Tech-Exec Issue 12

he recipients of our inaugural Data Leaders Awards are announced in this issue: WPP’s Di Mayze is our Peer-to-Peer Data Leader of the Year while UBS Investment Bank’s Lee Fulmer

Leader of the Year award. I had the pleasure of speaking with both recently – there may, or may not, have been some Irish

people, teams, culture and the way in which their approach, when combined with data and other innovations, can have a broader and more significant impact on their respective businesses. They’re also both selfless leaders who, I expect, will be sharing this and other accolades with their teams.

It goes without saying that they’re both remarkable data leaders in the truest sense of the word. But that’s not what impressed me, or likely our judges, the most. Rather, their success is a result of one single factor that’s driven them and their teams: passion. Both are passionate about technology, of course, but more importantly they are passionate about

Passion is abundant in this issue. No more so than in our interview with the remarkable Esther O’Callaghan OBE who, over more than two decades, has dedicated her life to helping young people across issues ranging from teenage self-harm and young male suicide to overhauling the broken education to employment journey. The latter is her current focus and hundo, the tech company she founded in 2020 is doing so through Web 3.0 and metaverse innovation – it’s incredible to see and makes me want to fire up my own avatar pretty sharpish.

We hope you enjoy this issue and find inspiration in the people and stories we feature.

Matt.

Content Director

Matt High

Creative Directors

Daniel Crawford

Steve Shipley

Marketing Director

Jack Pascall

Project Directors

Katie Fedun

Henry Allton-Jones

Will Tottie

Managing Directors

Charlotte Clarke

James Pepper

06 | INSIGHT

EXEC SUMMARY

News, views and tech insight

14 | INTERVIEW DI MAYZE

Our Peer-to-Peer Data Leader of the Year on creativity, freeing our imaginations and data culture

28 | PORTFOLIO

TECH YOU NEED

Innovations for work, leisure and the environmentally conscious

38 | ENTREPRENEUR

ALLISTER FUREY & SAM GILL

Bringing greater transparency to carbon markets

40 | INTERVIEW

LEE FULMER

Our Business Leaders’ Data Leader of the Year on data, culture and business-focused problem solving

54 | INNOVATION

OUR FUTURE, TODAY

Dream chasing, innovating and advancing humanity’s presence in space with Sierra Space

60 | TECHNOLOGY

CAREER MODE

Avatars, the metaverse and transforming education to employment with Esther O’Callaghan

68 |

PERSPECTIVE HARNESSING THE POWER OF DATA

IBM’s Melissa Drew on the rise of AI and how to best leverage data for the enterprise

80 | DISRUPTOR THE FLYING FERRY

Is it a boat? Is it a plane? Actually, it’s something far cooler?

82 | TECHNOLOGY ENTER

THE METAVERSE

The rise of the metaverse according to BCG’s François Candelon

90 | INNOVATOR

VAY

A path to a new and autonomous chauffeur-driven future

92 | CITY GUIDE

48 HRS: AMSTERDAM

Business and pleasure in the Netherlands’ capital

Sing Star

Is there anything AI can’t do? Well, if Holly+ is anything to go by, no. She is a singing AI – the digital twin of experimental musician Holly Herndon – who has recently released her own version of Dolly Parton’s Jolene. In the track [see right] every vocal sound, including breathy notes, was apparently generated by Holly+ with no human voices on the song at all.

holly.plus

AI BILL OF RIGHTS

The US White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) released its ‘Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights’, providing a framework for how government, technology companies and citizens can work together to ensure more accountable AI under five key protections. They are: Safe and Effective Systems, Algorithmic Discrimination Protections, Data Privacy, Notice and Explanation, and Alternative Options. It said the intention of the blueprint is to “help guide the design, use, and deployment of automated systems to protect the American Public”.

whitehouse.gov

81%

CISOs surveyed say that staying ahead of cyber attackers is a constant battle and that the cost of doing so is unsustainable.

Accenture: The State of Cyber Security Resilience 2021

VITAL SUPPORT

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith has said the tech firm will extend its technology support free of charge for Ukraine throughout 2023. Since the start of conflict in February 2022 Microsoft has provided technology assistance to the Ukraine government and people. Its renewed commitment will ensure that government agencies, critical infrastructure and other sectors can continue to run their digital infrastructure through Microsoft Cloud. It will also provide critical cybersecurity protection, support nonprofit and humanitarian organisations, and provide data to aid in addressing war crimes. blogs.microsoft.com

Companies and individuals are facing increased risk of cyberattacks that exploit identity-based data, according to the World Economic Forum. Organisations should develop a strategy for dealing with the exploitation of personal data based on three key steps:

1. Focus on early threat detection practices including continuous, proactive threat monitoring and detection across the mainstream internet and dark web.

2. Proactively protect identity-based data with key preventative steps such as a robust response plan, surveilling sensitive data and tailored security programming.

3. Adequately prepare for changes in data management regulation through crossfunctional teamwork, proactive evaluation of cybersecurity capabilities and identifying tech gaps.

www.weforum.org

CUSTOMER-DRIVEN MOBILITY

Car drivers’ expectations are evolving rapidly. Vehicles are becoming more connected and using vast volumes of data, making customer-specific insights crucial, particularly as those customers have expectations related to consumer electronics and the speed of innovation of the experiences they get from these electronics. This, says Matt Jones, Ford Motor Co’s Director of Global Technology Strategy and Madison White, the company’s Software Product Director, is what’s really driving future automotive development. Speaking at IoT and AI Summit Austin, the pair discussed how companies can create the ecosystem of the future, capable of exceeding customer expectations. They said manufacturers must adjust to the level of personalised data and experience offered to drivers and develop new levels of interoperability through a platform-based approach.

iotworldtoday.com

VIVA LAS VEGAS!

3.8 miles, speeds over 212mph, 50 laps, 20 cars and plenty of casinos. Yes, Formula 1 is coming to Las Vegas in November 2023. It’ll be fastpaced, action packed and, courtesy of T-Mobile, digitally enhanced. The business is the exclusive wireless provider for the race weekend, and will provide a 5G Advanced Network Solutions (5G ANS) public mobile network on and off track that will include immersive, 5G-connected experiences for fans and exclusive race coverage.

f1lasvegasgp.com

trainer tech

The problem with Web3 and the metaverse is wondering where reality begins and ends. Like the new Asics GT-2000 11 sneakers, for example. The sports brand has released the shoes, which are real by the way, in partnership with blockchain provider Solana and Web3 lifestyle app Step’N. They can only be purchased with USDC, a crypto coin pegged to the US Dollar, and feature two colour schemes inspired by Solana user interface options. Buy them and you’ll also receive an Asics Badge NFT for good measure.

DIGITAL UPCYCLING

The days of throwing out old or broken furniture are over. Instead, why not just print a replacement part, or something entirely new?

Researchers at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University have a new 3D printer ink capable of making wooden materials. Called ‘4D, it takes recycled wood derivatives and develops them into a paste that’s used as ink by a 3D printer. As the paste dries it can warp into complex shapes including curves and spirals.

timesofisrael.com

Manchester City partners with Israeli sports technology company Playermaker to launch Cityplay, a wearable tracker to help improve training and performance.

A US Military Center for Innovation in Engineering study says Uber drivers’ GPS location and acceleration data from smartphones can provide insights into bridge safety and health.

Bellwether Industries unveils its third-generation aircraft model design, Oryx, which it says can complete the journey from Heathrow Airport to Canary Wharf in eight minutes.

Apple calls on its global supply chain to take additional steps to tackle greenhouse gasses and focus on decarbonisation.

Accenture’s annual State of Cybersecurity Resilience 2021 report finds cyber attacks on the rise, security investment increasing and that cloud still has a complex relationship with security in many organisations.

THE DATA

CREATIVE

Di Mayze, our Peer-to-Peer Data Leader of the Year discusses creativity, freeing our imaginations, culture and data

PHOTOS: ROGER BROWN

etty Crocker? The homely culinary brand famed for its cakes, baked goods and ‘dependably delicious’ products, in the middle of an interview about enterprise data, transformation and culture? I confess, when I set out to speak with Di Mayze, Global Head of Data and AI at global creative transformation company WPP and winner of our Tech-Exec Data Leaders Awards 2022 Peer-to-Peer award, I didn’t expect to be talking cakes, certainly not this quickly anyway. But then, speaking to Mayze about data, technology and what it takes to get everyone falling in love with the subject, isn’t necessarily what you’d expect at all – and that’s a very good thing.

Data. Transformation. Change programmes. Digital innovation. Forget it. Get Mayze talking about the subject she loves and you realise that her impressive success and recognition as a data leader is built on a single more important thing. Passion. For the power of creativity and imagination, for developing new and innovative ways of growing a data community and embedding cultural evolution, for getting everyone –regardless of their knowledge and experience of any of the above – engaged, interacting and driving significant business value, and for the technology and data itself. For fun, even. This is modern data leadership.

“WE INSPIRE EVERYONE…”

But first, Betty Crocker. An eight-year-old boy from the UAE challenged the brand on Twitter with a question: ‘why are the baking instructions on Betty Crocker’s packs only addressed to women?’. This one tweet – or one single, important piece of data – led to VMLY&R, a global marketing agency and part of WPP, launching a campaign around cooking being for everyone, creating a set of new gender-neutral cooking instructions and advertising, and providing the catalyst for a cultural movement that changed the conversation about the role of men and women in the region.

“We inspire everyone in our agencies, our data folks, our communities and our clients by extracting value, stories and creativity, or an experience from data,” says Mayze, explaining why moments like this are so important when it comes to using data.

“Creativity is better when it’s driven by insights, and everyone at WPP is passionate about taking that information and building it into something that prompts conversation and drives questions – that’s always been an important distinction for me, I don’t think data has all the answers, but I love that it generates the questions.

“There’s so many examples from across our agencies but in this particular case, I find it incredible how that tweet changed a business,” she continues. “It rallied a global programme that saw packaging changed, open-sourced projects, new content with male influencers and more. It shows that

“WHAT IMPRESSES ME ABOUT DI IS HOW SHE THINKS CREATIVELY TO ENGAGE PEOPLE, WHETHER THEY ARE INTERNAL, EXTERNAL, EXPERIENCED DATA PROS OR NURTURING THE IMAGINATION OF THE YOUNG - A REAL PASSION FOR INCREASING DATA LITERACY TO SUCH DIVERSE GROUPS”

CHRISTA SWAIN MARKETING MANAGER, EDEN SMITH

however little data you have as an organisation you do have signals, and if you have the culture, the business values and the ability to bring creativity, entrepreneurship and a story around those signals that’s what makes real change. It’s not about what it is, it’s the different talent, skills and environment you have that lets you take it and create something special.”

