the 1st GSM network that in Nigeria for the company called MTN. And I really saw, you know, the impact of both of technology because being able to to phone a doctor, you know, not having to, you know, walk or or drive to try and get help or support. I saw the impact that had and also the impact of government regulation because that was what freed up the spectrum to enable that network to be rolled out. I often think about that that sort of transformation impact that technology can have when I'm trying to to push this government to invest or to have a strategy or industrial strategy or long term funding plan for science because it's the sort of difference I want for my constituents and for people in the country and across the world.
Jeremy Silver:That's the incredible journey to have made between the sort of the the high-tech leading edge of the West Coast and the dotcom boom through to the challenging work to create a GSM network in a country like Nigeria. That's, that is an extraordinary set of contrasts. I suppose making a link from that, we've just been through, 18 months of the most extraordinary contrast to our normal lives, and we've now sort of all been reprogrammed almost to actually work in a different way. In that context, do you think that innovation can be a genuine means of recovering from COVID and and driving the economy out the other side?
Chi Onwurah MP:I think more than that, Jeremy, I actually think it is the only means of recovering from COVID, particularly because at the same time, and I, I was on a cop 26, demonstration at the weekend. We have climate change, which is an existential challenge, which sort of arose from the 1st industrial revolution. And we have COVID and the UK's economy, you know, who's hit harder than any other economy in the g seven. I think so the only way to build back from that in a way which gives people sustainable jobs and a sense and this is really, really important for me. A sense of agency in the jobs that they have.
Chi Onwurah MP:A sense of empowerment is through technology and innovation. We can't be giving people sort of short term, low skill, low agency, low pay jobs. We've got to transform our economy. We've got to meet the requirements of a net zero economy. And so as part of that, we have got to create and deliver high skill innovation rich jobs, whether that be in the tech sector, whether that be in renewables, whether that be in the care sector.
Chi Onwurah MP:I mean, you know, the care we talk about social care has also been seen as a critical part of the economy that it is during the COVID crisis. And I also just yeah. I could talk about this for Evan. I'm gonna try not to, but I also think that the pace of innovation which delivered a vaccine from a standing start in a year, that has helped people understand the power of technology and science better. And so I'm hope and, you know, that that there's more of a sort of democratic commitment to what that needs to look like.
Chi Onwurah MP:And then it's not as really critical for the catapult. It's not only science, but actually getting that vaccine into people's arms. Big part of it was science, but it was also engineering, manufacturing, distribution, logistics, training. It was all of that, and that's what we need.
Jeremy Silver:It is an extraordinary example of the country unifying around a massive, as you say, massive logistics exercise as much as anything else. And I think, you know, everyone involved in that should be hugely congratulated because it it is clearly exemplary. When you think about the sort of innovation landscape in the UK and the different organizations, and and obviously the government's just published its innovation strategy, which is a substantial document. But I just wonder what what do you think the challenges for the UK are? I mean, there's this ambition to become a global leader, a superpower in science, technology, and innovation.
Jeremy Silver:What do you think we need to do? What are the big challenges we've got to overcome?
Chi Onwurah MP:That's a huge question, Jeremy. I suppose I do want to start by saying that certainly the government isn't lacking in publishing strategies, papers, and documents. We've had an r and d road map, then we had an innovation strategy. We've had sector deals. We've had, grand challenges.
Chi Onwurah MP:You know? What we don't have and what one of the things I think, you know, we really need is a long term funding plan for science, to the UKRI as well because when you're going from year to year, obviously with with COVID with the vaccine, you know, we had a huge breakthrough in a year, but that is not what science needs. So what we need is a long term funding path for science, and that's one of the things that labor commits to, as well as the ambition. So we need, you know, right now, a spend on in on research and development is, I think, 1.7% of GDP. The conservatives have promised to raise that to 2.4%, though they haven't set out a plan for it.
Chi Onwurah MP:All these plans don't have any money with them. You know? It's like ambition, but it's not actually how they're gonna fund it. That what Labour says is that 3%. Because 3% is world's leading.
