Tech For Good - Issue 02

THE DATA SCIENCE DRIVING BETTER SOCIETIES OPEN SOURCE TAKES THE FIGHT TO COVID-19 ENTREPRENEURS VS THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY WHY GOVERNMENTS MUST EMBRACE STARTUPS

Issue 02

The Earth’s oceans are under threat, and the global consequences are alarming. We chart how Intel and Accenture have teamed up to offer an AI lifeline to our vital ecosystems

DANIEL BRIGHAM Content Director

C

oral reefs are beautiful. There’s no getting away from it. Intense colours, vibrant schools of fish, ethereal marine life, all set against the deep blue of an ocean that invariably laps up against a tropical shore: it all makes coral reefs some of the most cinematic habitats on planet Earth.

So it is perhaps surprising there isn’t a great deal of focus on the rapid destruction of these extraordinary ecosystems. Up to 50% of the ocean’s live coral has been eroded in just three decades, putting at risk 25% of the world’s marine life, the livelihoods of millions of people, and directly increasing the risks of tropical storms causing far greater loss of life.

It’s a critical plight that deserves more global attention, but there is still fantastic work going on - often significantly under-reported - to restore the coral reefs and protect them for future generations. One such project leads our second issue of Tech For Good.

Project: CORaiL has brought together Accenture, Intel and the Sulubaaï Environmental Foundation, as they lead groundbreaking work to apply AI to

learning the behaviours and habits of fish around coral reefs in the Philippines.

From there, that data can be used to help restore reefs - which could have implications for coral globally.

The people involved in the project are passionate about using new technologies for the greater social good. Ewen Plougastel, Managing Director at Accenture Applied Intelligence, rather sums up the overriding theme that runs through Tech For Good. “This should be the first purpose of new technology and inventions: to make the entire planet a better place for all of us, including the oceans.”

This is my first TFG issue since coming on board at Bulletin Media, and I’m incredibly excited to have joined such a dedicated, inquisitive team. We’re committed to telling great stories, and I hope you find plenty of interest throughout this edition as we explore the application of tech across climate change, simulation tools, online learning, disaster responses, government, and plenty more.

Enjoy!

PUBLISHED BY BULLETIN MEDIA LTD, Norwich, UK Company No: 11454926 TALK TO US editorial@digitalbulletin.com business@digitalbulletin.com

CONTENTS 06

ENVIRONMENT Accenture and Intel’s AI mission to save the coral reef

18

SOCIAL GOOD How data science is tackling society’s biggest issues

26

PUBLIC SECTOR Why governments should embrace tech startups

36

EXPERT INSIGHT Data scientist Frances Sneddon on digital simulation post-lockdown

40

EDUCATION We speak to Mike Feerick, founder of free education platform Alison

50

HEALTHCARE The open source tool coordinating global disaster responses

62

LEADERSHIP Entrepreneurs must do more to fight climate change

06 18 40

ENVIRONMENT

6

TECH FOR GOOD

HOW TO SAVE THE CORAL REEF

HOW TO SAVE THE CORAL REEF The rapid decline of coral reefs is not only a critical threat to marine life but also a significant human issue. We spoke to Intel and Accenture to learn how they’re applying AI to help restore the reefs in the Philippines – and what that means for our oceans AUTHOR: Daniel Brigham

ISSUE 02

7

ENVIRONMENT

C

oral reefs are often referred to as the tropical rainforests of the sea. It’s not hard to see why.

They’re both naturally beautiful; somehow otherworldly. They’re both home to an incredibly rich diversity of organisms, each an ecosystem that is integral to the life of this planet. They share something else in common, however; something darker: a very real threat to their existence.

While the destruction of the rainforests often makes front-page news - and rightly so - there is less coverage of the shrinking coral reefs in our oceans. And it’s been critical for well over a decade, now.

8

TECH FOR GOOD

They may only account for 0.1% of the ocean, but coral reefs are some of the most bio-diverse ecosystems on Earth. A quarter of all marine species are supported by reefs, which can be found on the coastlines of over 100 countries - more than 80 of which are classified as developing.

They aren’t only lifelines for marine life, though. Human life is also at risk if the reefs are allowed to disappear. An Ecosystems and Biodiversity study by the United Nations Environment Programme stated that coral reefs generate up to a staggering $10 billion every year from the likes of fisheries, tourism, coastal

HOW TO SAVE THE CORAL REEF

This should be the first purpose of new technology and inventions: to make the entire planet a better place for all of us, including the oceans” Ewen Plougastel

protection and medical use. The study also found that 275 million people depend directly on reefs for their livelihood and sustenance, while they are also vital natural barriers against tropical storms - they protect more than 200 million people by eroding 97% of a wave’s strength. Replacing that natural defence by building sea walls would cost $2.5 million per mile.

Reefs are also integral to the production of breakthrough, life-saving medicine: some studies suggest that we are up to 400 times more likely to find new drugs through coral reef ecosystems than through land-based ecosystems.

Yet, while reefs are integral to the planet’s ecosystem, they are degrading at an alarming rate: between 25% and 50% of the world’s live coral has been lost in only the last 30 years. It is a man-made problem: overfishing, unsustainable coastal development, destructive fishing, and climate change causing warming temperatures all contribute significantly to coral reef erosion. And, as ever with global crises, developing countries are particularly at risk.

Some countries decided to do something about it. In 2012, on Pangatalan Island in the western Philippines, in the Pacific Ocean, a group of like-minded ISSUE 02

9

ENVIRONMENT

At Intel we have a big focus on social responsibility and making a difference and having an impact on the communities we work with” Patrick Dorsey

10

TECH FOR GOOD

locals founded the Sulubaaï Environmental Foundation. A nonprofit, it dedicates itself to conserving, protecting and restoring the natural resources of the local area through sustainable practices and the restoration of ecosystems. In 2016, it created a 46-hectare marine-protected area around Pangatalan. One of the key objectives was to restore the coral reefs that had been destroyed by dynamite fishing - the practice of using explosives to stun or kill schools of fish.

It built the Sulu-Reef Prosthesis, an underwater platform [pictured] made from concrete to provide support for unstable coral - which then provides a habitat for marine life. It tracked data by diving among the reefs and analysing the photos, but it simply couldn’t take enough images – and with enough accuracy – to build a long-term impression of the reef’s health.

This is where Accenture comes in.

Meet Ewen Plougastel, Managing Director at Accenture Applied Intelligence. Based in Singapore, he leads up a team dedicated to applying AI across hundreds of clients. Outside of work, though, he has a passion shared by several of his colleagues.

“I’m part of the local diving community here in Singapore,” he says. “With a few friends of mine from Accenture we are active members of Accenture Diving Club of Singapore, so diving is some-

HOW TO SAVE THE CORAL REEF

thing we love – we’ve been diving in the Philippines, Thailand, the Maldives. We love being under the sea, looking at fish, swimming near corals, and enjoying all of the marine life.

“I’m running the AI team, so the idea was to combine our passion for diving, for the maritime environment, with our jobs, which are all about the latest technologies and artificial intelligence. We often have discussions around ‘why are we inventing all of these new technologies, with these new capabilities, if we don’t use them to make the world a better place?’. This should be the first

purpose of new technology and inventions: to make the entire planet a better place for all of us, including the oceans.

So we wanted to apply all of these great new technologies to something useful and important.”

Plougastel and his colleagues combined their passion and their work when they approached Sulubaaï with a solution to their problem. They helped turn the manual work of diving and photographing – which itself can interfere with the reef’s environment, and divers only have very limited time in the water – and instead placed intelligent underwater ISSUE 02

11

ENVIRONMENT

video cameras to make the process automated. These cameras are equipped with VASP - Accenture’s Video Analytics Services Platform - which detects and photographs fish as they swim past.

VASP uses AI to count and classify the marine life, with the data sent to a surface dashboard, where it provides analytics and trends to researchers in real time, enabling them to make data-driven decisions to protect the coral reef.

“There are two parts to the tech,” says Plougastel. “The first part is getting the cameras under the water, which honest12

TECH FOR GOOD

ly is quite simple. The second part is applying deep learning and machine learning, to be able to find the patterns and correlations in the images. You combine the weather data, the time data, the tide data, with the activity on the images.

When you do this correlation then you find interesting patterns. With AI you can scale that up.”

This is where Intel comes in.