This sentiment – ‘data and creativity are the new kids in town’, in Mayze’s own words – is at the heart of her successful and respected career in data. She has more than 20 years’ data and digital experience across several industries and sectors including consultancy, media, retail and, most recently, in her role at WPP, a creative transformation company that harnesses the power of creativity across communications, experience, commerce and technology.

“DI HAS BROUGHT LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE TOGETHER AND HAS EVEN MADE DATA GOVERNANCE FUN THROUGH INNOVATIVE COMMUNICATION METHODS. THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE SHE IS INSPIRING IS IMPRESSIVE”

HELEN MANION GLOBAL DATA OFFICER, SPECSAVERS

Mayze assumed the role of Global Head of Data and AI at the beginning of 2020 and in just two years has, among other things, set the data strategy for the business, built from the ground up a small, central data team, transformed the organisation’s data culture and data literacy through unique and innovative methods including her very own all-training, all-singing avatar, established data and AI academies, data-specific groups and the sharing of experiences and skills, and led an internal Chief Data Officer Group, or ‘the C-Dogs’, if you’re in the know. For good measure, she’s also a member of Evanta’s Chief Data Officer Governing Body and the recipient of numerous industry awards and acknowledgements.

subject. “I did a project with Dunnhumby, the marketing agency, and it’s been my beacon of a really brilliant data culture since, wherever I go and whatever team I’m working in or leading. They had learning and the flow of work absolutely nailed, an environment and culture in which everyone wanted to learn more all the time, loved what they did and, for me, it was a really inspiring place in which I could basically unleash my inner nerd and lap up everything they did with data. One of the points that’s always stuck with me is that you could see very clearly what data was being used, by whom and what happened to it, and then the outcome.

“I fell in love with data in 2006,” says Mayze, reflecting on her ongoing passion for the

“Later, in 2012, when I was Head of Supplier Insights at Boots it was about extracting insights, commercial propositions and products out of loyalty data,” she continues. “It was really interesting comparing the two strategies at these businesses. It was quite similar data and a clear value exchange – customers getting good offers or points in exchange for their data – but the attitudes to data sharing and collaboration couldn’t have been more different. It taught me the difference that culture, attitude, and freedom to create can make and whether you think the power is really in the data or the people. I knew I could take what I had learnt from both those roles starting at WPP, particularly around data-driven decision making and how your culture behaves around that data are absolutely essential.”

“I FELL IN LOVE WITH DATA…”

“I WANT TO MAKE DATA MORE INCLUSIVE…”

People and culture are a constant theme in Mayze’s approach to her work. As a leader she is a passionate champion for data literacy and democratising technology to encourage deep engagement for the benefit of the business. “The people and culture we collectively build, certainly at WPP, gives everyone unlimited headroom when it comes to getting the most from data.

“I want to make data, as a subject and an industry, more inclusive,” she continues. “I’m not a data scientist. But that’s not how I add value – there are people I work with that are brilliant at that and I celebrate their skill immensely. When coming to WPP, I realised I could make the biggest difference by creating a platform for that talent, to cheerlead and to champion, to create an environment where they can work with like-minded people and maximise how we as a business use data.”

Mayze joined WPP in January 2020, having previously worked with the business in a freelance capacity. It was, she explains, the perfect opportunity to work with an organisation well aligned with her approach to data. “I absolutely loved what was being built here,” she says. “It was the first time there’s ever been a central data and AI team within the business, there was a new CEO who really wanted the WPP brand to stand for something and have meaning, and there was excitement there. I’ve always been the first in the role in my career and the opportunity

to come on board full time, be the first generation CDO of WPP and effectively be given a blank piece of paper from which to grow was incredible.

“And it’s been that way since,” adds Mayze. “What’s great about working here is that it brings together all my sweet spots of people and data, and gives me a place where I can be entrepreneurial, can play to my resourcefulness with a small but effective team and put everything in to practice around keeping things creative, nimble and agile, while constantly adding value to the company and its clients.”

“IT’S ABOUT PHILOSOPHY NOT STRATEGY…”

WPP delivers world-class creative ideas to clients including 317 of the Fortune Global 500, all 30 of the Dow Jones 30 and

62 of the FTSE 10. It does so through a combination of creative ways of thinking, innovative communications and experiences, and leveraging technology and data solutions. “When I joined, I thought that everyone would expect me to centralise all the data and the people,” says Mayze, “but I knew that would take the creativity out of the business so it was a case of considering what the living and breathing WPP values would be: people and creativity. For me, the approach from the start has been about making our work fun, making data and creativity ‘best mates’ and ensuring that everyone understands that they’re not at odds with each other, but are actually brilliantly aligned.”

Mayze and her team have followed this approach to great effect over the last two years, building on the open and innovative culture that already existed in WPP. Initial work, she explains, revolved around building her team and creating a ‘North Star’ – a vision, strategy and philosophy for WPP’s approach to data centred around three core pillars: discovery and curation, education and enablement and content and communities.

She elaborates: “I was clear from the start that we should focus on philosophy not strategy, because it’s attitudes and mindset that drives behaviour. We could then explain why we connect rather than collect data, why we don’t obsess about PII, why surveillance isn’t a good experience, and how we use data ethically and with

“DI WAS ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE EVIDENCE AGAINST THE SET CRITERIA AND BEYOND THAT, AREAS AROUND DIVERSITY, GIVING BACK TO THE DATA COMMUNITY, ETHICS AND INNOVATION IN HER USE OF AVATARS TO HELP WITH LITERACY/EDUCATION”

KYLE WINTERBOTTOM FOUNDER AND CEO, ORBITION GROUP

purpose which then allows every agency to apply their own lens or approach. Under the discovery and curation pillar I hired our Head of Data Management, Vipul Parmar, to really drive our data catalogue and he’s taken it to something we’re immensely proud of.”

To index these data sets, WPP has partnered closely with data.world, an enterprise data catalogue for the modern data stack. “It was one of the first projects initiated by the newly formed Data & AI team,” Mayze explains. “There’s a Gartner stat that says 80% of data lake projects were due to fail because curating and inventorying data was so hard; we thought we’d be able to deliver value to our agencies much faster if we understood all the data that was available – our dream is to make the metadata interesting enough that people might actually read our catalogue and visit it for inspiration.

“We liked that data.world had a wellestablished relationship with one of our agencies already, and there’s several reasons they’re a good partner: it’s the only data catalogue that’s powered by a knowledge graph making relationship and it offers data virtualisation out of the box which helps us fuel creativity and innovation,” she continues. “A fairly regular occurrence is for someone to email us and ask if we have a particular data set, only to come back five minutes later saying they’ve not only found it, but also loads of other interesting ones – weather, electric

car charging points, exclusive partner data, someone who has learned to build decision trees from American football data, even a data set that shows where you’d be eaten by a Velociraptor. There’s really something for everyone in the WPP Open Data Catalog.”

“A PLATFORM FOR INSPIRING…”

Mayze’s other two pillars – educate and enable, and content and communities – have brought about significant cultural change within the business, spurred by the creation of specific data and AI-related groups, internal networking and engagement with the subject, and a willingness across the board to experiment with what’s available.

“Early on we established a data and AI community,” she states. “It has 3,000 members, is internal and entirely inclusive, everyone’s welcome. Any topic goes as long as it’s related to data and AI and, across the community, we have chat rooms, webinars and panel discussions. We organise debates, people can come and present case studies from anywhere in the business, and we use it as a way of championing both the subject and our people. We also hold data challenges, where we release a data set and some technology, give everyone the same brief and let them work on it; the variation in responses is incredible to see and it really shows how successful you can be when you make data much more inclusive, open to the non-data scientists for interpretation and just let creativity take over.

“The second part of that was making sure there were no ‘lonely’ data people at WPP,” Mayze continues. “The CDO role can be a lonely one sometimes. That’s not the case here but, more broadly, I think it’s a role that’s still evolving so can be unpredictable. I wanted all our CDOs to know how valued they are, so I set up our Chief Data Officer Group, or the C-Dogs. I personally invited all the senior data

and AI people from across the business and we meet every eight weeks. It’s a real place for inspiring and sharing information and knowledge, and it’s led to some great collaboration.”

Specifically on educating and enabling, Mayze had two key KPIs: to deep-skill 5,000 data practitioners, for which she and the business partner with online

“DI IS A WORTHY WINNER OF THE PEER-TO-PEER AWARD. SHE HAS DEMONSTRATED DEEP ENGAGEMENT WITH THE DATA INDUSTRY, INVESTED ENERGY IN GROWING A COMMUNITY AND FOCUSSED ON DELIVERING TANGIBLE AND INTANGIBLE OUTCOMES. SHE’S USED CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE WAYS TO BRING THE TOPICS WITHIN DATA TO LIFE, AND WE NEED MORE OF THAT”

JASON FOSTER CEO AND FOUNDER, CYNOZURE

course provider Coursera, and to demystify AI for 50,000 WPP colleagues. “That’s basically half the business,” she says. “We had everything prepared and then COVID lockdowns hit, but on reflection it was actually a great way of making us think more resourcefully and using the technologies that were available to us.”

As an example, the business partnered with Synthesia, a digital human tech company to develop the idea of creating avatars to train employees on the use of AI. “Yes, I have my own,” laughs Mayze, “and yes, I make her tell jokes and sing, but the serious side of that is that it’s an amazing way of making training very accessible for everyone wherever they are globally, and it allows us to always have our creative hat on. That spirit of constant learning and experimentation is really important, but equally, so is having fun. I’m always encouraging my team to be one step ahead of innovation, of new ways of thinking and working. It means we have an environment that’s high impact, high energy and highly effective. We all recognise, because we don’t obsess about PII and data volume, how liberating our roles and our impact can be.”

In just two years the data landscape has evolved to the benefit of everyone at WPP. Mayze, who remains as passionate about her subject as ever intends to continue hers and her team’s focus on creativity, people and culture in order that this evolution continues. “The agencies across

WPP can really see that if they buy into what we’re doing they’ll get more data, more training and better ways to serve their clients, but they have to also have that mindset shift. For my part, my role is to show everyone the breadth and brilliance of WPP and make sure my team lives the company’s values of ‘open, optimistic and extraordinary’ while also ensuring I create the North Star thinking that will take us forward.