Chi Onwurah MP:We are world leading science nation, and we need to match that with world's leading funding. 2.4% is just the average. So that's like if you like the overarching vision, but then at the more micro micro scale. So we and we've got great challenges, you know, like net zero, like feeding a world population, like the technological transformation which is happening, artificial intelligence, algorithms, we've got to have a society where they are of the general the public good. What we need is to make sure to me, it's skills.
Chi Onwurah MP:Skills drive almost everything. It's universality in as much as, you know, we need science spend in the northeast, in the northwest. We need great start and this is one of the things that the, you know, the catapults help support. We need startups starting up across our country. I want kids in my primary schools in Newcastle to think that they could be the Gigafactory engineers of the future or the vaccine discoverers of the future.
Chi Onwurah MP:And to do that, they need to see it. They need to be visiting universities, visiting companies, you know, having them come into their having teachers who are empowered to show what that really means. As well as that and the whole process of commercialization of great ideas. So, you know, we also need every business to be more of a digital and tech business. I'm just gonna finish on this example.
Chi Onwurah MP:I was like, examples from Newcastle. It locked down in March 2020. Grainger Market, which is an iconic, 19th century covered market in Newcastle, was not online at all. You know? I think it had a Twitter tag, which it hadn't used for, like, 3 years or something.
Chi Onwurah MP:Within 3 weeks, it moved online and you could order your groceries, your fish, your meats online. But that didn't mean that those businesses really have digitized. You know, they're still mixed get cyber skills, the digital marketing. And right now that is being offered by Facebook and Google. Some is offered by Barclays.
Chi Onwurah MP:What we need is Make UK also say this. What we need is an upskilling of businesses generally and access to business support because all businesses are going to be digital businesses. And, you know, that needs to be pushed through our economy. So I'll try and stop there, but I could go on.
Jeremy Silver:It's really interesting. And I think the challenges that you talk about there, I think, are so real. And, obviously, you know, we have seen really good initiatives from people from likes of Facebook and Google who, of course, are keen to attract more users to their own platform. So that is the so the generosity always has a self serving element to it.
Chi Onwurah MP:The training is generally uses their products and services, and indeed there's a lack of competition in the market, but, that's exacerbated by that. So, yeah, I think government has a responsibility there.
Jeremy Silver:I suppose the interesting question is from the perspective of of agencies like the catapults, we we tend to be looking at the kind of more leading edge, more advanced areas of the technology sectors that we're engaged with. And I suppose, in some respects, I wonder whether you think there's a gap. You know, you put the focus on that need at the at the broad level of of SMEs and of legacy businesses to digitize, which is clearly there. And the ambition of big programs like Made Smarter is obviously, you know, pointing at that and trying to make that difference. Do you think though that we sort of don't necessarily have a clear enough view of how that works and then how the this this higher level adoption of of more leading edge technology works and then how the research in universities work.
Jeremy Silver:How do they all are they connected up clearly enough? Do you think it's a clear enough strategy there?
Chi Onwurah MP:No. The short answer is no. And the gaps are a number of levels. I mean, I just do wanna pay tribute to the work that the catapults do. And as I said, the locations, I think it's over over 40 locations for catapults and the networks around which they're based in Northeast Wales, Sheffield.
Chi Onwurah MP:You know, there's that is truly a national asset. So I think the Catapults network is doing great work and that there was a reason to expand that work. But I also think we need to join it up more with regional economies, particularly. And the reason I say regional economies is because there's a lack of regional economic growth being equalized. And just let me say, I have to say this, COVID really exposed the regional and social inequalities in our country.
Chi Onwurah MP:Whether it be if you look at the rates of infection in cities across the country or whether it be the black and minority ethnic rates of infection and death as well. So it really exposed inequalities. Regional economy, economic growth is the way we is one of the ways to address those inequalities. And yet we know that, for example, the government investment on science is £22 per person in the north, which is 2 fifths of what it is in the in the south and the Midlands. So one of the things there is about a scale.
