This Man Saved Lives

But he is far too modest to say so

Covid was a nightmare, a time of fear, despair and desperation. A time when we leaned on each other and were forced to consider who the really important members of our society were, on Thursday nights we stood on our doorsteps to applaud the NHS and frontline staff who continued whilst the rest of us were forced to retreat home. The worst may be behind us, but there are still so many stories that need to be heard. Stories that show the best of us, where ordinary people achieved amazing things, working together to conquer challenges rarely seen in peacetime.

The word hero is overused, it should rarely have a place in a sporting report or a dispatch from Westminster Palace, it is cheapened by lazy writers who reach for superlatives when ‘average’ or ‘fine’ would do. Real heroes do not wear a football strip, or wear capes and wield superpowers, some wear hospital gowns and stethoscopes. Others still casual t-shirts and qwerty keyboards, and one of them is one of our own. Steven Roy (class of ’17) has a story worth telling. He helped write the software that conquered the biggest ever peacetime logistical challenge, the covid vaccination programme in England and Wales.

Steven came to The High School in August 2011, the recipient of a bursary. He has been kind enough to tell his own story and was kind enough to meet me for a coffee recently.

I grew up with not exactly a lot of money going around and mum working 12-hour shifts. So, education was something in the background and I was certainly not considering higher education, but then a teacher suggested that I might apply to Dundee High. I came for a visit and just fell in love with the place, for me that auspicious moment of walking into Trinity Hall is unforgettable. I think the most telling difference about the school is the teachers, they didn't view it as just a job, it’s something they live and breathe. They would approach me with passion projects, Mr Smith came and talked about starting a digital app development club, something that I went on to use in my first-year internship at the Bank of England. I wouldn’t have considered a career in app development or cybersecurity or consultancy. And it all came about because of teachers who had said, ‘why don't you try this?’ And then they would spend their breaks and lunchtimes working through problems that are completely outside the curriculum. The teaching in the classroom is first rate, but it's the bits beyond that really, really take it to the next level. I spent my final two years, every single weekend away with Mrs. McGrath at debating competitions, and the opportunities that led to were incredible such as Kazakhstan for the European Debating Championships and Bali with Team Scotland. People willing to dedicate their time like that are usually one in a million, in the High School there are 10, 20, 30 of them.

Cryptography Club was something that we started. At first, we were spectacularly bad at it, but the teachers still spent an extra hour or two after school every week to go through problems that we were absolutely, unequivocally terrible that. But we got better and were learning things beyond the curriculum, in my degree (Computer Science) cryptography was a huge part.

Terrified to come

To get lapel badges for my blazer I joined Biology Club and we tried to train fish to play football! It was spending breaks doing fun elements of education, a well-rounded preparation for the real world. A High School of Dundee education is intense, not just something that takes place within the timetable. There's lot of things to get your teeth into and the teachers will back you, there's really no limit if you're willing to try. The High School experience is a lot more like higher education, a lot more independent learning.

I was really terrified of coming at first because it seemed like a massive change from the culture I was used to, but that was not the case, no one ever really noticed that I was different, no one ever cared. It wasn’t something to worry about.

Everyone around me was supportive, helping me to get what I wanted out of my education. The High School was exactly the right intermediary step before university. The High School’s great.

A serious risk of failure

I had just graduated from Durham University and started at Palantir Technologies as a new graduate. Covid was rampant and the need for personnel to work on the Covid projects was pressing, so I started work on Monday and by around 1pm I had been assigned to the vaccines project and began to pick up context on what was needed.

I was the software engineer responsible for building the software that facilitated vaccine ordering across England and Wales (head of a team of three) – together we constructed a pipeline allowed every individual vaccination site (2,980 total) to request vaccines, which at its peak was delivering 771,000 vaccines per day alongside all the associated products. It became a complicated question very quickly with a lot of moving parts. I was working as a Forward Deployed Engineer so the process was straight forward, I’d meet with the team leading the project at the NHS –we’d discuss what needed to be accomplished, how the process should work and get feedback on the ‘tools’ since they were in use as I was building them. It was a lot of writing code, and we relied heavily on the NHS team, to test the dashboards and tools as normal testing processes just weren’t within the allowed timeframe. We had tight deadlines, and serious risk of failure, it was close a few times and there were certainly growing pains, but the output was a robust pipeline, allocating individual doses to every site across England and Wales and allowing those sites to report any doses that they had used/broken/spilled.

All in it took about three months. It was hard work, at the height of development I started at around 7am and would leave early hours the next day (or nap at the office while tests ran). I can’t complain about the actual office, it was well stocked, we had showers and Soho is a very quiet place during the week – nothing compared to the people working in hospitals or deployed on site at the time, I had it lucky.

Eternally grateful

I’m very proud of being a small part of the Covid response – I was by no means an integral part, healthcare workers and a huge variety of others were risking their lives and working far harder in far worse conditions but there was certainly a smile on my face when speaking to vaccination site owners who had used the platform and tools that I had helped to build.

A lot of Red Bull helped, a belief in the product that we were building and a desire to have an impact on the world at large –as well as support from family and friends during the particularly gruelling days.

I wouldn’t be where I am today without The High School of Dundee. Particular thanks to Irene McGrath and David Smith, both of whom gave unlimited time and patience, I am eternally grateful.