“Not obsessing over PII is an important part of that, and focusing on relevance over personalisation. We still have many ways in which we can build innovative use cases around different data sets and continue to evolve and be creative around that, and I want my team to inspire everyone in the business to drive this. My goal is to ensure that everyone in WPP sees data differently and knows how they can use it to inspire change. The beauty of this industry is that we’ll never be done. There’s so much to learn and so much to be inspired by; I don’t think I’ll ever tire of watching data and technology being used in a way that makes the world better.”

www.wpp.com

PORTFOLIO

I NNOVATIVE AND INSPIRED ITEMS FOR WOR k, LEISURE AND SUSTAINA b LE LIVING

JBL TOUR PRO 2

When is a case not just a case? When it’s the world’s first ever smart charging case, that’s when. And it comes courtesy of the audiophiles at JBL in the smallbut-mighty storage for its JBL Tour PRO 2 wireless earbuds. It features a 1.45 inch touchscreen display through which you can manage music, customise your earbuds, receive calls, messages and notifications and charge the speakers as you’re doing it. The earbuds themselves aren’t bad either, featuring true adaptive noise cancelling technology, 40hrs of total playback, bluetooth compatibility and more.

www.jblcom

PORTFOLIO

I NNOVATIVE AND INSPIRED ITEMS FOR WOR k, LEISURE AND SUSTAINA b LE LIVING

C SEED N1 FOLDING TV

C Seed’s N1 is massive. Its 165inch, 4K MicroLED display built for vibrant colours and the ‘truest blacks’ takes care of that, as does its twin 100-watt speaker system designed for true immersion. But size isn’t everything, and it’s certainly not why this TV is special. N1 is a folding TV, or a minimalist, kinetic work of art, according to its creators. When not in use, it’s an aerospace aluminimummachined, unassuming metal sculpture. When needed it rises gracefully, fanning out to its full 156-inch size, rotating through 180 degrees depending on where you’re watching from.

www.cseed.tv

PORTFOLIO

I NNOVATIVE AND INSPIRED ITEMS FOR WOR k, LEISURE AND SUSTAINA b LE LIVING

BLUE FREEDOM PORTABLE

The world’s smallest hydropower plant. In your pocket. As far as green innovation goes, it’s quite the tagline. But then, the Blue Freedom Portable is quite the innovation. Small and compact enough to fit in a backpack and perfect for outdoor enthusiasts, Blue Freedom Portable is designed around a hydrodynamic turbine that, once placed in flowing water, gives unlimited electric power capable of powering and charging mobile devices including phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, navigation systems and more. Blue Freedom includes a USB charging station, high capacity battery and accessory/customisation options.

www.blue-freedom.net

PORTFOLIO

I NNOVATIVE AND INSPIRED ITEMS FOR WOR k, LEISURE AND SUSTAINA b LE LIVING

ECOBLOOM ECOGARDEN

There’s a world of desktop accessories out there. Fancy pens, designer laptop stands, gadgets you’ll never use… you can do better. Like, for example, Ecobloom’s EcoGarden, where nature meets technology head on – and you get to grow plants or food on your desk. EcoGarden uses aquaponics, an ancient growing technique that uses fish waste as a nutrient source for plants, while the plants naturally filter the water which is recirculated back to the fish. Think of it as a natural, effective and self-sustaining ecosystem that also uses smart integrating sensors, innovative learning technology and is app controlled.

www.ecobloom.se

PORTFOLIO

I NNOVATIVE AND INSPIRED ITEMS FOR WOR k, LEISURE AND SUSTAINA b LE LIVING

OURA RING

Everything’s getting smaller these days. Even, if Oura is anything to go by, wearables. Oura Ring combines smart tech and innovative design with one purpose: to improve how we live our lives. Pop it on your finger and you open a suite of wellbeing and health-focused options, including continuous health monitoring, sleep tracking, fitness and automatic activity tracking including personalised daily activity suggestions and goals, and mood tracking. Through the accompanying app you can track progress against each of these areas and have access to audio sessions for motivation, focus, energy boost and more.

www.ouraring.com

ALLISTER FUREY & SAM GILL

When they met in 2019 at a LocalGlobe climate event, Allister Furey and Sam Gill realised they had a shared passion for applying innovative technology to the challenge of bringing greater transparency to carbon markets.

In particular, they recognised that Voluntary Carbon Markets (VMCs), which have historically been undermined by asymmetric information and a lack of transparency around the quality of carbon projects, couldn’t scale without proper data infrastructure. This lack of transparency, they explain, means that buyers are often unsure of what they’re actually buying.

Sylvera is their solution. The London-based tech company is a carbon intelligence platform that leverages proprietary data and machine learning technology to produce comprehensive and accessible insights on carbon projects. It does so by using lidar scanners to measure biomass at scale and build out datasets on the carbon stored in natural ecosystems. The resulting ratings framework demonstrates a project’s true carbon performance and measures its real impact, enabling customers to invest in high-quality offsets and deliver on their net zero commitments.

www.sylvera.com

Sylvera: trust and transparency in carbon markets

THE DATA

SCRUM MASTER

Data, culture and problem solving with our Business Leaders’ Data Leader of the Year, Lee Fulmer

Photo: Roger Brown

Left to right: Some of the Investment Bank data squad: Ghislain Leugue, Data Management Specialist; Naomi Beckett, Data Scientist; Mara Belmonte, IB Operations Chief of Staff; Lee Fulmer, IB Chief Data Officer; Lawrence Booker, IB AI and Data Product Lead; Rishi Amin, Data Management Analyst

t’s close to the end of an hour-long discussion with Lee Fulmer, in equal parts fascinating, inspiring and fun, and there’s a realisation for this writer: we’re here – on paper, anyway – to discuss being a data leader and yet I can comfortably count on one hand the number of times Fulmer has referred to himself specifically using that title. A scrum master maybe, a facilitator and enabler of others’ success, a passionate problem solver focused on driving decision making and generating business value, perhaps. You can even throw in award-winning photographer… if you can keep up.

But, you see, that’s the point. It’s in those various roles, responsibilities and skills that Fulmer’s success really lies. He is, of course, an excellent data leader whatever your interpretation of that title, recognised and respected by colleagues and peers alike, the man who has led a significant data and culture transformation at UBS Investment Bank, an independent member of the Evanta Chief Data Officer Governing Board and Chair of the Bank of England’s Reporting and Data Standard Transformation Board, as well as the recipient of numerous industry awards and titles [including this publication’s very own Business Leaders’ Data Leader of the Year Award 2022].

But Fulmer’s story isn’t just about data. It’s about solving complex problems, democratising technology and digital tools to enable everyone to contribute to organisational success and client outcomes, being a catalyst for change and adding value, solving complex problems, and being modest enough to know your role in a diverse and multiskilled team environment in which everyone can thrive. And, it’s always been that way.

“MY JOB IS TO MAKE EVERYONE ELSE’S WORK FRICTIONLESS…”

“I got into coding, designing circuits and interacting with computers while studying nuclear engineering at university, but it was boring,” jokes Fulmer, discussing his relationship with tech and data across his career. “And that’s because there was always someone else telling me what to build and how to do it. I was never focused on that. All I was thinking was ‘sorry, what business problem are we trying to solve here and how are we going to do it?’.

“It’s been a consistent theme,” he continues. “I started my data journey early in my career working in government on military projects, and I’ve moved through academia, media and now finance, but that focus has never changed: in the military you’re always thinking about the end user out in the field and their problems, if you don’t you’ve failed; when I used to lecture during my time in academia I wanted more than the textbooks, we’d had three years of that, so instead, let’s talk problem solving. The objective has always been how to get the information and

we need to make business decisions, and once we’ve made those decisions how do we affect the change that’s necessary.”

Fulmer is a self-confessed business technologist. The type of leader who, in his own words, has the grounding in technology to understand its capabilities and application in the context of the organisation, but who is ultimately focused on a

insights

“LEE HAS PROVEN THAT WITH A FOCUS ON DIVERSITY, DELIVERING BUSINESS VALUE AND A GEARING TOWARDS EXECUTION YOU CAN REALLY MAKE PROGRESS. HIS PRACTICAL, THOUGHTFUL APPROACH WINS OVER THEATRE, BUZZWORDS AND FANFARE. I’M PLEASED TO HAVE SELECTED HIM FOR THE AWARD”

JASON FOSTER CEO AND FOUNDER, CYNOZURE

The only fully open, scalable and secure collaboration platform purpose-built for global markets

The Symphony community includes over half a million users and more than 1,000 institutions. Symphony powers over 2,000 community built applications and bots for more automated workflows.

For more information, visit www.symphony.com

broader understanding of the business itself, its strategic direction and vision, the expectations of its clients and the problems that need to be solved by technology in order to succeed across these areas.

It is, he says, an important trait for any modern leader working with data and technology. “The ability to talk to both camps – tech and business – and to treat their needs and ideas the same is crucial; if you can’t bridge that gap it’s just naturally harder to get the job done. The distinction I find when it comes to leadership as a theme is the ability to recognise that you may not have the knowledge in one of those areas, so you have to be willing to surround yourself with people who do so you can collectively make it happen.

“I often refer to myself as the scrum master for the data organisation here. Essentially, my job is to make everyone else’s job frictionless, easier and more successful,” he adds. “I’ve never wanted to be the CEO, just the person who gets things done behind the scenes and facilitates our people delivering for our clients. UBS is probably the first place I’ve worked that really sees the value of that hybrid business technologist role, someone who understands tech deeply and the business deeply and is able to sit as a translator between the two groups of people to improve our outcomes and efficacy.”

“LEE ACHIEVES ACTUAL BUSINESS VALUE AND BENEFIT. I LIKE HOW HE GIVES A LOT OF CREDIT TO HIS TEAM AND THE DIVERSITY STATS ARE FANTASTIC. HE HAS CREATED A TRULY DATA-DRIVEN CULTURE”

KYLE WINTERBOTTOM FOUNDER AND CEO, ORBITION GROUP

Fulmer has been with UBS Investment Bank for close to seven years, originally joining as an adviser to its Executive Committee before subsequently being asked to take on the role of CIO to run its change portfolio, improving and optimising IT and technology. With a remit for data already part of his CIO responsibilities, the bank’s greater focus on leveraging data over time resulted in a natural transition to his current role of Chief Data Officer, in which he is focused on accelerating business opportunities in data to change the way the investment bank manages its business, commercialisation of data and new product innovation.

“I saw a lot of duplication of effort across the bank in my early days,” he says, expanding on his journey at the organisation. “As CIO I had the opportunity to bring a lot of that together but, instead of doing it by individual product areas, we worked across business areas focussing on themes and that was where we really began to see an accelerative change in the way we were using technology. At some point we realised there was a pretty unique opportunity to create data products to serve our clients and, as I was involved in shaping that work, it naturally evolved into needing a CDO to look after that commercialisation piece alongside the regulatory piece, to leverage our business model, and get everyone having the ability to develop and use their own data insights.

“DATA EXISTS TO FACILITATE CLIENT ENGAGEMENT…”

Photo: Roger Brown

“Our cultural transformation accelerated from there over the last few years,” adds Fulmer. “I immediately began working on setting up our Innovation Labs to leverage data across the organisation, we set up a data solutions business targeted on creating client-specific data products. Last year we formed a new team called Digital Platforms focused solely on helping drive client outcomes, and also launched a dedicated strategy on how we use data.”