Already regular partners, Accenture and Intel again joined forces in the Philippines and, alongside Sulubaaï, they launched Project: CORaiL.

HOW TO SAVE THE CORAL REEF

Patrick Dorsey, Vice President of Product Marketing, Programmable Solutions Group, at Intel, explains their involvement.

“At Intel we have a big focus on social responsibility and making a difference and having an impact on the communities we work with,” Dorsey says. “We looked at the problem CORaiL was trying to solve, and we discovered if we took multiple technologies from the Intel platform we could effectively solve their problems.

It was our ability to bring our VPU – our video processing unit - on the front end and our FPGA products in terms of some of the AI analytics, and the platform we have was a very good fit for the problems Accenture were trying to solve.

“You get a massive amount of data on where the fish are going, what type of fish you have, what the flows are, whether they’re nesting there or not. The amount of data, the amount of images that can be collected is not limited by the physical proximity of the divers being in the water.”

Project: CORaiL has so far collected around 40,000 images since it started in May 2019, and that has enabled researchers to gauge the health of the coral reef in real time. This data is crucial to learning how best to restore it.

The project is very much ongoing, and Plougastel’s team is looking to refine its prototype in order to monitor more

We are very keen to help countries that perhaps have more difficulty getting access to this kind of technology” Ewen Plougastel

ISSUE 02

13

ENVIRONMENT

reefs, and is in talks with several organisations, including an NGO that wants to replicate Project: CORaiL for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Plougastel and Dorsey both believe that developing countries should be the initial focus for implementing AI for social good. But they also know how important it is that they supplement the existing processes they find in each region, rather than riding into each new country like knights in shining armour.

“When we talk to anyone anywhere we learn by listening first,” says Dorsey. “Their way of doing it might be smaller in scale but it can teach us something we can use on a larger scale, and we’re always receptive to doing things differently.

“With Sulubaaï, it was absolutely its expertise. We just came in with the tech; the bricks and mortar to enable what it wanted. It was built all around what data its needs, where the divers need to be, how much of the reef it needed to measure, how expansive the area is, how we make it remote so it can be transferred reliably. It’s a platform that was customised around the problem.”

Plougastel agrees: “We are very keen to help countries that perhaps have more difficulty getting access to this kind of technology.

14

TECH FOR GOOD

HOW TO SAVE THE CORAL REEF

There’s always a fear that AI will do more evil than good, and my personal view is it’s good to have that fear because then you can watch for it” Patrick Dorsey

ISSUE 02

15

ENVIRONMENT

“As part of the project we want to educate as well, so we are planning on going into some schools in the Philippines to talk about the project to explain what we are doing, and why. For us, education is very important to what we do.”

Both men believe we’re only at the very beginning of AI’s impact on human life, but with that comes responsibility. Both acknowledge that there remains a pervading fear around its application, and 16

TECH FOR GOOD

Accenture has a dedicated Responsible AI team that works with clients on how AI can be used responsibly, and how it can be applied for the greater good.

“There’s always a fear that AI will do more evil than good, and my personal view is it’s good to have that fear because then you can watch for it,” says Dorsey. “On a policy level we’re very clear and principled on where AI can be used and how it should be used for

HOW TO SAVE THE CORAL REEF

good. I think COVID-19 has opened some eyes to how it can be used to be good, but you do have to be careful to do the right thing around the personal freedoms and liberties of people, and we take that very seriously.”

Using tech for social good can only accelerate its societal acceptance, and away from coral reefs both Intel and Accenture have been working on using AI in other socially responsible projects. Intel has im-

plemented AI in Kenya in the fight against illegal poaching, alerting park rangers when poachers are detected in real time.

It has also partnered with relief organisations around the world, including American Red Cross, using AI to improve disaster responses. It built a deep learning algorithm to accelerate the speeds of mapping using satellite imagery.

“We see AI as a big part of solving global issues,” says Dorsey. “Connectivity is also a big part of it, especially with 5G. How do we connect and get information flowing as close to real time as we can.

There’s a lot of network transforming happening and how we communicate overall from end points to the core network.”

Accenture is working with farmers in Indonesia to use AI to analyse crop photos taken by drones. This allows the farmer to gauge in real time which crops need more water, or need harvesting, and reduces wastage. Plougastel only sees these kinds of projects and partnerships, including CORaiL, becoming more common as AI is increasingly used for social good.

“We are at the beginning of it,” he says. “There is a huge potential to increase the use of AI in the coming years, and that’s why it’s important now to show that AI can be applied in the right way, and when it is applied correctly it can help make the planet a better place.”

ISSUE 02

17

SOCIAL GOOD

BETTER DATA SCIENCE, BETTER SOCIETIES

Ram Bala talks about the “algorithmic juice” that has enabled GetUsPPE to deliver two million PPE units across the United States during the COVID-19 crisis, and why he believes data science has a vital role in solving society’s biggest challenges AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer

I

n many instances, COVID-19 has shone a bright light on the goodness of people. With our backs against the wall, we have pulled together in different ways to support each other and navigate the colossal challenges thrown up by a pandemic.

One such challenge has been preparing our healthcare workers for the essential duties they continue to perform day-in, day-out, to stem this coronavirus. The supply of personal protective equipment, or PPE, has been a critical 18

TECH FOR GOOD

problem throughout the pandemic; as early as March 3rd, the World Health Organization was calling on industry and governments to increase PPE manufacturing by 40%.

Yet while PPE supply remains a complex issue even now, especially in the United States where a fresh surge of COVID-19 cases is putting further strain on healthcare systems, extraordinary stories of collaboration have emerged.

One example is the rapid rise of GetUsPPE (GetUsPPE.org).

BETTER DATA SCIENCE, BETTER SOCIETIES

ISSUE 02

19

SOCIAL GOOD

A lot of the leaders in this field were writing to say that, yes, there was inadequate supply of PPE, but it was also about the fact that even with the supply they had, they didn’t have the right ability to match that supply with the demand” Ram Bala

20

TECH FOR GOOD

GetUsPPE is a grassroots coalition of medical professionals, scientists, programmers and citizens, formed in the early stages of the pandemic to confront head on the PPE predicament in the U.S..

Initially created to solve an acute but short-term issue, GetUsPPE has grown into a considerable force for good, working alongside more than 12,000 hospitals and connecting PPE donors with those who need it most. It is a heartening tale of volunteers battling against the silent enemy of COVID-19.

Matching PPE supply with demand, however, is by no means a straightforward task. GetUsPPE has relied upon tailor-made technology to help it deliver more than two million PPE units nationally during the crisis. Ram Bala, the technological driving force for GetUsPPE and now a member of its advisory board, picks up the story.

“I got thrown into a Slack feed in late March and it was chaos!” says Bala with a chuckle. “You could see hundreds of people swarming on this problem, people who had never met each other and whose only knowledge of each other came through these online channels. They were all trying to solve the problem of supplying PPE to healthcare workers.”

Bala’s background and expertise meant he was the perfect person at the perfect time for GetUsPPE. Since com-

BETTER DATA SCIENCE, BETTER SOCIETIES

pleting a PhD in optimisation models and analytics related to market places and supply chains, Bala has combined an enviable academic career - he is currently an Associate Professor at Santa Clara’s Leavey School of Business with numerous ventures in supply chain and logistics.

He has made a career out of applying data science to drive new efficiencies in these fields, so it’s no surprise that the supply and demand issues faced

by GetUsPPE piqued Bala’s interest.

He talks about how supply “mismatching” is a common problem in similar economic models.

“In any distribution network, whether it’s PPE or not, the biggest challenges are the informational and logistical gaps which cause mismatches in supply and demand. Some people have too much, and some people have too little,” Bala explains to Tech For Good.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, I read newspaper articles about how there was going to be a shortage of PPE. Then a lot of the leaders in this field were writing to say that, yes, there was inadequate supply, but it was also about the fact that even with the supply they had, they didn’t have the right ability to match that supply with the demand.”

ISSUE 02

21

SOCIAL GOOD

With GetUsPPE, it was wonderful. They said ‘this is great, it’s going to work for us’. And they made it part of their workflow, and suddenly we were just seeing this incredible use of the algorithm” After posting on LinkedIn in March to offer his professional expertise, Bala was put in touch with GetUsPPE via a friend of a friend. GetUsPPE - co-founded by Megan Ranney, the emergency physician, Brown University professor and high-profile voice on the topic of PPE shortage was then kick-starting its mission but had a “primitive” database, according to Bala.

