Newsletter
Welcome springtime :)
We have sprung into spring with lots of news to share and things for you to join in with - read on, it won't take long we promise and it will be worth it…
Welcome New Sponsors
Firstly we start with a big welcome to UK Power Networks, National Grid ESO & Satellite Applications Catapult - they have all joined our ecosystem as sponsors. Watch the blog for more insight about why they want to be involved and how we will be helping them.
New team members!
We have tons on so we need to expand our team. Daniel Boam has joined us as an Apprentice Data Analyst/Scientist. Daniel recently graduated with a degree in Computer Science at Newcastle University and is now undertaking a Level 4 Data Analyst apprenticeship. As we expand our work on Health, Transport & the Economy we welcome three new specialist associates; Marc Farr, Beata Kubitz & Christian Spence. Please drop them a line to say hello and if you have any specific requests for their areas of expertise.
Open Data Collaboration Group - Sponsors only ONS Census Special
Exciting news…on 19th April 2022 at 12 PM we have a special meet-up for you so please come along. Neil Townsend, Head of Census Partnerships at the ONS has kindly agreed to come and speak to you about the latest updates on census data and answer any questions you might have. If you haven’t got the zoom link already let Grace know or register via Eventbrite. This is a sponsors only group but do get in touch if you are interested and we will see what we can do :)
Open Data Saves Lives - Cancer
The next Open Data Saves Lives is at 12 PM on 20th April, which will focus on cancer data. We have 3 experts to hear from, David Tighe, Deputy Clinical Lead, QOMS (Quality Outcomes in Maxillofacial Surgery) Consultant Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Surgeon, to discuss the research opportunity to develop new outcomes for measuring surgical efficiency. Professor Sir Mike Richards CBE, MD, DSc, FRCP, recently retired British oncologist. Mike was the DH's first National Cancer Director and is currently Chief Inspector of Hospitals, and Martelie Isaacs, Principal cancer business and data analyst, Surrey and Sussex Cancer Alliance, will talk about the challenges and opportunities around cancer data, analytics and reporting. Sign up now with Eventbrite.
Powered Up - Energy Crisis
The Energy Crisis impacts everyone so - join our Powered Up session on 21st April 2022 at 12 PM. We’ll be asking some of our energy sector friends and sponsors to share some of the work they’ve been doing over the last year. Register now to get your ticket.
Northernlands 4 - Showcasing Connectors & Innovators
Northernlands 4 will be a 2-session virtual event on the 26th and 27th April 2022 as part of Leeds Digital Festival 2022 & is supported by Innovation@Leeds & The Kingdom of The Netherlands. The first day will feature ‘connector’ organisations from both regions - those businesses working towards helping and inspiring innovation. The second day will be a showcase of start-ups working in digital & tech across the same regions. Confirmed speakers so far:
- Stuart Clarke, Founder, Leeds Digital Festival
- Dawn Dunn, Senior Investment Manager, NGI
- Tom Forth, Co-Founder & CTO, The Data City
- James Gupta, Founder & CEO, Synap
- Pete Mills, Director, Crysp
- Mitali Mookerjee, CastRooms
- Amy Morgan, Ecosystem Manager, C4DI
- Revannth Murugesan, Founder & CEO, Antonym
- Karmran, Rashid, Co-founder & CEO, Impact Hub Bradford
- Barry Singleton, Business Development Officer, Nexus
- Julian Tait, CEO, Open Data Manchester
- Saile Villegas, Co-founder, SeeAi
To find out more details, check out the hub page and to get tickets, register via Eventbrite.
Levelling Up - What Happened?
Alongside the Royal Statistical Society the aim of the project was to build a prototype to visualise levelling Up - our first attempt is here a R&D spending explorer. The event attracted a wide audience and a high profile panel of speakers including leading economist Andy Haldane & Neil O Brien. We asked attendees to bring resources & work to help figure out what data demonstrates ‘levelling up’ best. The final stage of the project was a 'show and tell', where we showcased the prototype visualisations alongside talks about their developments, the datasets used and why, and how people could still get involved in making them better. To find all of the resources, talks, sessions and prototypes, head to the Levelling Up project page. We are looking to continue this topical project and our new Associate Christian Spence will be helping us to take this work even further. Get in touch if you have any input.
Diversity Dashboard - Update
The Diversity Dashboard is a successful example of ‘collaboration and innovation in action’ - to quote Simon Greaves. From conception by Yorkshire Water, we then kick-started the project by hosting a diversity data special for the Open Data Collaboration Group, looking to get more insight about the data quality and what might be involved in making a data standard. From there, we started asking the Open Data Collaboration Group for their datasets about diversity & the Leeds Anchor Network so that the team at Open Innovations could start to examine and work with it. We have now built a Diversity Dashboard for Leeds featuring data from six organisations - thank you to those who have contributed and shared their data openly with us! To find out more on the work we have done, check out our Head of Delivery Giles Dring's blog - Announcing the Diversity Dashboard. If your organisation would be keen to get involved, please do drop us an email.