This progression has provided both a good overview of the use and application of data at the bank, and the evolution of the technology in the industry more broadly. “Holistically across the industry I’ve seen an increase in keeping data, which poses its own challenges,” says Fulmer. “Years ago, we’d keep things in files, in your basement or offsite storage facility, but it was well curated, we knew what we had and how to get it if we needed to. The difference today is that the growth in storage capabilities coupled with the rapid reduction in cost of that capability means we keep everything. Literally everything, there’s no discernment any more. And that poses challenges for every organisation.

“At UBS we’ve always taken the attitude that data exists to help us facilitate client engagement,” he continues. “This clientfirst approach means we’ve always focused on the data that’s most meaningful for that, but our evolution over the last few years has shifted from using data to

just help us service the client, to helping us enable the client to service their clients. In the context of the investment bank, that means us working with our clients to understand the nature of their problems or opportunities and make sure we’re getting them the data they need.

“WE TRAINED EVERYONE TO BE DISRUPTIVE…”

Over this period Fulmer and his colleagues have driven a significant technology and data transformation centred around disrupting mindsets and culture for the better, and with people firmly entrenched at its heart. Take, as an example, the UBS Innovation Labs project,

Photo: Roger Brown

a business-wide innovation function spearheaded by Fulmer from mid 2018.

“We didn’t want to focus on tech,” he says, of the Labs’ development. “Why would we? We’ve an entire technology division in the bank that’s dedicated to delivering the platforms and systems we need. As CIO I consistently saw that a lot of our analysis came down to getting access to data, ensuring it was clean and accurate, then getting it to the right people at the right time to inform their decision making. And, because it was ultimately about those people, the goal of the Innovation Labs was about empowering them to disrupt themselves. The only metric we assigned ourselves was how many projects flowed through the pipeline, and it was a pretty exciting time.

“Rather than just having 300-400 true data scientists who are incredibly deep SMEs, we imagined a scenario where you’re empowering the ‘citizen data scientist’ – why not have all our 15,000 investment bank colleagues able to access the tools to do their own data analysis? It’s always going to create more real momentum across the company,” adds Fulmer. “We timeboxed it and basically gave ourselves three years to change the culture of the investment bank, and the combination of marrying disruption with getting insight out of the data made it hugely successful – our very first project helped transform the way in which we support our clients to drive events and interaction.

“I LOVE LEE’S PRAGMATIC NO-NONSENSE APPROACH TO DRIVE VALUE AND DELIVER. SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE!”

HELEN MANION GLOBAL DATA OFFICER, SPECSAVERS

“We formed the Labs with only four people, and their job was to be catalysts for business innovation,” he continues.

“When an idea came in we seconded people in for short periods and formed hybrid pods that worked intensively on the project – in many ways it was the start of our agile movement in the investment bank. We basically trained everyone to be disruptive. They’d then go back to their teams and apply that new way of thinking across the board; by the middle of the second year we had small, agile innovation groups popping up across the organisation. Ultimately after three years we weren’t getting the big transformative ideas any more because the innovation had just spread across the whole business, which was fantastic to see. It basically became business as usual.”

“BEING A SERVANT TO YOUR TEAM IS CRUCIAL…”

People, culture and mindset are at the heart of any transformation and Fulmer’s servant leadership style has played an important role in nurturing all three. He is an advocate for the power of democratising technology, as demonstrated so well by the Innovation Labs work, and a firm believer in the positive impact it can have culturally. “People often think this kind of thing has to come from the top down,” he explains. “But if you take any time to understand organisational behaviour you’ll know that this kind of shift can take as much as five years. You can’t depend on that alone. Yes, you need guidance, vision or steer from the

Photo: Roger Brown

top, but you have to create that groundswell of people at every level who truly want to make change happen.

“As an example, last year UBS launched its new purpose ‘Reimagining the power of investing. Connecting people for a better world.’ For the investment bank this ties in to our strategy about connecting people to ideas and creating highly differentiated insights, products and services,” says Fulmer. “Right off the bat you have that foundational, top-down approach, but then every single business unit across the firm is actively engaged in both developing the solutions needed by building out use cases and data sets that’ll move us forward and leveraging enabling technologies. For me, it’s all about making sure everyone buys into the idea of change, of transformation and using technology to better serve themselves and their clients. It’s a huge cultural change for us and I think, of all the places I’ve worked in my career, UBS is one of the few where everyone wants to make an impact – if you can tap into that natural desire you really create momentum.”

Fulmer has done so to great effect in his own small, but highly successful team, in which he actively encourages diversity of skill sets, freedom of opinion and thinking and approaches the work in a refreshingly humble fashion. “Nobody in my position does the actual work,” he jokes. “If you want to be successful, you have to learn a bit of humility; leaders all

Left to right: Some of the Investment Bank data squad: Eleftheria Bourmpou, Data Analyst; Dharmesh Shah, Data Strategist; Fiona Wharton, Financing Technology Architect; Joel Gillow, RegTech Product Manager; Jennifer Mariathas, Data Management Analyst; Jonathan Edwards, Data Management Apprentice

have teams of people who do the work and, certainly here at the bank, there are hundreds of people contributing to our data organisation. Being a servant to your team is crucial if you want to build a function that’s motivated, dynamic and capable of growth, and if you don’t get that you become a governance function, not a business enabler.

“I’m neurodivergent,” he continues, “which I hid for a number of years but, over time, I’ve learned to really appreciate the importance of different viewpoints and ways of working. I know I have gaps in my skill set so hiring a bunch of people like me wouldn’t work, just like it wouldn’t hiring people who are all like anyone so I recognise the need for diversity in skills and capabilities, as well as cognitive diversity, to help me be successful – it’s been part of my philosophy for some time. The natural

“LEE LEADS FROM THE FRONT WITH A NO-NONSENSE APPROACH WHERE VALUE, DIVERSITY AND ETHICS ARE CENTRAL TO HIS TEAM’S SUCCESS. HE HAS BUILT HIGH LEVELS OF TRUST AND EMBEDDING A CULTURE OF DATA INTO THE ORGANISATION”

CHRISTA SWAIN MARKETING MANAGER, EDEN SMITH

outcome of that is that I end up with very diverse teams in terms of race and gender – I typically always have close to equal men and women in my teams, and they’re all from very different cultural backgrounds.

“The result of all this is a very dynamic team with broad cognitive diversity and I absolutely pin a lot of my success on them,” says Fulmer. “We’re small, there’s only a dozen of us, but that was purposeful as we chose to federate responsibility so that I have data owners in every product area. And no one’s opinion is more valid than anyone else’s, I always want everyone to contribute to the discussion because it brings so much more value to how we work with data. You basically get a very broad filtering system; it’s like we’re a collection of human AIs sifting through information in an environment in which everyone has accountability and responsibility for executing. If it weren’t for all of them, I’d be as useful as a conductor at the pulpit with no orchestra.”

Over the last seven years, Fulmer and his ‘orchestra’ have brought significant change, capabilities and success to UBS Investment Bank but, if there is one consistency for all data leaders, it’s that technology doesn’t rest. Looking ahead, he and the team will continue to align data with achieving greater business strategy according to the overarching vision of the bank. “Everything we do from a data perspective is in line with the strategy, otherwise why do it? You don’t

disrupt for disruption’s sake, or adopt emerging technologies because trends dictate – it’s a pointless exercise. The firms and the teams that excel are those that do their work for a greater purpose, whether that’s making clients’ lives easier or achieving a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

“The strategy here at the investment bank is very much about empowering our clients with alternative and innovative ways to invest, so we’re focused on how we can help that happen,” says Fulmer.

“And it’s important to know that sometimes you can’t – not every problem can be fixed with data, but there’s a lot to tackle here. Peoples’ personal expectations have changed radically over the last few years as digital experiences put the focus on immediacy, including with banking, so that’s a core focus. Empowering our staff to have access to the data they need to drive insights remains crucial, but there’s also a wider consideration about how the work we’re doing can make things better for everyone beyond our clients. I thrive in that space and so does my team, and it’s great to see that momentum and appetite for change continue to ripple across the business.”

www.ubs.com

ADVANCING HUMANITY’S PRESENCE IN SPACE

DREAM CHASING, INNOVATING AND WINNING THE SPACE RACE OF TOMORROW WITH SIERRA SPACE

Space. No longer the final frontier it once was. Granted, it’s not as succinct an intro as that famous one, but then, your Captain Kirks of this world didn’t have the likes of SpaceX, Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic to contend with. You can add Sierra Space and its otherworldly Dream Chaser space vehicle to that list, too.

The business – a tech company for the space

age – is at the forefront of creating and building transportation and infrastructure for lowEarth orbit (LEO), its goal to make space ‘the great equaliser’ by enabling affordable access to space for the next generation of businesses, entrepreneurs, researchers and governments. And it’s building the methods of transportation and the destinations to make that goal a reality.

Take the Dream Chaser spaceplane as a case in point. A multi-mission space utility vehicle designed to transport crew and cargo to LEO destinations like the International Space Station, Dream Chaser is the first ever winged commercial spaceplane capable of landing on the same runways you find at commercial airports the world-over.

In combination with Sierra Space’s Shooting Star service module, a flexible 15-foot transport and cargo vehicle, Dream Chaser can haul as much as 5,500 kg of pressurised and upressurised cargo to its destination, including food, water, supplies and science

experiments. On the return journey it’ll dispose of space station waste by firing it into the Earth’s atmosphere to burn up safely. In this guise, the ship has been selected by NASA to provide unmanned cargo delivery, return and disposal services to the International Space Station from 2023.

“SIERRA SPACE HAS A CRITICAL ROLE IN ADVANCING HUMANITY’S PRESENCE IN SPACE”

TOM VICE, CEO, SIERRA SPACE

Dream Chaser, the firstever winged commercial spaceplane

Above: Orbital Reef, a mixed-use business park in space

Right: Full-scale prototype of the LIFE habitat

But it won’t do it all alone. Dream Chaser was initially designed as a crewed spaceplane capable of carrying up to seven astronauts to and from the space station and other LEO destinations. It can be customised for both domestic and international customers via vehicle configuration, launch site, destination, landing site, destination and more to support other commercial space missions in the future.

And if you fancy a trip there’s also Orbital Reef, a business park/hotel in

space designed to support commerce, research and development, and tourism in LEO by the end of the 2020s. Sierra Space intends Orbital Reef to be the first commercially owned and operated space station, and a unique spacebound ecosystem to support the next chapter of human space exploration and development.