“You had two Google Sheets, one of supply and one of demand. Donors would say ‘this is how much we have’ and hospitals would say ‘this is what we need’. And they were just figuring out what the best way was to move the PPE around. The easiest way to do it is to say ‘hey, here’s this hospital close by’, but what if that hospital only wants 200 masks, and they have 400 masks? Why should they leave these masks there?

They should be sending them somewhere else.”

Using test data, Bala and his volunteer team got to work on a unique optimisation algorithm to solve GetUsPPE’s problem. In a short space of time, they 22

TECH FOR GOOD

turned it into a cloud-based service that GetUsPPE’s team members could benefit from straight away. The system generated an output that told them exactly how and where to move the PPE. Bala labelled the work “Project Stanley”, which quickly became the “algorithmic juice” that supported GetUsPPE in its transformation from a social media hashtag into a successful non-profit enterprise operating at national scale - and having a significant impact in the fight against COVID-19.

As the movement progressed quickly, the coders had access to more data critical, in the eyes of Bala - and have been able to refine the algorithm to deal with additional complexities.

“One challenge is geography, the United States is just a very big country,” says Bala. “Sometimes you have to solve problems where they may not be local - if a large donor comes in and has a million items, how do you move those?

“Then there is the entire bioethics area - how do you prioritise PPE based

BETTER DATA SCIENCE, BETTER SOCIETIES

on what kind of population the hospital serves? Or what the vulnerability of a specific area is? The model is now able to take into account some of these priorities, figuring exactly what the cost-benefit is in terms of where to move things effectively while maximising impact.

“Part of the problem, as with any application, is getting the right data. GetUsPPE probably at this point has the best supply and data in the United States, certainly demand data, in terms of what hospitals actually need.”

Bala speaks with great pride at the success of Project Stanley and is full of admiration for the work his colleagues at GetUsPPE have done in recent months. The experience has had such an impact on him personally that Bala’s new aim is to take Project Stanley and apply its technology and talent to other non-profit and humanitarian organisations.

Project Stanley has itself been incorporated as a non-profit in California, with a 501(c)(3) status pending, and Bala is adamant its cutting-edge approach to data science can help others tackle their supply chain, logistics and marketplace issues.

“Personally I was really surprised how successful it was,” he admits. “I didn’t

know whether it was going to get used or not, because I’ve been in the for-profit space as well, and sometimes you build things and adoption rates are low.

“With GetUsPPE, it was wonderful.

They said ‘this is great, it’s going to work for us’. And they made it part of their workflow, and suddenly we were just seeing this incredible use of the algorithm. So we kept enhancing it, and at that point the discussion in my own team became around the idea that this was something that could have wider applicability.”

ISSUE 02

23

SOCIAL GOOD

One use case Bala is particularly excited about is in food supply chains. Food and agriculture are normally big business in California - it is the leading U.S. state for cash farm receipts - but it is another sector that has been hit hard by COVID-19.

Through colleagues at Santa Clara University, Bala became acquainted with a member of San Jose’s newly-formed Resilience Council and learned that many of the city’s food banks were getting overwhelmed, with the food banks themselves finding it hard to predict how many locals would visit at any given time.

At the same time, many of California’s farms were seeing increasing amounts of food waste because demand in their own supply chains had fallen drastically.

Bala saw a similar opportunity to the one Project Stanley grasped with GetUsPPE. “The idea is to eventually come up with a predictive dashboard that will marry the demand for food with access points, so trying to measure where the gaps are and coming up with better metrics for managing that, and the dashboard will be open to anybody,” he explains.

“I think San Jose specifically needs it because in this pandemic, the county has told them to help the food banks.

But we’re not just thinking about this as a local thing. If we have a model that works for the Bay Area, I believe this mod24

TECH FOR GOOD

el can be expanded across the United States. We should have a national map of this which can be drilled down into.”

Project Stanley’s ambitions don’t stop there. Bala is engaged in a number of conversations with other non-profits in agriculture, education and healthcare, and in partnership with Manifolds Lab LLC, the Starling Lab at UT, Dallas and GetUsPPE, Project Stanley has submitted a grant proposal to IARPA for Project LOTUS (Logistics Optimized Transparently for Urgent Supply), an ambitious initiative focused on next-generation emergency logistics.

BETTER DATA SCIENCE, BETTER SOCIETIES

I see a revolution coming.

There are all these teams who are data and techsavvy, who are all looking at these datasets and asking if they can connect the dots and make more meaningful sense of what is happening? It’s an exciting time”

Bala even says he has been involved in “active discussions” around how the vast amounts of data at play could help combat some of society’s biggest issues.

“I see a revolution coming. There are all these teams who are data and tech-savvy, who are all looking at these datasets and asking if they can connect the dots and make more meaningful sense of what is happening? It’s an exciting time,” he concludes.

“For me, what’s been particularly heartening is the fact there has been so much investment of time from so many people

without much thought about how they’re going to make money out of it. Altruistic seems too strong a word, but people are more concerned with solving these problems than about what they’re going to make out of the end of it. That’s great - particularly in times of crisis, we need that. If we attach dollar value to everything, it’s hard to solve real problems of this kind.

“I just feel at a fundamental level, as the wealthiest country in the world, these are problems we should be able to solve.”

ISSUE 02

25

PUBLIC SECTOR

BRIDGING THE TECH STARTUP GAP For too long, the public sector has missed out on the innovation of technology startups. Chiara Carlini, Programmes Manager of tech accelerator PUBLIC, speaks about how startups have stepped up to the COVID-19 challenge, navigating the public sector procurement process and why governments should be increasingly looking to the technology startup ecosystem

AUTHOR: James Henderson

26

TECH FOR GOOD

BRIDGING THE TECH STARTUP GAP

ISSUE 02

27

PUBLIC SECTOR

N

ow, more than ever, governments should be looking at how they can leverage the potential of technology startups to help them tackle a range of public sector challenges - not least COVID-19. But, for startups, there are a number of barriers to market, and they often do not have the requisite knowledge in-house to navigate what can be an unwieldy and complex procurement process.

It is an issue that also leads to great frustration for government departments, unable to tap into some of the brightest minds in technology and help supercharge startups that have the potential to help solve some of its most pressing issues.

There is a recognition that whereas technology has changed pretty much every aspect of our private lives - from consuming media, to booking a holiday and making dinner reservations - it has been more difficult to transform public sector touch points. Progress is being made, but it is undeniably slower than it should be.

PUBLIC is a company that was established to address this very problem.

Daniel Korski, one of its co-founders, has gone on the record at the frustration he felt at not being able to adopt new ideas and benefit from cutting edge-technology and innovation offered by the tech startup space when he served as an adviser to David 28

TECH FOR GOOD

Keynotes

Cameron during the former PM’s time at 10 Downing Street.

Chiara Carlini, Programmes Manager at PUBLIC, tells Tech For Good: “Our understanding of governmental needs comes from direct experience; we meet so many startups that have great products and the potential to transform many aspects of government.

“But what they don’t know is who to approach, how to get in front of people and navigate what can be a really challenging procurement process for companies or individuals that don’t have experience of winning contracts or funding

BRIDGING THE TECH STARTUP GAP

Pictured: PUBLIC’s GovStart 2019 cohort outside 10 Downing Street

- that is a key reason for our existence.”

A company still in its relative infancy having been established in 2017, PUBLIC’s main interests are split into four distinct areas: its accelerator, which buys stakes in tech startups where it sees real potential develop and thrive in the public sector market; its company building team, which establishes businesses from scratch in areas PUBLIC sees no investment opportunities; its research team, which works with government on its tech needs and offers consultancy; and finally its events team, which, pre-COVID-19, brought together

startups, policy makers and investors in various locations across Europe.

To date, PUBLIC has worked with 36 companies from pre-seed to Series C across UK, France and Germany, helping them close £16 million in government contracts and raise £53 million in investment. Carlini says those numbers are helping to realise one of PUBLIC’s key ambitions - to change the perception of Govtech companies in the investor world.