Chi Onwurah MP:Obviously, the golden triangle, if you like, has scale. Cambridge has scale, not as much as the Silicon Valley, but it has scale. And so joining up regional networks and so joining up, the catapults, having the exchange with the universities. One of my concerns, and I don't know what you think about this, is that because of, changes or limitations in funding, at times, catapults and universities are competing for funding rather than, you know, sort of working together to join up regional economies and drive more regional growth. We also have a lack of measurement of in terms of what is succeeding because with the loss of the regional development agencies, nobody's actually measuring.
Chi Onwurah MP:You know? I asked this to the minister once, how do we know if a knowledge exchange framework is is working? What do we see? How do we see and measure really regional growth at a micro level? And and there's very little measurement statistics or figures data, if you like, so that we can measure what success is.
Chi Onwurah MP:So we need that to be more joined up, and we need to drive, the funding in a way that delivers not only more science spend, more innovation spend, but more joined up regional economic growth as part of that.
Jeremy Silver:The question of of evaluation of impact in this space is one that's plagued so many people and it obviously raises all sorts of challenges, not least because the so much of the impact is obviously longer term and people are impatient and want to see, immediate reactions and and impacts. To your comment about the universities and catapults sometimes competing, sometimes we do. Actually, our experience is that we have much more collaboration than is perhaps understood or or recognized and that that may be us being at fault in not publicizing that collaboration.
Chi Onwurah MP:Yeah.
Jeremy Silver:But the thing that's that's difficult is in fact actually the rules of engagement and the mechanisms that allow funding to flow which haven't been reviewed for 10 years since the catapults were formed. And so there are often times when the universities and catapults would like to collaborate on equal terms with one another in in a a really collaborative way and, actually, the rules prevent that. So there are some elements there which I think are urgently in need of review. And I'm it's interesting, of course, we've got Paul Nurse looking at this whole landscape at the moment. I wonder whether whether you've got any thoughts about what your message to poor nurse would be at this point.
Chi Onwurah MP:Well, I think just to say on the point about the the way in which catapults are funded and and a lack of review. You know, I think that's a that's a really important point, and it's something that we should be holding the the new or the renewed science minister to account on. I mean, I have a huge amount of respect for for Paul Nurse. And, you know, in in some ways, he can always bring great insights to our science ecosystem. And I think nurse 2.0 is, as it's as it's called, to reflect the fact that we did have a review, and a change.
Chi Onwurah MP:I am concerned about the nurse review specifically, but I am concerned that there was a lot of sort of moving of the infrastructure furniture. I I mean, the creation of ARIA, which we supported, you know, and the changes in, you know, UKRI and reset. You know? I do think that the science community, and I do hope Paul will say that needs to be more direct, if you like, in saying that what we also need is the long term strategy vision and and funding. And then we can set up a a sort of science, landscape, if you like, or drive a science landscape, which meets the key public goods that public money, should be directed at.
Chi Onwurah MP:That's what my message to Paul would be was would would sort of be what what can you bring back, which means we don't have a nurse 3.0 in 2 years' time.
Jeremy Silver:Yes. I mean, obviously, we are in a very, very fast moving environment in which a lot of the moving parts change at remarkable rate. I mean, you know, what's happened to us in the last 2 years, no one could have imagined that we would be in this position. And so with all the best within the world, you probably couldn't have planned for it, even though there was a line that said pandemic on someone's emergency plan. So it is an interesting thought that the the rate of change is always going to outstrip the the kind of infrastructure that that enables it.
Jeremy Silver:There is a sense at the moment though that that we haven't perhaps quite got the balance right and I wonder what your thought is about this between the the kind of need for and undeniable importance of blue sky research and the kind of academic research which goes deep and wide into the unknown and more directed research and development and innovation that is really about pulling the best of that out of the most applicable of that out into the marketplace. And have we got the balance right, do you think, and how do we know that?