Beyond that, says the company, anything is possible: life on the moon, asteroids, Mars even.

www.sierraspace.com

“TO MAKE COSMIC EXPLORATION FEASIBLE FOR EVERYONE, WE MUST CONSTANTLY INNOVATE WITH SAFER TECH, FUELS, AND COMFORTABLE LIVING CONDITIONS. THIS IS HOW WE PREPARE HUMANITY FOR ITS NEXT GREAT LEAP INTO SPACE”

TOM VICE, CEO, SIERRA SPACE

AVATARS, THE METAVERSE AND TRANSFORMING THE EDUCATION TO EMPLOYMENT JOURNEY AS WE KNOW IT. WELCOME TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF ESTHER O’CALLAGHAN

CAREER MODE

I’ve done many things in this job. But, step into the shoes of a hiring manager at Microsoft? It’s a new one. And it’s entirely Esther O’Callaghan’s fault as, part way through a chat as inspirational as it is entertaining, she laughs: “I wouldn’t last five minutes at Microsoft, or any corporate office – I simply can’t behave for that long. It’s why I love startups. They’re chaotic, stressful, let me push myself…” Letting my Microsoft-based alter ego think for a moment I realise that, should I be hiring O’Callaghan, I’d have no real tangible way of knowing that. Or any of the other skills, capabilities and cultural attributes that are essential in the tech-driven, digitally-native world we live in. I certainly wouldn’t find them on a stuffy old CV.

And that’s why we’re here. To discuss transforming the tired and broken education to employment journey that young Gen Z people face in the UK, her passion for ending global youth unemployment by revolutionising the future of work and learning, how she is pioneering upskilling young people in Web 3.0 and the metaverse, and how disruptive technologies can contribute to solving the social problems and challenges that current and future generations face. And, of course, ridding us of CVs as she does it.

Her vehicle for doing all this is hundo, the world’s first learn and earn online, metaverse-based campus targeted at Gen Z and under 25s and created to tackle global, systemic and structural youth unemployment by upskilling them for the future of work both in and through Web 3.0. O’Callaghan founded hundo together with Piers Collins, in 2020.

“I’M BORED OF SEEING NO CHANGE…”

The company and its mission are the product of her life to date, and two decades dedicated to working in and around youth issues including unemployment, young male suicide, teenage self-harm, mental health and homelessness, volunteering for and being ambassador of countless groups and charities, and working at the forefront of innovative and pioneering tech entrepreneurship. O’Callaghan’s is a well told and inspiring story that encompasses personal experiences with education and employment, record shops and DJing, tech innovation, and an OBE for good measure, awarded in the 2007/08 New Year Honours List for Services to the Voluntary Sector. But it’s these experiences that continue to fuel her passion.

“There’s a billion new tech roles needed by 2030 that companies are struggling to fill and we can’t just keep seeing reports about that, and the problems of youth and rising unemployment and not do something. I’ve been at this for a long time now, and I’m bored of seeing no change. It’s time to ask ‘what can we do?’,” she says. “I keep seeing the same perpetual cycle of intergenerational poverty, and I’ve witnessed it first hand, too – I left school at 16 and I went to work, not in a well-paid tech job, but cleaning, paper rounds, bars and care work. I grew up in a single-parent family in Blackpool in the north of England and there’s a stat that shows you’re three times more likely to be unemployed if you grew up on free school meals.

“Throughout my career, whether it’s homelessness, teenage self-harm, or young male suicide it always comes back to the same thing,” she continues. “Without access to opportunity, and without the skills you need, it’s very difficult to get out of a situation you find yourself born into rather than being in through choice. For me, it’s always been about supporting young people into work but what troubles me the most is that the figure isn’t getting better, it’s actually starting to get worse.”

“WE LIVE IN A DISRUPTED WORLD…”

A significant part of the problem, says O’Callaghan, stems from an education system that hasn’t evolved as rapidly as the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to finding the next generation of tech talent that’s desperately needed. “It’s not just hard technical skills

I’ve been at this for a long time now, and I’m bored of seeing no change”

that’re required,” she explains. “It’s everything from project management, content creators and editors, and artists, through to innovators, entrepreneurs and more. There’s a whole ecosystem of jobs that the first digitally native generation are still struggling to get into.

“My mum, who’s 70, sat in a classroom and did English, Maths and Science. I went to school and did the same thing, as did my son,” says O’Callaghan. “At a decision-making level, there’s still a sentiment that we’ll solve the problems we face with traditional education, with more Maths and English rather than realising we live in a completely disrupted world in which young people have access to more information than they’ve ever had, but

are still sat down in classrooms and forced to learn in one, rigid way that doesn’t work unless you’re academic. And if you’re not, you’re seen to be failing.

“There’s still this pervasive belief system around jobs for life, career progression, and the ways we used to do things. The world has changed, but education can’t as easily because you’re talking about upskilling two or three generations of teachers,” she adds.

“In some respects, it’s the same at home – we talk about new technology and being digitally native, but parents aren’t really. Think of all the times you hear them wondering what their kids are up to in their rooms online or on social media. I’ve experienced it directly;

I remember standing on a playing field and hearing other parents talking about their children needing £30 for a skin in the FPS game Valorant; I was like ‘yeah, they’re trading them online with others’, but they didn’t know what I was talking about. It’s what this generation is up against. The reality is they’re doing great stuff: setting up TikTok channels, getting their side hustles going – they are the creator economy and they’re actively doing all these things that will become increasingly important and needed.”

“IT’S A LEARNING PLATFORM AT HEART…”

hundo exists to be the bridge between these creators and employment. The unique platform is revolutionising learning in Web 3.0 by

allowing Gen Z to learn skills from creators and industry leaders, be rewarded as they learn and ultimately launch their career. Everyone, including parents and employers, can interact within its metaverse by creating their own individual and unique avatars, designed to remove some of the bias that exists in the current recruiting environment.

“It’s a learning platform at heart and exists to give young people the skills that they actually need in a rapid, agile, liquid learning format and through things like masterclasses and bootcamps while they’re still in education so they can start to make informed and better choices about what their interests are, what their potential career paths may be and what

they want to do when they leave school,” says O’Callaghan. “It’s end-to-end, so we partner both with educators and employers, who we work with to build learning academies.

“And that’s a really important point,” she adds. “Many of these companies have a huge problem recruiting the talent they need – if it doesn’t exist it doesn’t matter how much money you throw at recruiting companies or job boards. The people still aren’t there. What we’re doing is shifting their mindset from being pretty passive observers of education up to now, to actively getting out in front and engaging. The days of waiting for a CV, which is a pretty limited single data point that doesn’t really tell you anything, are gone; the best thing hundo can do for society is to get rid of the damn things. What we’re building is a far richer data source on these young people: what are their interests and their hobbies? What are the soft skills or leadership traits they’re showing in Clash of Clans, or what do their gaming and online activities show us about their potential?”

Central to hundo’s proposition is its earnand-learn approach, through which learners have and are rewarded tokens that can be exchanged to enrol in courses or for real-world goods. “It’s a simple process,” O’Callaghan explains. “Anyone that signs up to the platform first creates their avatar, which we do through a partnership with Ready Player Me. The whole purpose of using an avatar was to anonymise the entire process and remove hiring bias. They then set up a wallet and will receive an allocation of our

utility tokens, called ‘Let’s Go’; when they complete courses they’re rewarded more of these tokens to continue advancing their learning journey. You can also mint and burn an allocation of tokens for real-world goods, including things needed for starting work, so it’s a really good way of bringing the physical and digital together while also using technology and learning about Web 3.0 in a safe and secure environment.

“From the perspective of the employer, they’re able to look at a learner on hundo that they may want to hire and see their whole profile,

The whole purpose of using an avatar was to anonymise the entire process and remove hiring bias ”

which shows what courses and activities they’ve completed, what their capabilities are, and their interests,” she notes. “And that can be anything from completing an AR/VR masterclass to examples of work or a portfolio. They’re able to see progression over a year or two, which is really important in terms of making hires at the right time. It’s essentially reverse engineering the recruitment process so companies are able to match the skills and cultural attributes with people in a very real and measurable way.”

“I JUST OBSESS OVER THINGS LIKE THIS…”

The way we interact with technology has changed, COVID and the rapid adoption and greater use of digital technologies and applications saw to that. Worldwide organisations shifted their operating practices almost overnight, with greater digital and online engagement now essential. Prior to launching hundo in February 2020, O’Callaghan and Collins had already been refining and actively working on the concept but, she says, the onset of the pandemic was a key moment.

“It was the first time I saw just how complete the structural systemic breakdown between education and employment had become for young people because we supported a lot of them through the government’s Kickstart Scheme and most had degrees,” she explains. “And this is where you have to lose any preconceptions you have because having a degree no longer means these people are guaranteed jobs – having all these graduates with no clear career pathway is a real

eye opener because if these people are spending nine to 12 months out of work, then you have kids from where I grew up three to five times more likely to be unemployed again, then young black men from Brixton three times more likely again. It just gets worse and worse.”

But this disrupted world also offers opportunity, and technology like that used by hundo can play a crucial role in bringing long-term change. The company goes live on 9 November at CareerCon, a special two-day event featuring talks, panels and immersive experiences.

For O’Callaghan, it’s both a moment to enjoy but also a stepping stone in the company’s broader growth strategy. “It definitely

focuses the mind,” she laughs, “and it’ll be the launch of our on-demand platform, where everyone from parents, young people, and employers can discover the future of learning and work. As we head into 2023, we’re aiming for our first cohort of 10,000 learners on the platform so we can gauge how well it’s working. The goal is to reach 100,000 learners in the next 24 months – sooner if we can – and focus on building out employer academies in the industries that we know young people are interested in, as well as where shortages and high demand for skills are.

“Personally, I’ve loved every minute of the journey so far,” she adds. “I love technology, am a big sci-fi fan, and just obsess over things like this. I’m relentlessly curious and trying to solve a problem and, because of that, I don’t really care what the mechanism is. Tech is the enabler for me, not the end in itself and, I’ve said it a few times already, but I don’t think what we’ve built now will look anything like it does today in three or four years’ time. But then, that’s the exciting bit. As long as we’re solving problems and have a very solid foundation that can remain agile in terms of what we deploy and deliver, then it takes on a whole life of its own. Ultimately, the idea that it can be owned by the community that it was built to serve is the most inspiring part.”

www.hundo.xyz

There’s a whole ecosystem of jobs that the first digitally native generation are still struggling to get into ”

Harnessing the Power of Data

IBM’S MELISSA DREW DISCUSSES THE RISE OF AI TECHNOLOGIES, THE EVOLVING DIGITAL LANDSCAPE FOR ORGANISATIONS AND HOW TO BEST LEVERAGE THE POWER OF DATA

Having the right data at the right time’ has long been a common phrase for explaining why a decision-based organisation is necessary. Yet, true data intelligence is more than just having the right data at the right time. Rather, it is about recognising the ability to access data at a point in time when that decision has the most impact. And while this is what most organisations strive for, the exponential increase in data year over year has resulted in data paralysis or information overload.