“We really recognise the great potential in the Govtech market, which we expect to be worth around £20 billion by 2025 in the UK,” she says. “But, until very recently, ISSUE 02

29

PUBLIC SECTOR

©The Economist

traditional investors have been quite reticent to back companies that had a government customer, so we’ve made great efforts to educate the European investment community that this is a market that is coming to an inflection point.

“What we are now seeing is increasing numbers of investors putting their money into companies of this kind. We’ve seen companies securing major government contracts, others closing big funding rounds and we’ve seen some pretty remarkable exits.

“We realise that Govtech companies require a bit more patient capital compared with businesses operating in commercial markets, but they bring long-term returns combined with posi30

TECH FOR GOOD

tive impacts at scale, which is what we are interested in.”

A number of startups in PUBLIC’s stable have really come to the fore during the coronavirus pandemic, highlighting the importance of technology startups in the wider effort to fight against this and future public crises and their role in helping society get back on its feet.

Patchwork, a startup that has raised more than £3 million ($3.92 million) in funding since it was part of PUBLIC’s 2019 GovStart accelerator programme, is a great example of “positive impacts at scale”, having launched the London COVID-19 digital staff bank, enabling thousands of medical professionals to fill critical vacant shifts.

BRIDGING THE TECH STARTUP GAP

Elsewhere, fellow GovStart firm Adzuna partnered with the Office of National Statistics to run a real-time job vacancy index helping the UK government to make data-driven decisions to get people back into work. Adzuna is a real success-story for PUBLIC and a validation of its decision to work with startups that are perhaps further down the line in their evolution.

“Adzuna was already operating in different countries and turning over millions in revenue when they came to us to bid for a particular government contract that it was really excited about,” Carlini says.

“The company had been really successful in the private sector but didn’t know much about how to approach the public sector so we helped them win a £2.5 million per annum contract with the Department of Work & Pensions, which is one of the biggest contracts won by a startup in the public sector market. They now power the government job board, Universal Jobmatch which is really exciting.

“It is a difficult process to go from identifying opportunities to executing them and startups often require support, but it is great to help them make a real impact.”

At the other end of the spectrum, PUBLIC is also prepared to work with companies that have little more than an idea - as long as it is an outstanding one with the potential to scale. One such pitch came

We really recognise the great potential in the Govtech market, which we expect to be worth around £20 billion by 2025 in the UK” Chiara Carlini

ISSUE 02

31

PUBLIC SECTOR

Coronavirus has forced the government to consider more agile approaches and adopt innovative solutions offered by startups” from Flynotes, which applied to be part of the programme on the back of a vision to streamline the problem of medical consent faced by doctors in clinical practices.

“In healthcare, any time a procedure or surgery takes place, details are taken down on paper, which has the potential for things to go wrong, and Flyynotes had what we thought was a really exciting way to digitise that process,” says Carlini. “We helped them build a product, hire the right people and it was able to raise £550,000 and close some key partnerships with major medical and dental providers.”

The raft of startups helping public sector departments to navigate the pandemic is leading the government to rethink their approach to technology startups and is proof positive of startups’ ability to be more adaptable and flexible compared with bigger organisations that are often weighed down by bureaucracy and red tape, says Carlini.

“Coronavirus has forced the government to consider more agile approaches and adopt innovative solutions of32

TECH FOR GOOD

fered by startups,” she says. “The share of startups being utilised by the government has definitely increased in just a few months, and we hope this momentum will continue.

“The reason the government is keen to work with startups is that many companies that we meet offer great tech that is really secure, scalable, brilliantly designed and meets the needs of citizens. In many cases, startups also bring cost efficiencies and, finally, they bring a new organisational culture that is perfect for the modern economy.”

With PUBLIC’s GovStart 2020 programme closing to applications on August 16, Carlini and her colleagues are taking a particular interest in startups focussing on the likes of self-monitoring and self-management of COVID-19 conditions, mental health technology, and rehabilitation tools. It is also looking for tech that addresses training and skills initiatives for those who have lost their jobs during the crisis, and data mobility tech to help make better informed public transport decisions.

BRIDGING THE TECH STARTUP GAP

“We have a real interest in big data, and we believe any policy makers in the public sector space should be taking advantage of big data platforms,” she says.“In areas like transport in the UK, authorities are increasingly utilising sophisticated data analytics platforms to simulate and predict mobility patterns with a goal to implement more efficient and smarter transport networks.”

Concurrently, PUBLIC is running a GovStart initiative in Berlin. “We think Europe is a great place for the Govtech programme and we are confident that the best solutions can be scaled across European countries because of the similarities,” says Carlini.

“We have worked with companies that have scaled internationally, taking advantage of our European presence and we are definitely looking at expanding the model into other European countries.”

Building out its European footprint, PUBLIC has been commissioned by the Danish government to run GovTech-Program Denmark - a challenge-based programme to find technologies for the Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs and the Agency for Digitisation.

According to the UN, Denmark is the leading country in the world when it comes to public digitisation, and its government has made it a priority to drive home that advantage by further

ISSUE 02

33

PUBLIC SECTOR

We have a real interest in big data, and we believe any policy makers in the public sector space should be taking advantage of big data platforms�

34

TECH FOR GOOD

BRIDGING THE TECH STARTUP GAP

strengthening the collaboration between public authorities and tech companies.

Carlini is adamant that all governments should be looking to improve relations with their technology startup ecosystems, and outlines a three-point plan that she believes would help startups thrive and play a central role in transforming the public sector.

“Firstly, given the pandemic and these times we live in, the government should support the startup ecosystem from a financial point of view,” she says. “The Future Fund and all of the Innovate UK grants are a great starting point, but it is important that startups can thrive in difficult times.

“Number two - make sure that startups can make a difference at scale in citizens’ lives. It is key that decision makers ensure there are more avenues and opportunities for startups to get involved with government problems and that this engagement turns into commercial activities that they can pursue.

“Finally, for digital transformations to be fully embraced in the public sector, governments should promote a digital culture within its workforce.”

ISSUE 02

35

EXPERT INSIGHT

EXPERT INSIGHT: UNLOCKING THE LOCKDOWN Frances Sneddon, data scientist and CTO at Simul8, explores how digital simulation can provide the crystal ball that businesses need after COVID-19

H

ow do you loosen a lockdown?

It is a challenge that governments and businesses across the globe are grappling with as they attempt to balance the necessity of kickstarting economies with the necessity of protecting people and productivity from the coronavirus pandemic.

Organisations will need to revisit their risk assessments and carry out an entirely new set of analyses to consider how previously run-of-the-mill processes and practices might need to be updated. While containing the further spread of COVID-19 is non-negotiable, opening things up again will require compromises at every turn, finding a workable balance of safety and productivity.

36

TECH FOR GOOD

FRANCES SNEDDON

Social distancing, cleaning and hygiene practices, the number of staff on the premises at any one time, shift patterns – this is where the list of new considerations begins. What happens in the event that we reach a point where everyone entering the workspace needs to be tested for coronavirus symptoms?

Add to this the wider interconnectivity of daily working needs, from customer interactions to managing supply chains, sharing workspaces with other businesses, controlling the flow of people against transport and infrastructure dependencies, and suddenly the ramifications of any changes begin to multiply.

Digital simulation tools could be a crucial piece of the puzzle, helping businesses to rapidly test out the effects of different alterations to their workflows in a risk-free environment before putting them into practice.

Simulating possible outcomes With so many possible knock-on effects when implementing the guidelines necessary to control the spread of the virus, finding the optimum work-arounds to continue any semblance of business-as-usual will likely need some experimentation. Experimentation, however, comes with risk.

By eliminating the risks involved in trial and error, simulation lends itself perfectly to adapting to the new world order where

Digital simulation tools could be a crucial piece of the puzzle, helping businesses to rapidly test out the effects of different alterations to their workflows in a risk-free environment�

COVID-19 remains a threat. This rapid, predictive technology will offer a new level of preparedness.

Process simulation software uses animated, interactive models to replicate the operation of an existing or proposed production system. It enables organisations to analyse system efficiency and safely test process changes to improve throughput and profitability. It is used for evaluating things such as a manufacturing plant layout, setting up or reconfiguring production lines, routing calls through a complex contact centre or optimising staffing resources.

It offers powerful capabilities to positively influence and streamline the continuity of the customer journey and experience. Marginal gains in processes such as systemised warehousing, seasonal stock levels and delivery infrastructure ISSUE 02

37

EXPERT INSIGHT

management can all be simulated to achieve greater cumulative advantages in competitive sales environments.