Chi Onwurah MP:So that's an excellent question. And I am I'm a believer in science for science's sake. I think it meets a sort of intense human need to drive out the boundaries of knowledge. I think that is part of who we are as the human race, if you like, and that, science is and should be part of our cultural identity as Britons. And I can say that, and I can say at the same time, public money needs to be directed for public good.
Chi Onwurah MP:Now I think science in itself is a public good, but I also feel that we need to be more sort of explicit about and again, since my criticism of this government is that it seems to think that government should get out of the way of just about everything. And I think government needs to be more explicit in where science researchers should be going. And when we have an expanding science budget, that explicitness could be there in black and white. And so to give a very specific example, we would have had ARIA, the advanced research and innovation, agency to which is to support high risk, high reward research. We would have had that be targeted at, say, at net 0 to have an explicit overarching aim.
Chi Onwurah MP:That's increase of it's not taking away from existing science spend. We hope or certainly in our view, it shouldn't be. That's a new increase in science spend. We'd also be clearer about the public good of increased regional research and regional investment. We try and say, you know, this is pure research spending, and this is spending aimed at our great challenges, but we need to we also need to look and assess the impact of both.
Chi Onwurah MP:Because, you know, it was pure research into radio, you know, which ended up with our And I do think that link, you know, I think my constituents need to understand and see that link better. I think I I am very concerned at the way in which tech is giving a bad name to science. The headlines or in this tech, but then the other headlines, you know, Franken Foods and all. So I think we need to be able to say more clearly that this we're spending on science. We're investing on science because it gives a return to you, you know, in your lives, and it's this and this and this and this and make that clearer.
Jeremy Silver:It's really interesting that the sort of journey of of, of of social acceptability of technology between 2,021,021 is not a particularly edifying story as we, as we, as we all know. And there's the status of big tech is clearly one that in some respects, I think gives an opportunity to UK companies. There's a lot of work going on in the UK to try and develop a more responsible view and That's
Chi Onwurah MP:such a good point.
Jeremy Silver:Technology for good and to take create ethics frameworks within which powerful technologies like AI can operate.
Chi Onwurah MP:Yes. Exactly. Do you
Jeremy Silver:think that there's a framework that we should expect government to produce? How do you see that working? There is there's such a fine balance, isn't there, between over regulating something before it's fully flowered and at the same time recognizing the kind of potential harm and and dangers there are in new technologies and putting some fencing around that. What what what's your sense of that?
Chi Onwurah MP:I mean, that's absolutely right. And, again, it's something I could talk about for a long time. After working in Nigeria, I went to work for Ofcom, the office of communications, and that was 2,004. Just if you like as as as face I think Facebook had had a public affairs person in UK for 3 months or something like that, you know, just as that kind of started. And in Ofcom, we were very concerned under a labor government, as I said, about overregulating nascent technologies and nascent services.
Chi Onwurah MP:And I think that was right. So that was 2,004, 5, 6. 15 years later, we still have no regulation, and that is wrong. You know? So there was a balance in that intervening time.
Chi Onwurah MP:Unfortunately, what has happened is that companies like Google and Facebook have, captured the market. So can you know, so that there isn't competition. So that small UK companies, you know, who may have better ways of searching for services or whatever are locked out because there is one search engine effectively. There is a balance to be struck, but we haven't struck or this government hadn't struck it. Or the you know, since 2010, we should have been looking at at regulation.
Chi Onwurah MP:And I, you know, and I always say this is not rocket science. Literally, it is not rocket science. The the technologies which people which are dry shaping people's lives now have been around for some time. You know, we need to look forward looking regulation. And the thing I say is, you know, the opposite of, unfortunately, it's true.
Chi Onwurah MP:The opposite of regulation is not no regulation. It's bad regulation because we will now, quite likely, you've got the online safety bill coming through parliament, have bad regulation. So, yes, I think that technologies like artificial intelligence and, algorithms, we need to be looking at how to regulate them. We need to start so technology is not something that happens to us. Technology is something that we as a society, you know, and particularly as a democratic society can and should shape.