By the end of 2022, Finances Online predicts the world will produce 94 zettabytes of data every day. When looking at how much new data, video, and social media content is created daily, these numbers are not so hard to believe. For example:

> 4.9 billion people or 62% of the world’s population, use social media platforms to generate content (Data Reportal)

> 650 million new tweets posted every day (Blogging Wizard)

> 2,500 new videos are uploaded on YouTube daily (Wyzowl)

The amount of data available to a modern organisation is staggering and the velocity of change in consumer demand is unprecedented. In 2015, we saw a significant shift in how data was used to rethink or redesign existing products and services to support a new kind of consumer, one who was more aware of their individual purchasing power and became comfortable in shifting that purchasing power to a company more aligned with their personal beliefs.

Data was critical in identifying this buying behavior while, on the other hand, it was also used in the supply chain organisation to source alternative ingredients to better match what the consumer was looking for.

Examples of major brands who made a course correction during that time include Kraft and PepsiCo.

The former removed all artificial flavors, preservatives, and synthetic colors, including yellow dye #5 and #6 and used paprika, annatto, and turmeric instead, while PepsiCo announced it would stop using aspartame, commonly sold under the Brand Equal and NutraSweet, as the current sweetener in Diet Pepsi and other Pepsi products, replacing it with sucralose, an artificial sweetener commonly known as Splenda. Pepsi executives reference consumer perception that aspartame was not safe as the driving factor for this change.

Since 2015 consumers have made more frequent adjustments in both their buying habits and reprioritising what is important. The emergence of a more informed consumer is directly impacted by the amount of data available and accessible which influences their changing perspectives. Chasing market share has become a fulltime job for any major organisation and requires a nearly real-time understanding of data. Therefore, to remain competitive in a constantly changing global landscape, supply chain organisations must know how to leverage data to its fullest potential. But at the same time, we humans are no longer capable of synthesising high volumes of data on our own. AI technologies have become the catalyst to doing more with less and finally unleashing the power of data.

AI TECHNOLOGIES

AI technologies is a term used to group the science behind artificial intelligence, encompassing machine learning (neural networks and deep learning), natural processing language (sentiment analysis and grammarbased semantics), robotic process automation (RPA), and computer vision. It aims to augment day-to-day activities by solving problems and answering questions through mimicking the human thought process. The goal is to shift resources into more valueadded roles while enabling AI technologies to take over repeatable tasks, analyse large amounts of data quickly, and improve the decision-making process in a shorter time.

“ THE AMOUNT OF DATA AVAILABLE TO A MODERN ORGANISATION IS STAGGERING AND THE VELOCITY OF CHANGE IN CONSUMER DEMAND IS UNPRECEDENTED”

Exclusive Leadership Organization for C-Suite Leaders in Tech, Data & AI. Dedicated to Equity & Parity

What is WLDA?

Community Exclusive invitation only of senior leaders in tech, data and AI of Fortune 1000 companies.

Growth Tech talk, candid conversations and fireside chat brings together thought leader discussion on emerging topics.

Impact Dedicated to building a fair digital world with equity and parity

“WLDA was created because of my passion for data and AI, and my desire to see more women in the field. I believe that mentorship and peer-to-peer feedback is the best way for women to learn from and uplift each other for the betterment of all.”

Asha Saxena Founder & CEO, WLDA

AI technologies are not new. They have been around for some time. In 2004, I worked with Softface, a company that developed a patented, grammar-based technology using a combination of natural processing language (NLP) and machine learning. The technology enabled businesses to clean, normalise, enrich, and classify procurement and supply chain data to the UNSPSC in 1-2 days instead of 9-12 weeks.

However, it is recent improvements in AI, cloud, and silicon chip technologies that have allowed the leap forward so quickly in the last few years. These improvements have decreased the overall cost of development, opening a path for new startups and suppliers to enter the market. Users are working with up to 30% new suppliers impacting almost every process in the organisation directly or indirectly.

For those suppliers already in the market, AI technologies have enabled them to improve their products and services to remain competitive as consumer demand constantly fluctuates. As a result, organisations are now able to use data to know where to focus their attention, improve customer loyalty, and expand revenue opportunities. The use of AI technologies has created a fundamental shift in how we do business.

One company helping organisations to transform with a data-first strategy is InfoCepts. Founded in 2004, it is a global leader of data and analytics solutions with over 1,000 employees worldwide. “Data is at the forefront of every business strategy. It [data] helps businesses

convert historical and real time data into actional results. But with the sheer volume, sophistication, and variety of new technologies, tools, and methods that keep popping up, how do you stay ahead?,” says Shashank Garg, Co-Founder and CEO of InfoCepts. “This is why we are a trusted partner that is as adaptive and innovative as the data itself. In my experience, organisations that choose to transform are often weighing options that range from reducing the friction in everyday customer engagement to creating a complete overhaul strategy. It is challenging to determine the best path forward.” According to Shashank, the top three areas to start are:

> Invest in understanding customer data: the onset of a digital economy has shown limitations in older systems and processes which do not record the impact of emotive elements such as frustration or contentment.

> Mine dark data to anticipate customer data: according to a survey conducted by True Global Intelligence, an estimated 55% of a company’s data is dark, meaning it has not been analysed or leveraged to the company’s benefit. Your dark data could contain hidden customer profiles or behavior patterns that you aren’t using today.

> Unify customer data: implementing a customer data platform (CDP) consolidates and processes customer data from multiple channels in real time. Additionally, a CDP makes it possible to offer customers a seamless omnichannel experience while safeguarding their data privacy according to protections like CCPA (in North America) or GDPR (in Europe).

WHY SHOULD WE CARE

Data is at the heart of every AI technology. There is a perception the results of AI technologies must be trustworthy because a machine was involved, but the opposite is more likely. It is a human who collects the data and who develops the AI models or mathematical algorithms. For AI to be trustworthy, the users of the AI technologies must feel comfortable in their understanding of how the data is being used and how the AI solution is making decisions based on that data.

On the contrary, an untrustworthy AI solution can systemically produce prejudice or skew the results toward one demographic population over another. For example, in 2018, Amazon’s automated online resume screener filtered out female candidates. The underlying data used during the testing phase was mostly resumes from male candidates which skewed the results when different data sets such as resumes from female candidates were introduced in the public version.

But there are other examples with larger impacts, such as the Scientific America study which falsely concluded some patients were healthier than others. In this example, cost was used as a variable in evaluating an individual’s health. When cost was high, the individual was categorised unhealthy compared to an individual who spent less money and was considered healthy. It was later discovered this was not a valid assumption because some patients do not have equal access to healthcare based on socio-economic status or geographical location.

“ TO REMAIN COMPETITIVE IN A CONSTANTLY CHANGING GLOBAL LANDSCAPE, SUPPLY CHAIN ORGANISATIONS MUST KNOW HOW TO LEVERAGE DATA TO ITS FULLEST POTENTIAL”

SOLVING DATA BIAS

Collectively, these kinds of results have been labelled as data bias, which shows up in two primary phases before an AI solution is ready for public use. In the first phase of the AI lifecycle, a bias occurs when decisions are made about the assumptions, quality, and coverage of the data collected. The second is the testing phase, where bias occurs as a disconnect between the data and the purpose of the AI model.

Other factors contributing to bias are when too little data is used during the testing phase or inaccurate assumptions are made about the test results. One method to remediate general data bias is to encourage more diverse individuals into all areas of the data and AI lifecycle. Two organisations, Women Leaders in Data and Artificial Intelligence (WLDA) and Blended Pledge, have similar missions to make a visible impact in this area from both inside and outside the organisation.

“Diversity in AI is critical to ensuring a successful and equitable world,” says Asha Saxena, founder & CEO of WLDA, a not-forprofit organisation, and a member of the global editorial board for CDO Magazine, on the organisation’s website. She illustrates this during an interview on AI Time Journal with a story about someone who lives black and white. They are looking at data that shows them black and white and believe the dataset is diverse. They are happy with black and white but someone else comes along who lives in blue and green. When they look

at the data, they do not see blues and greens and it doesn’t make sense. Only black and white was reflected in the data. The data does not reflect those who live in blue and green.

“It is the inclusion of diversity of age, gender, and religion which encourages different perspectives in thought and helps to recognise those anomalies in the data,” says Saxena. “WLDA was created because of my passion for data and AI, and my desire to see more women in the field. I believe that mentorship and peer-to-peer feedback is the best way for women to learn from and uplift each other for the betterment of all. Female tech executives and male allies can collaborate openly to create new pathways for innovation, diversity, and inclusion.”

Blended Pledge was founded by Sarah Barnes-Humphrey, founder and CEO of Let’s Talk Supply Chain. Like many others on LinkedIn, she observed that diversity in thought was missing from the conference stages and audiences at events. The root cause of this gap was the lack of corporate budgetary funds to support travel and expenses, which meant those who wanted to attend a conference to upskill or strengthen existing skills could not unless they funded the trip out of their own pocket. Others who had been accepted to speak at local and national events could also not share their perspectives due to a lack of funding.

impact in diversity, equality and inclusion with a promise to include more diverse speakers and participation at conferences and other educational venues, with a focus on women, LGBTQ+, and historically underrepresented minority groups. This organisation supports individual donations, grants, and corporate sponsorships with funding assistance for airfare and hotel costs. This directly impacts the individual’s success and promotes diversity in thought leadership and discussion, most often found at off-site conferences where networking and sharing ideas are fostered.

Reducing data bias won’t happen overnight, but there are steps that every organisation can start doing right away:

1. Acknowledge disparity in the organisation exists

2. Recognise diversity in leadership is critical

3. Foster an organisational culture where differences do matter

4. Develop a framework to facilitate trustworthy AI

5. Adopt a change in mindset throughout, including data and model development and governance (or post-production)

A not-for-profit, charitable organisation, Blended Pledge is also making a visible

CIPA is the result of a ground-breaking partnership between the business education specialists at Nichols College and the internationally recognised tech leaders at NICE, bringing RPA training and implementation to businesses at every scale.

We employ highly trained student experts to work with clients across industries to explore, analyse, and develop tailored RPA solutions in spaces that may never have explored the possibilities before due to limitations in resources, bandwidth, or understanding.