Using a drag and drop interface, you can quickly build a virtual representation of an existing or proposed system, similar to drawing a flowchart. The simulation can then be used to highlight problems, experiment with process changes and run a range of ‘what-if’ scenarios.

This allows you to find solutions that will deliver the best results without risk to current production output or capital investment. Decision-making confidence will quickly rise as risk factors decrease.

Simulations can answer questions you didn’t ask and provide solutions you didn’t know you needed. They can

38

TECH FOR GOOD

teach you how to learn from mistakes you haven’t yet made and optimise processes in ways you never imagined.

Data-led decision-making In order to make appropriate decisions around these issues – decisions that will strike the right balance between productivity and safety – organisations need to work with tangible data. But at a time when whole new precedents are being set, past data will have its limitations in informing the decisions of this new world order – and incorrect decisions will pose actual threats to human life.

There is little room for trial and error.

This is where digital simulation tools can be truly invaluable. These AI-driven

FRANCES SNEDDON

Every business can benefit from testing the viability, sustainability and ultimately profitability of a proposed change or improvement” systems learn quickly with cumulative predictive data facilitating a powerful feedback loop.

Digital simulations offer means of testing multiple different possible outcomes quickly, cost-effectively – and crucially, without risk. Questions about staff resourcing, stock controls, waiting times, supply chain management – anything where you can create a flow chart to analyse different outcomes is suitable for digital simulation.

Every business can benefit from testing the viability, sustainability and ultimately profitability of a proposed change or improvement. Typically, modelling occurred after a build, now it’s possible to predict productivity advances and advantages before. Decision-making processes are empowered by an improved level of realism and predictability.

Setting a new throughput target to meet an increase in production demand – when launching a new model car, for example – will require an audit of current lines to see where the daily production rate can be increased. One manufactur-

er has done just that, using simulation software to study its line speed when it was tasked with improving one of its plants’ daily production rate from 930 to 969 vehicles.

This example revealed that two specific stations were causing bottlenecks and slowing throughput. Attention could then be focused on correcting and optimising those stations to speed up the lines without disrupting the rest of the process. The result of this focused optimisation enabled the manufacturer to meet its target of producing an extra 39 units per day, which equated to an extra $1 million in revenue per day. The simulation provided the evidence needed to fast-track this critical decision, in the end with a relatively simple solution.

While this example demonstrates the benefits of proactively optimising production lines under normal circumstances, the elimination of risk, especially where safety is concerned, makes the use of simulation even more vital as a tool to help navigate to more normalised services in a COVID-19 world.

ISSUE 02

39

EDUCATION

Democratising education The founder of free education platform Alison, Mike Feerick, tells Tech For Good about the people who have inspired him, how education has to change and why free online learning will prove to be one of the biggest disruptors of our time AUTHOR: James Henderson

A

fter graduating from Ireland’s University of Limerick and at the age of 23, Mike Feerick found himself in a unique situation. He had a standing offer from Harvard to join its MBA programme, but at the time he was deemed too young. In its own words, Harvard wanted to see Feerick go out into the world and “do something interesting” for 18 months and then attend school.

Born in New York City, Feerick was brought up in Limerick City before moving to rural East Galway, which he now calls home. Considering his options, he wrote 40

TECH FOR GOOD

a letter to Chuck Feeney, outlining why he wanted to work with him and promising that he would create meaningful employment in the West of Ireland after he graduated.

As learning trees go, they don’t come much better than Feeney, the Irish-American businessman and philanthropist, and the founder of The Atlantic Philanthropies, one of the largest private foundations in the world. To date, he has donated around $8 billion - his entire fortune - and is known for his

DEMOCRATISING EDUCATION

ISSUE 02

41

EDUCATION

frugal lifestyle, living in a modest rented home and not owning a car.

Feerick received a call from him the day after he posted the letter, offering him the chance of an 18-month internship during which he travelled around the world. The two remain friends to this day.

“The only reason he agreed was because I had the offer letter from Harvard,” Feerick recalls with a laugh. “He really instilled within me that idea that you can’t take money with you when you’re gone, so if you want to truly help people, do it while alive, and better still, use the best years of your professional life to do so.

Don’t wait.”

After graduating from Harvard, Feerick was good to his word, returning after three years in London to Ireland, firstly

42

TECH FOR GOOD

with the franchise rights to JFAX Ireland (sold to Esat telecom in 1999), and then as CEO and founder of a web-based unified messaging telecoms provider, Yac. com, which was sold to Nasdaq-listed J2 Global Communications in 2007.

The year 2007 proved to be significant in Feerick’s life, not just because of the sale of Yac, but also because it was the year he launched Alison as a for-profit social enterprise, having previously developed an e-learning sub-contracting business for Microsoft called Advance Learning. The vision was clear: to make learning accessible for all for free.

Alison is generally considered as the pioneer of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which today is a flourishing industry attracting serious interest and

DEMOCRATISING EDUCATION

My passion for opening up education and knowledge for all came from thinking about how I, one person, could best enable real change” investment from some of the biggest names in technology. A recent sector analysis by ResearchAndMarkets projected that the value of the MOOC market will grow from $3.9 billion in 2018 to $20.8 billion by 2023.

In isolation, Alison can boast some pretty extraordinary figures of its own with 16 million registered learners, nearly 3 million graduates and almost 2,000 online courses to choose from, ranging from dog grooming and food preparation to courses on computer networking and DevOps engineering.

Alison alumni includes graduates from 195 of the world’s 197 countries as by the United Nations.

“My passion for opening up education and knowledge for all came from thinking about how I, one person, could best enable real change and make a meaningful difference for as many people around the world as possible in my lifetime,” says Feerick. “I realised that the best way to

do that was to democratise access to education and learning.

“New technologies presented social entrepreneurs like me with new tools no one ever had before, and for those of us who understood the possibilities, we had a responsibility to utilise these technologies to improve society. That for me is the very essence of tech for good.

“Nelson Mandela said that “education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world” and those words are absolutely true.”

Alison’s courses are free to all, but the company is very much a business, supported by two separate revenue sources: advertising and graduates buying certificates, both of which Feerick is keen to justify.

“We accept advertising in so many walks of our lives, whether it be on the television, the radio or other media mediums, many of which live online,” he says. “Advertising is all around us so ISSUE 02

43

EDUCATION

COVID-19 is speeding up what is happening anyway, and universities to survive will have to adapt”

there is no reason at all that it shouldn’t be used in education.

“If you’re on the site and looking at a computer course, you might see an advert for an American university trying to get you to look at their course on the subject. The money spent on that advert is covering the cost for hundreds of people gaining access to knowledge that they would not have had previously. I love the equity of advertising in that respect.

“With certifications, graduates like to buy them for different reasons. Sometimes, our graduates want to put something on their wall because they are 44

TECH FOR GOOD

proud of the work they’ve put in. There are other economies and markets where potential employers ask to see them as part of a job application.

“However, many buy them simply to support the platform and as an acknowledgement that they’ve spent 15 or 20 hours using Alison to improve their skills, and they also want to keep this service thriving for those who genuinely can’t afford to pay.”

The data that Alison holds is a goldmine and helps Feerick and his team to monitor and evolve the site’s selection of courses, and how they are struc-

DEMOCRATISING EDUCATION

tured. Data has guided the team when it comes to the length of each course - Certificate Courses takes two to three hours to complete, Diploma Courses eight to 10 hours, and Learning Paths 18 to 20 hours.

“We could see that after about two hours of study, people were looking for a pat on the back, as was the case after around 10 hours, so that has helped inform us on the length of our courses,” says Feerick. “We know that some people love to speak about completion rates, but it is a red herring because what we are offering is free. People

come in, have a look about and leave, as they would do in a shop.

“However, we know that when a user completes seven minutes, the percentage that go on to complete a course shoots up to 35%, which is incredible when you consider that users can give up at any point and it costs them nothing.

“You see some universities and colleges trying to say that free online learning has completion rates of 2%. That is just not true. In fact, using AI, we are getting better and better at understanding our learners needs, and completion rates are steadily increasing. There is a big story here waiting to be told.”

Alison has rolled out a new feature that will help take its datasets to the next level, says Feerick. At the beginning of July, it introduced the first in a new line of Psychometric Evaluations, with Workplace Personality Assessment to help users better understand which career paths were suited to their skills and psyche.

