Digital Diplomacy

The FCDO's digital work

21st November 2016 Chennai, India

Rudy Fernandez

Head of Public Affairs

Yashoda’s story: burn survivors of violence against women and the need for a support system

On Wednesday, I will launch British Deputy High Commission Chennai’s violence against women (VAW) project at Kerala’s Baby Memorial Hospital (BMH) in Kozhikode (Calicut). Here’s a great blog by Rudy Fernandez who’s leading on this project which we’re running across several Indian states over the next couple of months to support better government responses and […]

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3rd November 2016 London, UK

Liz Hitchcock

Digital Training and Upskilling Manager

Digital training and capability at FCO: pilots have landed

The new half-day Agile workshops for leadership at our embassies and high commissions (Posts) bring together the head of mission and deputy head of mission, and the main people from the press and public affairs teams, policy teams and consular communications team. The purpose is to decide how well a Post’s digital channels are supporting […]

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27th September 2016 London, UK

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by Jack Pearson

Senior Digital Communications Manager

Our house, in the middle of King Charles Street

Every year iconic buildings across the capital open their doors to the public as part of Open House London. When the organisation was founded in 1992, they wanted to open up coveted spaces to the public to enhance their appreciation and understanding of architecture and design. For 20 years the Foreign Office has been one […]

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1st September 2016 London, UK

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by Phil Buckley

Digital Transformation Manager

Help, I’m in trouble! – or third party payment functionality

TOM: Can I borrow some money?

One of the first experiences I had of an Emergency travel document was covered in a series of photo casebooks I wrote last year. I actually had to cut out some of what happened because you wouldn’t have believed me – but now that you are all desensitised to a man losing his passport between […]

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25th August 2016 London, UK

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by Phil Buckley

Digital Transformation Manager

Configuring the emergency travel documents web application

¡Viva las aplicaciones basada en los datos!

A while ago, I blogged about the vast levels of complexity we faced digitising the application process for Emergency travel documents. Today I’d like to look at a little more detail at one of our responses to that: building a data-driven application and how we control what is displayed. In my earlier blog, I talked […]

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25th July 2016 London, UK

My first month at the DTU – Digital Transformation in a historic setting

DTU one month in. On my first day as Product Manager in the Digital Transformation Unit (DTU) at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) it rained, hard.   Having carefully selected a suit to wear, eager to give a good, professional first impression, I arrived looking like the proverbial drowned rat.  Soaked through, I may have […]

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20th June 2016 London, UK

Tara Finn

First World War Centenary Commemorations Team

Launching the digital archive

We have launched a remarkable collection of stories from the First World War. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is remembering the stories of 175 men from 11 countries who were awarded Britain’s highest award for bravery, the Victoria Cross. They represent a significant number of the 600 Victoria Crosses awarded during the First World War […]

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9th June 2016 London, UK

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by Steven Hardy

Social Media Manager

Promoting Human Rights

As the Foreign Office’s Social Media Manager I spend much of my time distilling the intentionally nuanced and traditionally multilayered world of diplomacy into something engaging and consumable. Case in point: The Foreign Office’s (FCO) annual flagship Human Rights and Democracy Report comprises around 50 pages of expert analysis of the issues the world and […]

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26th May 2016 London, UK

Ewan Gillespie

Regional Digital Trainer (Regional Digital Unit, Europe)

Remote Training: Is there anybody out there?

I´ve been Europe’s Regional Digital Training Officer for six months, training over the phone and on a shared desktop (where bandwidth allows). Previously, I worked as a teacher in a high school, so remote training is almost completely new to me. I’ve discovered that in many ways it is more difficult than attempting to control […]

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