In partnership with

NEXT-GENERATION TALENT

Kerry Calnan, VP of Innovation at Nichols College just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, is leading the charge in educating our next generation of students who will soon be joining the workforce. The Center for Intelligent Process Automation (CIPA), under Professor Bryant Richards’ direction, is a student-governed organisation pairing Nichols’ college student experts with business partners to identify and remove inefficiencies with cutting-edge technologies. In the development and use of robotic process automation (RPA), manual but repeatable tasks are prime candidates for automation, allowing the workforce to focus on more value-added activities.

One example is the collaboration between Mohegan Sun Casino & Resort’s internal auditing department and Nichols College. Previously, a manual audit required 40 hours for one resource, often aligning data not merged correctly into a spreadsheet.

The time commitment made conducting more than one audit each quarter was prohibitive. The RPA proof of concept reduced the total time commitment from 40 hours to seven minutes. Additionally, in another proof of concept, RPA was used to streamline a compliance audit for physical security, automating a report outlining which access cards are opening which doors in the facility. Given the size of Mohegan, that report could take up to hundreds of hours per year. With the use of RPA, it was completed in 20 minutes.

In the autumn of 2021, Nichols College launched the first accredited four-year undergraduate degree in the United States,

“ WITH THE USE OF AI TECHNOLOGIES, WE ARE FINALLY ABLE TO HARNESS THE REAL POWER OF DATA”

Students from The Center for Intelligent Process Automation (CIPA)

‘BSBA in Intelligent Automation’. In this groundbreaking curriculum, students prepare to lead organisations as they navigate the new industrial revolution. How we work today is fundamentally changing. Repetitive tasks can be automated for improved efficiency, accuracy, and confidence. Business professionals who understand the opportunities of this digital transformation will have a significant advantage and become valued leaders. Intelligent Automation sits at the intersection of strategic business acumen and forward-looking digital skills. The Nichols College programme prepares students to strategise automation possibilities and build and deploy them.

CONCLUSION

In the past few years there was a notable increase in data science and AI terminology in everyday conversation, Data Fabric, Data Mesh, Lakehouse, AutoML, TinyML, NoCode ML, Model Drift, DevOps, just to name a few. New departments have risen with an expansion of the c-suite, such as Chief Data Officer, Chief Analytics Officer, Chief Digital Officer, and Chief Transformation Officer. We are working with technologies that didn’t exist, or that we didn’t have access to five years ago. In five years from now, we will be working with technologies that don’t yet exist today. With more accessibility to AI technologies, the rise of startups and midmarket companies with AI solutions has increased exponentially. Organisations are working with up to 30% more suppliers, most of which are suppliers who didn’t exist until a couple of years ago.

We are solving business problems that were not achievable five years ago. Yes, data has always been around, but now we are more equipped to capture, store, analyse, and understand that data, from leveraging 400,000+ variables to create a hyper-personalised experience for a Starbucks rewards customer to using 130,000 datasets to understand a patient’s health footprint, or identifying patterns in satellite images to understand deforestation with a direct impact of our global carbon footprint. With the use of AI technologies, we are finally able to harness the real power of data.

A Top 25 Global Consultant by Consulting Magazine and Top Data Consultant by CDO Magazine, Melissa Drew has 28 years of expertise in transformation strategies. She hosts a podcast exploring how women leaders and influencers combine data and AI technologies to solve our current and future challenges, is a founding member of Women Leaders in Data & AI (WLDA) and an executive board member of Blended, a non-profit charitable organisation providing grants to women, LGBTQ+, and other underrepresented minorities to expand their educational and speaking opportunities. Her book ‘Transforming the Procurement Organization -Building a Flexible Foundation for Future Disruptions’ will be available in 2023.

Melissa Drew

CANDELA P-12 SHUTTLE THE FLYING FERRY

Is it a boat? Is it a plane? Is it… what is it?

It’s a flying electric ferry, of course. It’s also the world’s fastest electric ship, due to set sail in Stockholm next year courtesy of electric boat innovator, Candela.

On face value the P-12 Shuttle is like any other urban boat, designed to carry up to 30 people around the Swedish capital’s waterways. Unlike its competitors, however, the P-12 Shuttle flies across the water using Candela’s innovative hydrofoiling technology and powered by two 180 kWh batteries that see it reaching speeds of up to 30 knots. At high speeds,

three carbon fiber wings extend from the hull and raise the vessel above the water. This reduces drag, cuts energy per passenger kilometre by 95% and makes it more energy efficient than a hybrid electric bus.

Candela will operate the P-12 Shuttle for a nine-month trial in 2023, after which its vision is to replace today’s large, predominantly diesel ships with a nimble and more environmentally friendly fleet of its new shuttles.

www.candela.com

Hydrofoiling electric boat

Candela C-8’s maiden flight

EXPL O RING THE METAVERSE

THE RISE OF THE METAVERSE, ITS BUSINESS APPLICATION AND HOW TO BUILD A METAVERSE STRATEGY, ACCORDING TO FRANÇOIS CANDELON

Do you know your meta from your Mesh, your Roblox from your Decentraland or, indeed, your metaverse more broadly? You should. Because the metaverse, the place where the physical world is converted to digital data, then recreated digitally, could be where you find your next significant competitive advantage. That’s why we spoke with Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) François Candelon, a tech industry veteran of some 30 years, to find out more about the evolution of the metaverse, how businesses should align their strategy with the latest innovation and why now is the time to start exploring.

Tech-Exec: Can you tell us more about your current work and elaborate on your background in technology?

François Candelon: I’ve been with BCG for 30 years, working in different countries including the UK, France and China. I’ve always worked in the tech industry, and currently have two roles: working on and executing AI transformations for clients and leading the BCG Henderson Institute, which is our think tank. For the latter I conduct my own research on the impact of tech, in particular AI, on business and society. So it’s about trying to understand what will be critical to the c-suite agenda in the next three to five years, what new innovations mean for tech and other companies, and also the impact they may have on people, countries and the competitiveness of nations.

TE: How has technology evolved over your career, and what are the drivers behind the rapid adoption of new and innovative technologies, including the metaverse?

FC: There’s two key drivers of the metaverse: the need for some tech companies to find a new source of growth, particularly in maturing industries like social media, software, or gaming industries, where the metaverse is an opportunity to move to the next level, and the ongoing maturity of some critical tech layers such as in computing vision with AR/ VR or decentralisation like blockchain or crypto. It’s a joint maturity that’s really enabling a new generation of metaverses.

I don’t like to define metaverses in general, and certainly don’t think they should just be defined by their technology, though. Really, we should consider the metaverse more as the physical world converted into digital data and then recreated digitally, either as a reflection of reality, like a digital map or images, or as a fiction like you’d see in video games or art; it reflects the myriad possibilities of human lives and our infinite needs.

“WE’LL SEE THE REAL IMPACT OF THE METAVERSE IN THE EARLY 2030S”

With that in mind, the real focus of metaverse adoption should be around its purpose, its characteristics, and its possibilities. Rather than the tech solution, for instance ‘I want to use VR’, we should be thinking about capabilities, experiences and interaction of the metaverse itself. And I think that’s an important distinction because technology evolves so rapidly. However, at the moment we see the simultaneous emergence of VR/ AR on one side, and digital assets on the other one as key drivers.

This duality will inevitably bring different types of metaverses. On the one hand you have technologies that really push the limits of computing power, whereas on the other things like blockchain where this is deliberately sacrificed for the sake of decentralisation and security. As it continues to evolve, I can see a scenario where the different computing power or types of players involved push us to a winnertakes-all model. At BCG, we consider there to be several types of metaverses that are characterised around these metrics.

TE: Can you give some practical examples of the different metaverses and highlight their potential in shaping the future?

FC: We conducted some NLP analysis around the keywords used by the main players, the architecture of the metaverses, how the layers are integrated, and the narratives used. The narratives in particular are really important because they demonstrate how we influence the way people think about a certain subject. It’s interesting to see how they relate to the four key types of metaverses that I believe exist.

The first is for B2B applications, with examples being Microsoft’s AR tool for its new Mesh platform or Magic Leap and its applications for surgeons to plan procedures in an immersive 3D environment. The main narrative here was around team experience, and it’s very focused on quality and tailored adoption, using AR, being very specific and precise, and always pushing for very high-quality experiences.

In terms of VR and immersive AR/VR experiences Meta is the best example, particularly in the way it’s constructing a metaverse that resembles an immersive social media tool. Here, our NLP research identified key themes such as people, creator, ‘one’ and more.

There’s also the evolving metaverse where the objective is to not be totally immersive, and that’s typified by platforms like Roblox or Decentraland

“WE SHOULD CONSIDER THE METAVERSE MORE AS THE PHYSICAL WORLD CONVERTED INTO DIGITAL DATA AND THEN RECREATED DIGITALLY”

– Roblox, for example, has more than 40 million experiences on its platform. Here the key questions are more about how to create development tools that are easy enough for everyone to be able to enter and to create, and they’re trying to acquire experiences and build a strong network effect to become the de facto metaverse. It’s typified by keywords around community experience and ‘public’, so it’s a far more inclusive environment.

Lastly you have companies like Sandbox or Epic Games, which are creating metaverses based on innovative experiences or virtual opportunities that will revolve around their own digital economies, and here we saw a focus on words like game, asset, blockchain, and NFT.

TE: As a business how do you define the right purpose or strategy for metaverse adoption and which metaverse is right to align with?

FC: There’s several things to understand, and the first is around purpose. Are you trying to do work modules, training, or leisure modules? Do you want an amplified social network, a decentralised creation, and so on? Then, you have to understand how your organisation’s strengths and positioning align with the different metaverses.

For instance, if you want to experiment or test new products, then Roblox or Decentraland are perfect, but companies that succeed here have to be able to quickly adapt to new customer needs. And, because there’s already so many experiences on Roblox, success will also mean finding a competitive advantage and staying far ahead of the curve. But get it right and it’s an excellent way of evolving new emotional relationships with customers and potential customers.

On the other hand, if your organisation wants a strong brand or to establish a fantastic and high quality, massive experience, then Meta is the way forward, particularly if the business model is for leisure or social media. For those companies with more B2B elements, Mesh would be the preferred metaverse. The point really is that defining the purpose and alignment of business with the correct environment is the key step.

TE: You talk about customer relationships and engagement, why is emotional data so important to success in the metaverse and how should companies use it to best effect?

FC: It’s very important. Research shows that emotion has a greater influence on our decision making than logic and data. It’s how humans work. If you’re able to collect that emotional data as a business, it gives you a real advantage. In the metaverse there’s vast amounts of data, which means you’re capable of really understanding what people are looking at and engaging with, their behaviour, what they do and the choices they make, even what they feel. Based on that, and by employing AI models, you can identify the hot buttons that will prompt someone to make a decision.

Of course, there are other considerations around how we collate and use that data that will come into play as the metaverse develops, and we’ll likely see regulation brought in that will be critical in the evolution of the technology and have an impact on the types of metaverses we’ll see.