The assessment highlights workplace strengths, as well as pinpointing your weaknesses and directing users to the relevant Alison courses that will help you address them. More than 10,000 evaluations were completed the week after they went live on Alison.

“I am hugely excited about the introduction of Psychometric Evaluations to ISSUE 02

45

EDUCATION

Alison,” says Feerick. “How often do you hear people talking about how they have, or had, no idea what they wanted to do or what their skills were suited for until they were in their 30s or 40s?

“What this is going to do is allow individuals to understand where they have innate strengths, and also weaknesses that they can work on. With remote learning, companies need other ways to evaluate staff, and this is one costless and insightful way of doing so.

“I see so much potential with using our data from these tests, and pointing people to the courses that suit them and how we can work with the recruitment world to help fill all of these positions in industries where we have real skills gaps.”

With COVID-19, Feerick says the world 46

TECH FOR GOOD

of work is about to change dramatically. “Within Alison, we have 100 staff with all but six working remotely around the world in over 25 countries. Remote working, now on steroids with the COVID-19 crisis, opens up the world to us for talent, with the majority now based in developing nations.

“As our international base grows, so does our Irish base too but our international expansion enables that. It is another part of the social impact we have – enabling smart, hard-working people in less developed economies to be part of an international team”.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, and people retreating into their homes, the landscape of higher education has changed dramatically, at least for the short-term.

DEMOCRATISING EDUCATION

Feerick’s old stomping ground, Harvard, has come in for criticism for announcing that all of its undergraduate courses will be online-only for the 2020-21 academic year.

Many are questioning the logic of paying for the kudos of a Harvard education, but only experiencing it from behind a computer screen, Feerick being one of them. And he believes that the pandemic will accelerate a trend away from traditional higher education where you live on campus for up to four years.

“It’s funny that you mention Harvard, because I wouldn’t have wanted to go there if I couldn’t meet all these like-minded people, to share ideas and share a beer with all of these great minds after lectures,” he says. “That is a huge part of the experience and one of

the key benefits and main reasons people want to go to Harvard.

“COVID-19 is speeding up what is happening anyway, and universities to survive will have to adapt. They used to be these centres of learning and knowledge, but with the internet and online learning, their genie is out of the bottle and there is just no way they are going to survive in their present state. At the very high-end and with highly technical learning that needs to be hands-on, they will be successful, but there is just no need for thousands of courses to be taught at universities.

“If a young person is considering paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to study, my advice would be to think extremely carefully about whether you

ISSUE 02

47

EDUCATION

need to do that. Unless your course is really specific or technical, you’re better off learning online and combining that with the experiences that come with traveling and working.”

Now in his 50s and settled in Ireland with his family - “I love working from home, I’m completely happy with it and being around family”, he says - and with Alison now 13 years old, you could forgive Feerick for beginning to consider 48

TECH FOR GOOD

his exit plan, but he’s having none of it.

“I honestly believe we are just getting started,” he says, leaning into the camera as he does. “Very recently we became the busiest Irish-based/owned website worldwide, overcoming the traditional number one, Ryanair, in the process. There is so much we can do now that we couldn’t do previously that is just going to take us to the next level, especially with the possibilities of what

DEMOCRATISING EDUCATION

Charles De Gaulle once said: ‘always bet on the inevitable’ and I believe we are part of the inevitable and part of that change”

we can do with the data we have agreed to access.

“I’ve been asking governments for years to just give me 10 minutes of their time, because I know there is a better way to spend learning and education budgets. Traditional universities and skills training providers have the ear of politicians, and it is hard for even the most insightful and assertive of politicians to see innovation is passing these providers out, and taxpayers money is now being very poorly spent given the alternatives available.”

Feerick says the day is dawning when governments will entirely with-

draw from financially supporting education and training beyond that provided to young people up to 18 years of age. “That day cannot come soon enough. Billions of dollars are being wasted worldwide. Everyone knows it, but few are incentivised to change that system. We will change it, but it’s going to take a while.

“Charles De Gaulle once said: ‘always bet on the inevitable’ and I believe we are part of the inevitable and part of that change. Free online education for all on every subject, at every level, in any language, is going to be one of the biggest disruptors of our time.”

ISSUE 02

49

HEALTHCARE

50

TECH FOR GOOD

SCRATCHING THE ITCH

SCRATCHING THE ITCH As the open source community mobilised to support the efforts against COVID-19, OpenTechResponse developed a brand-new tool that has helped coordinate and focus the movement. Now, it is hoping the tool will be at the forefront of all future global disaster responses AUTHOR: Stuart Hodge

ISSUE 02

51

HEALTHCARE

T

here’s no better way of describing the traditional ethos behind the open source movement than using the ‘itch-to-scratch’ analogy, coined by Eric S. Raymond in his 1997 essay ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar’.

In that text, Raymond, a former president of the Open Source Initiative, lists the first of 19 “lessons” he identified for creating open source software as: “Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer’s personal itch.”

But what if the itch was global? What if the world became engulfed in a pandemic, leaving talented individuals around the globe at a loss as to how they could help?

Step forward OpenTechResponse, which was launched to provide the scratch for that global itch with its new matchmaking tool.

At its heart, OpenTechResponse (OTR) is a collaboration initiative with the goal of removing silos across open projects, whether software, hardware or data. It helps likeminded people find each other, improves communication between them and brings together projects with volunteers who want to help.

OTR facilitates that overarching purpose by using, building and developing tools, and the innovative matchmaking tool it has launched provides a simple and user-friendly way for projects to collaborate in response to not only COVID-19, but 52

TECH FOR GOOD

any disaster situation. The team behind it are now putting out a call to action for projects and volunteers to jump onboard with the new tool.

As you would expect from a project of this ilk, a huge spread of expert contributors have been involved across the globe, and the idea sprung from a phone call between the CEO of nonprofit organisation OpenUK, Amanda Brock, and a group of other big-hitters in the open source community. These included Danese Cooper, who is now president at the InnerSource Commons Foundation, along with Jacob Green, founder of Mosslabs.io, a nonprofit which grew out of John Hopkins University – the nucleus of academic medical

SCRATCHING THE ITCH

research in the United States which, notably, is also the source of the extensively-used COVID-19 data dashboard.

Together, they discussed the rapid responses they had seen from the open communities across the globe to the pandemic. They also identified a common problem: multiple projects were springing up in isolation, without coordination, doing the same thing – essentially, many teams were going off to scratch the same itches rather than working together.

Green, an expert in bringing interdisciplinary teams together, spun up a Slack channel to facilitate information exchange between projects and

The nature of people who want to collaborate in this way is such that they want to do what is perceived – by them at least ­– as ‘the right thing’. Given that, we were completely unsurprised to see a huge, huge volume of responses” Amanda Brock

ISSUE 02

53

HEALTHCARE

collaborators to help make them aware of each other. As he did that, Brock started reaching out to potential contributors and within a couple of days over 150 people were on the channel sharing projects, breaking down those silos, reducing proliferation. Additionally, the new environment also offered the opportunity for projects to request help from others with specific areas of expertise they needed – anything from software or hardware development to creating documentation and translation or governance.

“The open source movement is made up of people who I believe want to make the best software or hardware in the world,” says former lawyer Brock, a thought leader who writes and speaks prolifically on open source topics.

54

TECH FOR GOOD

“They’re very focused on fixing issues through that and collaboration, so they’re used to working with people in open projects, both on their own time and through their businesses and employment.

“The nature of people who want to collaborate in this way is such that they want to do what is perceived – by them at least ­– as ‘the right thing’. Given that, we were completely unsurprised to see a huge, huge volume of responses.”

Due to the level of need and the volume and quality of responses, the requirement was there to have a more efficient means of connecting projects and volunteers. One of the companies Brock reached out to was OpenTeams, whose purpose is to make engagement easier for companies who provide services, software and training around open source

SCRATCHING THE ITCH

and try to better support the whole open source ecosystem.

David Charboneau, OpenTeams co-founder and CTO, described receiving Brock’s approach looking for a matchmaking tool as feeling like “a breath of fresh air” and says: “We recognised immediately the value of what they were proposing and we were just really excited. It seemed like such a great opportunity to help out and it felt like we actually had something of value to provide.