Chi Onwurah MP:And when it comes to algorithmic bias and there's a recent finding that, for example, if you advertise for an engineer on Facebook I forget the exact figure, but was it 90% of the people who see that at that advert will be men? Because Facebook, you know, the algorithm, you know, will maximize its views, and that's what the algorithm, is it. So, you know, that kind of regulation to ensure the bias is not perpetuated and industrialized through new technologies is for me, it is a no brainer. How you do it? Look.
Chi Onwurah MP:You have to look forward. You have to understand what the technology impact is. You have to have discussions, both social and tech discussions if you like. That's all required, but we can't just allow our futures to be captured by a biased framework. That means it needs to be an alternative framework, which which is this for a democratic government to support.
Jeremy Silver:It's really interesting though, isn't it? If you think about the UK in this context, obviously, there are challenges for us given that these companies are largely multinational companies.
Chi Onwurah MP:But thinking
Jeremy Silver:more about the UK and how we would approach this and assuming we would find ways of making this work for us as a country, But also thinking about your international experience and and our sort of new context that we find ourselves in afloat independently in the world and separate from the EU. But if you think about the American approach to this, it's very free market and very, until recently.
Chi Onwurah MP:Right?
Jeremy Silver:Started to wake up a bit, but, nonetheless, the the tendency is is that direction compared with the EU, which is very pro consumer and and trying to to protect the consumer as a sort of primary goal. Is there a sort of position for the UK somewhere between the 2? Do you think which side do you are on?
Chi Onwurah MP:I think it's really interesting, and I'm not sure I kind of agree with your characteristic. You know? When I was at Ofcom, the entire European sort of competitive freight market framework for telecoms had been with the UKs. You know, it had been it it had been set by the UK following the privatization of British Telecom, actually. You know?
Chi Onwurah MP:It's kind of ironic that we walked away from what we sort of hugely influenced and set up, whereas the US often talks in it. And then I'm not gonna talk about Trump because what he talks at didn't make sense on so many levels. But, you know, before Trump, talked to very free market talk. They have very strong antitrust legislation. And I think part of the challenge was how you use that in these new markets.
Chi Onwurah MP:And the Biden administration, you know, I think and we'll we'll see, but the Biden administration and, you know, senators like Elizabeth Warren are much more sort of aggressively ready to take that on. But to answer your actual question, I do think there is a kind of an intermediate place for the UK to be. The US is sort of legislation, for example, on workers' rights is far behind hours. The European Union's business regulation can be more bureaucratic at times. So there is a there is an intermediate role for the the UK to play.
Chi Onwurah MP:I also think we should recognize that we can still influence what happens in other countries, and other countries at times do look do look to us. So if we can get the regulation right, then actually we can support our businesses to be ahead of what I think is a global move, what I hope is a global move to a more a fairer system. We also have to watch out obviously for countries, you know, like, China and Russia setting standards and standards bodies, which support more authoritarian approaches to regulation. We wanna see regulation, but we don't want it to be authoritarian. They wanna see regulation often, and they want it to put the control in the hands of the state.
Chi Onwurah MP:Me, I wanted to put control in the hands of citizens and consumers. So, yeah, it's a multi it's a multi piece and multidimensional chess game, but I think we are in a good strong position if we just have a strategy and a vision that, you know, that we know where we're going instead of moving around the deck chairs without deciding where we're, trying to head to.
Jeremy Silver:It it's great to hear you reminding us of the sort of the level of influence that we did have over European policy and the fact that, of course, that thinking and those processes and that discipline and experience hasn't gone away. We still have that and we can still exercise that influence if we get it right. And I think that's that's incredibly positive and optimistic thought that we could all, you know, perform with. I wanted to switch tack for for a couple of minutes because we're we're nearly at the end and I don't want to leave our conversation without asking about one of the really crucial themes of our time. And, obviously, in the period of lockdown, we also saw the extraordinary rise of the Black Lives Matter movement for all the real reasons that we are familiar with and we know, as well as a continuing recognition of the importance of gender equality and of of a broader agenda on on inclusion.