TE: How significant will the metaverse be in terms of changing the future of work and the enterprise?

FC: It will be huge, but change isn’t going to happen overnight. It’s important to remember that, while we’re using terms like the metaverse, augmented reality has already made a significant impact in the business world. That’s particularly the case if you look at things like manufacturing plants and industry 4.0 innovations, such as using AR glasses to improve production and output.

In terms of metaverse adoption and use, I think there is a distinction between B2B and B2C business. In B2B, it’ll be very impactful, and I can already see the potential positive impact of it because there is a kind of an obligation to be who you are.

But, the reality is, we’re at the beginning of exploring what the metaverse can really do. I remember, for example, at the start of the internet era, newspapers like Le Monde in 1999 or 2000, would basically have a website that was a PDF of their paper. Similarly, with the metaverse, because it’s new technology and evolving quickly, it’s about

unleashing our imagination more than anything. The tipping point for that, I think, will be when the next generation of true digital natives reach an age where they’re the leaders, the decision makers, and the innovators; their imaginations will really be limitless.

In my opinion, we’ll see the real impact of the metaverse in the early 2030s. That’s partly because of the time it requires to have mass adoption of any new technology like this but also, I think, the time it will take to see the significant progress that I believe is needed in terms of headsets and other hardware.

TE: With that in mind, how important will it be to gain an advantage through early adoption and innovation?

There’s real value in starting now because you have to go through a learning curve. I don’t think businesses can afford to wait for the full potential of the metaverse to be realised, by that point they’ll already be laggards – we can see that now with things like AI, for example. It’s really important that companies start experimenting, but be aware that there will be failures, there will be lessons to learn and there is value in innovating, even if it’s not to the full potential we may see in the future.

It’s important to recognise that this isn’t really just about technology, either. There are real hidden cultural benefits to engaging with the metaverse. When companies push the boundaries, work on these kinds

of innovative topics and projects, it’s easier to attract people. There’s also a measurable impact on morale when employees feel they work in a company at the forefront of new technology. It develops an entrepreneurial spirit, it helps you think differently, and it gives a competitive advantage.

I often use the analogy of eSports. When it was created 10 or 15 years ago, it was an outlier mostly consumed by young kids and teenagers and limited to very small industries. But once that demographic entered the job market, I would say five years ago, the eSports industry just exploded in terms of revenues, innovation, and the quality of what’s possible. I think we’re on the edge of a real turning point, and I see huge potential as the metaverse becomes embraced more and more by those that are growing up with these technologies.

“BUSINESSES CAN’T AFFORD TO WAIT FOR THE FULL POTENTIAL OF THE METAVERSE TO BE REALISED, BY THAT POINT THEY’LL ALREADY BE LAGGARDS”

TE: So, what fundamental steps should companies take to start their engagement with the metaverse now?

FC: As I said, not starting is a mistake. To start, develop projects, consider NFTs, Web 3.0, experimenting with building your own store, or encouraging people to maybe co-create or test products on a platform like Roblox.

To harness the potential, companies should look at the momentum in the key areas we’ve already touched on. So the tech maturation of VR/AR and the standardisation of decentralised technologies, particularly for interoperability, will be really critical, as well as the momentum of the different respective metaverses.

Then you need to consider your strategic alignment and based on this approach you need to really, depending on where you are, push different opportunities. For instance, if you see that it has momentum and you have a strategic alignment, go for it.

You really have to experiment. As I mentioned there are already so many opportunities to do this and more on a platform like Roblox. But beyond building, you will also create something really fantastic in terms of revenues or customer engagement and relations, or brand building.

Try, monitor, experiment, look at what works, the different models, and try to catch up. It’s really what you need to do at the moment, if you want to get all the benefits you can get, because it’ll be a source of competitive advantage later on. It’s an investment today for something that is relatively long term. But which can be massive in terms of changing the landscape.

François Candelon

François Candelon is Managing Director & Senior Partner, Boston Consulting Group and Global Director of the BCG Henderson Institute, a think tank dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, and science. His recent work focuses on AI and data analytics in the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors.

www.bcg.com/bcg-henderson-institute

“YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND HOW YOUR ORGANISATION’S STRENGTHS AND POSITIONING ALIGN WITH THE DIFFERENT METAVERSES”

“A new path to an autonomous future”

The problem with the autonomous cars of this world – leaving our own personal feelings about safety to one side for the moment – is one that no amount of technology can do away with. You still have to buy one, own and maintain it, and find a parking space once it’s driven you serenely to your destination.

FUTURE DRIVER

Not so with Vay which, through its app, offers a driverlerss car-on-demand service that eliminates these challenges. The Berlin-based startup, founded in 2018, uses ‘teledriving’ technology, through which users can order an electric vehicle that is remotely controlled to the location by a driver, not in the car, but at the company’s teledrive centre behind several real-time screens. Teledrivers control all vehicle functions including steering, braking and throttle and make all driving decisions based on defensive and safe driving styles.

These personal chauffeurs let the customer take over driving duties to their destination, after which they can leave the vehicle and the teledrivers take it back to Vay’s HQ. The company says it’s a sustainable and safe alternative to existing mobility services that can pioneer a new approach to car sharing urban travel.

www.vay.io

A M S T E R D A M

Welcome to Amsterdam, the capital city of the Netherlands, a place of artistic heritage, culture, stunning architecture, canals and, more recently, innovative tech businesses. Today, Amsterdam is a thriving tech hub, home to industry giants, digitally-driven companies and a buzzing startup scene. The Dutch capital is considered one of Europe’s most liveable cities recognised for its excellent work-life balance – workers in the city apparently put in an average of 30.4 hours a week and get an average of 8.45 hours’ sleep per night. It’s also a great place to do business; the Netherlands is one of the world’s best markets for tech companies and Amsterdam hosts the likes of Netflix, Tesla, Miele X and more. Here, 5Values’ Tom White shows us around.

I first started travelling to Amsterdam for work in early 2013, nearly a decade ago and I was always struck by the thirst for innovation in the city, particularly the ambition the government had for foreign investment and technological advancements. It’s why we opened our business there in 2017.

The Oosterdok is my favourite part of the city, watching the hustle and bustle of the central station and the myriad of businesses and development.

Amsterdam has many co-working and collaborative spaces, they were leaders in this when WeWork was just an idea. If you want to explore, you could try Plant 22, a creative co-working space in Amsterdam-West that’s home to eight work stations, a full kitchen and meeting rooms. StartDock is also worth a visit. It’s a community-driven co-working space packed with entrepreneurs and a good spot to find a desk or private office if you need to catch up on work.

PLANT 22

OOSTERDOK

STAY

Amsterdam has some great places to stay, whatever you’re looking for. If you really want to immerse yourself in local life then you can’t get more Dutch than the Inntel Hotels Amsterdam Zaandam, it’s a pretty unique building that looks like something out of a fairytale and, inside, has a great spa too.

If you want to get in the heart of the city, try The Hoxton . Rich in history and full of local buzz, it’s a great boutique

experience and a good place to sleep, eat and drink. It’s also located on The Nine Streets, a popular and trendy area packed with independent shops and great restaurants.

THE HOXTON

THE NINE STREETS

INNTEL HOTELS AMSTERDAM ZAANDAM

TOM WHITE CEO, 5VALUES

With offices of his specialist IoT and Video Talent Solutions firm, 5Values, in Bristol, Amsterdam, London, Munich and Miami, entrepreneur and CEO Tom White is the recipient of numerous industry awards for his extensive industry knowhow, and recognition of his successful business career to date. For more than 15 years, Tom has overseen high profile recruitment campaigns for multina tionals and, as the host of the 5V Podcast on IoT and Deep Tech (number-one rated on Google), was recognised among the ‘Who’s Who of IoT in 2022’.

www.weare5values.com

SENSES RESTAURANT

EAT / DRINK

The city’s food scene has something for everyone. Senses Restaurant is a fantastic fine dining venue and an awe to behold. It’s open kitchen gives you a good view of the ‘food art’ that Chef Jan Wijnbergen, Sous Chef Koen van Kempen and Luuk Kreutzelman create for both lunch and dinner eating.

Restaurant de Waaghals is a relaxed vegetarian restaurant that’s been around in the city since the 80s and is another

great place to visit. It’s also in the best area of the city, the De Pijp district. Grab a Bitterballen and an Amstel, and watch the world go by.

The Raddison Blu on Oosterdok is well worth a visit, particularly the Sky Bar, where you can enjoy views right across the city.

DE PIJP DISTRICT

RESTAURANT DE WAAGHALS

LEISURE

You’re spoilt for choice when it comes to down time. If you’ve not listened to a podcast or audible book whilst power walking around Vondelpark , then who even are you?! If you fancy something a little more lively then take a 20-minute Uber ride to the beach. That’s right, Amsterdam has a beach too. Volleyball on Sloterplas is a sunny Saturday delight.

SLOTERPLAS © IAMSTERDAM/MAARTEN BRANTE

THE RADDISON BLU

GLO bAL e V ent S CALENDER

IBM CDO SUMMIT

9 NOV 2022 [ San Francisco, USA ]

The CDO Summit features leading chief digital, data, analytics and technology officers from some of the world’s most prestigious organisations.

> VISIT WEBSITE

WOMEN OF SILICON ROUNDABOUT

22-23 NOV [ London, UK ]

The Women of Silicon Roundabout is the flagship event in the Women in Technology World Series, and the original centrepiece of the global gender diversity movement in tech.

> VISIT WEBSITE

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION WEEK

1-2 DEC 2022 [ London, UK ]

A series of in-person events and conferences consisting of top-level content and thought leadership discussions exploring the digital transformation ecosystem.

> VISIT WEBSITE

CES TECH

5-8 JAN 2023 [ Las Vegas, USA ]

CES 2023 will partner with the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) to showcase the critical role of technology in support of the United Nations’ efforts to advance human security for all.

> VISIT WEBSITE

MWC BARCELONA

27 FEB – 2 MAR 2023 [ Barcelona, Spain ]

MWC Barcelona is where trailblazers, decision-makers, and giants of industry gather to exhibit groundbreaking products, demo new technologies and share inspiring thought leadership.

> VISIT WEBSITE

DATA CENTRE WORLD

8-9 MAR 2023 [ London. UK ]

Immerse yourself in the engine room of digital infrastructure at Data Centre World. The world’s largest global gathering of data centre specialists, engineers, innovators and business leaders.

> VISIT WEBSITE

BUILD YOUR BRAND WITH US

At Stroud & Clarke we believe in the power of storytelling to build brands, engage with audiences and inform the conversation. We produce creative content that provides insight, influences opinion and positions you at the forefront of your industry.

www.stroudandclarke.com