“We’ve got 20,000 people on the [OpenTeams] platform already and we’re trying to grow it further and we’re building up skills profiles – so we’ve got the people with the skills and the data, as well as the projects and the infrastructure. It was just a case of connecting them together in a way that people can say ‘I want to volunteer’ and projects and organisations can say ‘we need volunteers’.

“We were very sensitive to the community’s need to have open source alternatives to Slack for interaction, so we set up some Element [previously Riot.im] discussion channels which were bridged with Slack. We went to Helpy. io for a help desk and we reached out to Discourse.org to set up a discussion area. Then, from that, there’s a core of four-to-six of us that meet twice a week.

“We started discussing ‘what is a tool that would be really helpful to the commu-

nity?’ and that’s what got the matchmaking tool underway; discussions around what the community culturally needs.

OpenTechResponse isn’t performing any specific response, we’re building a tool to support those responses.”

A small development team working out of OpenTeams’ partner company Quansight, each of whom Charboneau was keen to individually express his gratitude to, then worked quickly to put together an initial implementation of the tool to roll out.

Two different flows are built in depending on which side you’re approaching things from. The volunteer flow allows individuals to make their skills known and declare themselves available, which is then reflected with a ‘raised hand’ badge on

ISSUE 02

55

HEALTHCARE

We’ve got the people with the skills and the data, as well as the projects and the infrastructure. It was just a case of connecting them together in a way that people can say ‘I want to volunteer’ and projects and organisations can say ‘we need volunteers’” David Charboneau

56

TECH FOR GOOD

SCRATCHING THE ITCH

ISSUE 02

57

HEALTHCARE

TACKLING A GLOBAL CHALLENGE Among the organisations that participated in the OpenTechResponse movement at an early stage was none other than NASA. The space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory had created an open ventilator design and shared it with collaborators. NASA’s Chris Mattmann Ph.D is Division Manager, Artificial Intelligence, Analytics and Innovative Development Organization at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and he gives an insight into how OpenTechResponse is helping the fight against the pandemic What made you decide to collaborate?

When COVID-19 hit, our Chief Information Officer Randi Levin had the idea to produce Personal Protective Equipment [PPE] since there was an incoming shortage and local hospitals were in contact with the Vice President of Caltech and others at JPL with their need. Our team in the Information Technology and Solutions Directorate [ITSD] has worked collaboratively with JPL Mechanical Engineers and 3D printing personnel and even purchased the first 3D printers for those personnel years ago at the laboratory. The first thing we had to do was to figure out how to pro-

58

TECH FOR GOOD

duce the respirators without disrupting the medical supply chain and by using household supplies and parts like HEPA filters repurposed from commercial vacuums. Then we had to make 3D designs that could hold these vacuums and that would hold up to particle testing on commercial grade machines.

Explain to us the role you played with regards to the 3D respirators and how they can help?

Randi Levin had the idea for the respirators, and I worked with the team of engineers, scientists, and Office of Safety Personnel to design, fabricate, and test and

SCRATCHING THE ITCH

record the results from our testing. I also helped to put folks in touch with doctors and other personnel, including helping to test those designs with front-line responders. I also led the development of the 3D respirator open source website and worked with our media personnel and others on the team to get the word out. The designs are open source and taking off, many in the community are printing their own PPE and using them to help responders in their local areas.

How excited are you about OpenTechResponse as a movement?

We believe in open source, and with the world all facing the same challenges with this pandemic and with everyone at home, efforts to bring people together towards common good like OpenTechResponse are excellent and we are happy to contribute to them.

their profile to make them visible to projects. The project flow, on the other hand, allows for those managing one to build a profile and describe what they need, with the facility to put out as many calls for volunteers as and when they need to. Given the rush to release OTR in response to the pandemic, Charboneau says he doesn’t have any concerns over how robust the current version of the product is.

“I feel good that we have the ability to do the matches and connect people with projects that need their skills – and connect projects who have people with the skills they need,” he says. “If you need hardware skills, or software skills, management skills, you can put these out to as many people as you need to – but all within one greater project. It’s a little bit of an early iteration and I think we’ve got a long way to go but I think we’re good enough to use right now, although I want to make a lot of improvements over time; I’m never satisfied!”

With a plethora of individuals sharing that same tireless attitude and working collectively to ensure this tool is a success, the potential of OpenTechResponse seems boundless.

Patrick McFadin, VP of Developer Relations at DataStax and another one of the volunteers, shares that vision. Again, his involvement was a product of Brock’s call to action and it was he who saw the ISSUE 02

59

HEALTHCARE

There are now over 20 million software developers in the world, this is the fastestgrowing field right now, probably ever, and it’s because we’re building the future. Why wouldn’t we tap into that massive reservoir of incredible knowledge?”

Patrick McFadin

60

TECH FOR GOOD

potential for the project to respond not just to the COVID-19 pandemic but any potential disaster across the world.

“Whenever something terrible happens there are a whole lot of people in tech – and this is in hardware, software, you name it, even in biomedical [science] now – that are left feeling helpless,” McFadin, a self-professed ‘open-source zealot’, says. “People who are like, ‘I have knowledge and I don’t know where to put it. I want to do something besides offer my opinion on Facebook or Twitter’. Whenever we watch a tsunami, for example, on the news, and you see a bunch of helpless people, what do you do? Do you donate money? A lot of people just want to put their hands to something.

“Tapping into that group of people and giving them something that lets them do that is really the key. It’s helping respond to a disaster, but it’s also giving people an outlet, a purpose. It’s the emotion of ‘wow, I could actually do something’. This is an opportunity for us to create a different kind of feeling in the world instead of keeping it hyperlocal. I’m not filling sandbags to stop flooding around my house.

I could actually help somebody in Indonesia, or in Africa, or in Italy. If that sense of community is really popular, or it feels very purposeful, that’s very exciting.”

Although McFadin’s involvement, by his own admission, has been as more of

SCRATCHING THE ITCH

an advisor at this stage, his experience with databases – particularly as an early adopter of Apache Cassandra – means his role may become greater as the number of volunteers and projects grows.

He hopes OpenTechResponse will become the first port of call for anyone wishing to volunteer their skills when responding to a crisis. He is adamant there is a huge network of highly-skilled individuals waiting for the kind of opportunity this tool will help develop by allowing projects to come together and coordinate overall disaster responses cohesively and effectively.

“The potential applications, that’s the most exciting part,” he says. “What we’re trying to do is create a place where those ideas which need to happen when they need to happen, will. Or,

at least, we give them a chance.

“There are now over 20 million software developers in the world, this is the fastestgrowing field right now, probably ever, and it’s because we’re building the future. Why wouldn’t we tap into that massive reservoir of incredible knowledge?

“I want this to become part of, or become the first thing, that’s thought about in terms of how the world responds to any disaster or crisis. I’m passionate about open source because I think things are better when people do them together. My colleague Sam Ramji has this great quote [citing an old proverb] where he says: ‘To go fast, go alone. To go far, go together’.

“That sums up exactly what we’re aiming to do here.”

ISSUE 02

61

LEADERSHIP

TIME TO TRANSFORM

Business leaders must aggressively tackle climate change and drive cleantech and data initiatives to save the world, believes entrepreneur and sustainability champion Karl Feilder AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer

K

arl Feilder opens our conversation with an unexpected revelation. He has been busy during lockdown, but busy in a way you might not expect: he and his fellow band members have been putting the finishing touches to their debut album.

Feilder is the frontman for Sandstörm, the aptly-named Dubai-based classic rock group. His sideline as a vocalist provides welcome escapism from a demanding day job, which he describes in simple terms as “trying to save the planet”. More on that later.

To combine a band hobby, however, with work as CEO of Neutral Fuels - the largest group of cleantech fuel facilities 62

TECH FOR GOOD

in the GCC - requires a certain personality type, and without doubt demonstrates a searing entrepreneurial spirit.

And Feilder is all about the power of entrepreneurship.

The purpose of his interview with Tech For Good is for us to hear Feilder’s ideas around climate change, technology and business, and his belief that entrepreneurs hold the key to preventing economic extinction in the face of the climate emergency.

TIME TO TRANSFORM

ISSUE 02

63

LEADERSHIP

At this point, the world’s entrepreneurs are needed to innovate new tech solutions for climate change” His book, Taking Exception, explores this idea in depth. But first, how would Feilder define an “entrepreneur”?