Jeremy Silver:I mean, you you've worked in an extraordinary time in an extraordinarily male dominated industry. I I'm sure you must have have had some extraordinary experiences in that. I suppose if you're addressing young women at this point and people from a diversity of backgrounds and orientations, I've wanted to say something encouraging them about getting involved in technology and innovation. What's your message to that today?
Chi Onwurah MP:Well, I say I suppose there's a number of things I'd say. So it's one of the things is that, you know, I was being the MP for Newcastle is the best job in the world in Newcastle Central, but being an engineer was the best job in the world before before that. So it's the 2nd best job in the world. You shouldn't let other people and other people's prejudices and indeed the existing structures of education in the market be a barrier to the immense empowerment and also capacity for good that going into tech and engineering involves. I mean, I always say that tech is the most or tech should be the most caring career because what is more caring than putting people in touch with each other and showing that there's clean water or that we have a vaccine and that it's also an empowering career?
Chi Onwurah MP:I tell you that the job security is a lot better than being a member of parliament, you know, for good reasons. And it's also better paid. And also just to say that I think we have history history on our side. One of the biggest changes when I you know, for many years that I spent as the only woman in the room and the only person of color and, you know, often the only working class person in the room as well, yeah, where it wasn't recognized as an issue and it was considered a sort of fluffy kind of tick box thing. You know, I think now there is a real recognition that companies which are not diverse I mean, I got walk into a room and it's only the company is represented only by men, and I just say I think they must be from a different century for start.
Chi Onwurah MP:So there's a recognition that it's good. It's important reputationally, but also this is probably more important. It's important in a sort of business and innovation. But because you cannot escape groupthink if your group comes from the same narrow demographic and, the kind of resilience and creativity one needs to be delivering the best services and these things which will change people's lives and people will pay, you know, money for, you know, that comes from a diverse workforce and diverse team. So not everybody gets it yet, and I'm argue strongly for more metrics.
Chi Onwurah MP:Serious desire serious desire to do that in the industry.
Jeremy Silver:I mean, it's really inspiring to hear you say that, but I think it really feels true out there. But, of course, it's, it's tough and it feels uncomfortable at times, and it probably should feel uncomfortable for some of us. It's just wonderful to hear you say those things. And I, and particularly that thing that I I can't go away from is the importance of diverse, different kinds of experience and mindsets and different brains Absolutely. Bring a bring a kind of richness.
Jeremy Silver:We're right out of time, but I've got one final fun question that I ask everyone who comes on this, and I'm gonna you're no exception. So here's the fun question. We've all enjoyed the Ipod, the Oyster card, electric cars. What's your favorite innovation?
Chi Onwurah MP:Oh, dear. What is my, favorite innovation? There's so many to choose from, but my favorite innovation is the smartphone because to have that much processing power in your pocket. And and and I also want to say this, you know, and I've been critical of big tech, but I will tell you that Google Maps has saved, you know, more relationships and more arguments than possibly any other technology. Yeah.
Chi Onwurah MP:So actually, let me say let me say that Google Maps and directions is especially as a cyclist as well. You know? I think their initial version wasn't very good for cycling and walking, and then they've done some development here in the UK, and it's much better. So, yeah, Google Maps.
Jeremy Silver:And it had an amazing augmented reality layer to it as well now, which is which is also pretty incredible. Thank you. Thank you so much, and thank you all of you for joining us today. Thank you very much to my special guest, Chi Onwurah, MP. It's been a pleasure to have you.
Chi Onwurah MP:Thank you very much. It's been really great fun. And, yeah. Yeah. Thanks very much.
Chi Onwurah MP:Speak to you again sometime.
Jeremy Silver:That's all for today's Supercharging Innovation podcast. Thanks for listening. Join us again for the next podcast episode and make sure you subscribe to us on Itunes or Spotify. Other podcast distribution platforms are, of course, also available. Goodbye.