“Entrepreneurs want to build their own private kingdoms. And they get up every single morning and want to change the world,” he says. “We can be strange people but some of us can make big differences as long as we’re pointed in the right direction, helped along, recognise our own weaknesses and are successfully funded.”

Feilder would know, having forged a notable career as a tech entrepreneur over the past three decades. Prior to founding The Neutral Group in 2007, and Neutral Fuels in 2010, he helped build and sell five startups. His first, Network Managers, was bought by Microsoft in 64

TECH FOR GOOD

1995, and Neutral Services was acquired

by Deutsche Post DHL in 2009.

But by his own admission, Feilder eventually “had enough” of tech’s startup landscape. He refocused his goals with The Neutral Group, and if his experiences in the 13 years since have taught him anything, it’s that today’s technology leaders have an enormous responsibility to stem the environmental and economic consequences of climate change.

“In the next 20 years, we’ve got to reinvent the global economy,” Feilder stresses, referencing the startling 2018 conclusion from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “There’s such a huge challenge in front of us in order to get the planet to a point where we can actually continue our existence. At this point, the world’s entrepreneurs are needed to innovate new tech solutions for climate change.

“In my opinion we should not be investing in any other tech at the moment.

If you’ve got a technology which is not aimed at solving a sustainability challenge, then the pressure on your business is going to be immense because the only thing we’re going to be doing soon is trying to fix this issue. We have 20 years to keep our planet less than two-and-a-half degrees above pre-industrial levels. And every year we’re going in the wrong direction.”

TIME TO TRANSFORM

Neutral Fuels converts waste cooking oil into biodiesel for trucks, buses and generators

These are striking assessments, and thoughts Feilder passes on in another of his roles, that of a mentor to business leaders at the Hult International Business School in Dubai and San Francisco. He is clearly bristling with passion and concern on this topic, and has made it one of his professional quests to open the eyes of the next generation to these problems.

Right now, however, businesses are confronting a myriad of difficulties as they emerge from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic. A recent report from PwC suggested that companies should have five strategic priorities post-COV-

ID-19 - and sustainability initiatives weren’t included. Instead, PwC focused on sharpening productivity and “supercharging” digital transformation.

Feilder unsurprisingly adopts the counter-argument and makes the business case for “green” investments, while also emphasising his belief that living through COVID-19 has actually awakened many leaders to macro-issues like climate change.

“I see usefulness coming out of COVID-19, I see a focus of humanity on things that are more important in life,” he says. “Anything that’s being invested into a non-cleantech world at the ISSUE 02

65

LEADERSHIP

In my opinion we should not be investing in any other tech at the moment. If you’ve got a technology which is not aimed at solving a sustainability challenge, then the pressure on your business is going to be immense because the only thing we’re going to be doing soon is trying to fix this issue”

66

TECH FOR GOOD

TIME TO TRANSFORM

ISSUE 02

67

LEADERSHIP

moment is just missing the point. The target market, which for any innovation is humanity, has got to look at the current macroeconomic environment. And now it is about the survival of our way of life. We’ve had a great wake-up call with COVID-19, but it is nothing compared with climate change.

“I don’t see it as investing in sustainability, I just see it as making better decisions. But the first move is also not to do bad stuff; don’t invest in coal products, we should be out of fossil fuels, we should be away from petrochemicals.

Then the second move is to proactively go and do good stuff.”

For an example of his theories in practice, Feilder doesn’t have to look far.

When he set up The Neutral Group, he viewed it as a bridge between the tech-

68

TECH FOR GOOD

nology that could help organisations become more sustainable, and the organisations themselves, often unwieldy multinationals burdened by size and long-held ideas and processes.

In their work with Deutsche Post DHL, Feilder’s team achieved some astounding results, driving cost efficiencies, improving profitability and, most tellingly, making the company greener. It deployed software to measure fuel consumption in 200,000 vehicles and monitor 13,500 office buildings, completing previously manual tasks in rapid time.

The Neutral Group went on to work with similarly-sized organisations, one of which was McDonald’s. It was from this relationship that Neutral Fuels was born, and Feilder picks up the story.

TIME TO TRANSFORM

We’ve had a great wake-up call with COVID-19, but it is nothing compared with climate change” “We worked with McDonald’s for five years on their sustainability strategy in 37 countries, and one of the things that came out of that was that McDonald’s could be self-sufficient in fuel if they could convert all of their waste cooking oil into biofuel,” he explains.

“We fixed that in the first year, and for the last nine years McDonald’s in the UAE [United Arab Emirates] has been running on 100% biofuel for their entire truck fleet.

And we’ve taken that into other countries.

We’ve recently opened in Delhi, in Bahrain, and we’re about to open our second UAE factory in Abu Dhabi.”

Neutral Fuels has gone on to work with a host of McDonald’s’ supply chain partners, and in 2019 it was awarded a place on the Mohammed bin Rashid Innovation Fund Accelerator (MBRIFA) in the Middle East. Earlier this year, it became the first company to be awarded a Certificate of Conformity by the Emirates Authority for Standardization and Metrology (ESMA) for its biodiesel quality standard.

Technology has been essential to these outcomes, underpinning the process of transforming local waste cooking oil into “net zero” biofuel for any diesel engine. Neutral Fuels uses Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to optimise waste and fuel management, and it has pioneered a cloud-based data portal that delivers complete end-to-end traceability of its product.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is also deployed in its 24/7 control centres, but Feilder makes it clear that he is not one for technology buzzwords. Neutral Fuels’ processes and technology combine for highly-efficient production, and Feilder says that for businesses taking on their own cleantech initiatives, the motivation should always be the problem, not the product.

“My general advice to startups when they come along is ‘okay, what problem are you solving?’ And then they usually say ‘well we’ve got this really good thing that we’ve invented and we’ve managed ISSUE 02

69

LEADERSHIP

to make it AI and blockchain’. Then I’m playing buzzword bingo with them.

What I actually want to know is what five problems are you solving and what five solutions are you adding to those five problems?”

Tying it in with the business case, Feilder then highlights the importance of data. While he admits that a shortage of available data does hamper cleantech projects, he believes the biggest value technology brings is data and ultimately the ability to make business decisions using it.

“Finding the solutions to the climate change problem can only happen when we’ve got the data that allows us to do a return on investment [ROI] calculation,” Feilder continues. “And that’s something

70

TECH FOR GOOD

you won’t often get into a sustainability conversation, is an ROI calculation. But if you’ve got the data, you can look at the capital cost, you can do an ROI. “If we go to decision-makers with a way that we can automate the collection of all of this data and it adds half a percent to their EBITDA, they’re going to be interested. We need solutions architects to actually say to people ‘here’s the problem and here’s the solution. Now, can we map the two things together’?”

Feilder is adamant that these solution architects are today’s entrepreneurs, and his ideas are being heard. He cites another example, local to Neutral Fuels, where Dubai has “turbocharged” its farming industry during lockdown, utilising agritech to support more than 500 farms and help-

TIME TO TRANSFORM

ing the region become self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables.

At a broader level, Feilder has delivered keynote addresses at global events for the cleantech movement, including the World Future Energy Summit, and he presents the popular podcast and video series ‘Not Another Empty Suit’. A man on a mission, for sure, but one thing Feilder is not, he says, is an environmentalist.

“I have this phrase: ‘I am not an environmentalist, I just want us to save the planet’,” he says. “Let me explain: if you look at the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, we’ve got water scarcity, we’ve got poverty, we’ve got gender equality, we’ve got race equality, all sorts of stuff in there. All of which are really, really important - but

none of which are going to actually save the planet that we live on. I think we need to prioritise.

“One of the challenges of environmentalism is the fact that it’s almost impossible to prioritise. If you see what’s happened with plastics, and the momentum that’s built up over the last two or three years to get rid of plastics in the sea, it’s really important. But you know what? We can have a planet we can’t live on with no plastic in the sea, or we can have a bit of plastic in the sea and a planet we can live on. I don’t see how we can do both at the same time.

“So my point is: I’m not an environmentalist because I’m not trying to solve all the world’s problems, even though I know they’re all important. I’m just trying to save the planet…”

ISSUE 02

71

CONTACT US COMMERCIAL ENQUIRIES

EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES

business@digitalbulletin.com

editorial@digitalbulletin.com