Data assets have more value when used collaboratively than on their own. For many organisations, however, this kind of collaboration is currently very difficult, whether because the data they handle is private or otherwise sensitive, or they lack the resources and know-how to embark on large-scale cooperative projects. The concept of ‘data federations’ offers a model which allows multiple parties to commit their digital assets to a shared project whilst retaining control over the extent to which...
Jan 22, 2021•54 min
The second episode in our R&D podcast has landed! As part of the ODI’s Research and Development programme, we have been investigating the financial challenges faced by data institutions, and over the past few months we have started to create free tools to help data institutions understand the financial options available to them and how each will impact their existing business model. In this podcast, host Jo Kingston is joined by ODI team members Sonia Duarte, Ben Snaith and Joe Massey to dis...
Jan 15, 2021•22 min
In this podcast, ODI’s Business Director Stuart Coleman is joined by Dame Wendy Hall DBE, FRS, FREng, Regius Professor of Computer Science, Associate Vice President (International Engagement) and Executive Director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton, Helen Crooks, Chief Data Officer Ofgem and Ambassador for AI and Data Economy for Innovate UK, Christopher Argent, Founder and Managing Director, Generation CFO, and Abubakar Suleiman, CEO, Sterling Bank. Fields like accou...
Dec 01, 2020•37 min
In this podcast, ODI’s Business Director Stuart Coleman is joined by Richard Young (Industry and Regulatory Affairs – Global Data at Bloomberg LP), Alex Steer (Chief Data Officer, Wunderman Thompson) and Faisal Khan (Chairman, Zabardast and Chair, Institute of Directors, South) COVID-19 has shown that in all levels of society, we need a reliable data infrastructure. It’s the pipework that will keep supply chains functioning and businesses trading in normal times as well as during a crisis. Sound...
Oct 12, 2020•38 min
The 1st episode in our new R&D podcast! Host Isabel Roberts is joined by ODI team members Diana Szasz, Ben Snaith and Sonia Duarte, who will be discussing research underway by the team on the financial sustainability of #datainstitutions This podcast was recorded remotely over Zoom
Jul 30, 2020•23 min
Sebastian Wilson, Director of Hankin Consulting, will talk about how technology is used in the finance sector and how customer data is used for insights, decision-making and improving online journeys About the speaker Sebastian Wilson is Director of Hankin Consulting which offers strategic direction for technology transformation programmes. Sebastian’s extensive experience has led him to lead successful Cloud projects for ICAP, UBS, SKY TV, core banking strategy projects at Ernst & Young and...
Jun 24, 2020•33 min
Never before has data played such an integral and granular role in how we live. On a daily basis, we are asked to make decisions about personal data about us – consenting to it being collected and used for many purposes. But how do we feel and think about data? Do we understand what the different types of data about us are, do we care how it is used, can we even control how it is used? The ODI, alongside the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) and Luminat...
Apr 24, 2020•38 min
The government collects and publishes a lot of data as official statistics, but currently citizens, businesses and government itself are not taking full advantage of that. Darren and Bill from Swirrl will report on the Connected Open Government Statistics (COGS) project, seeking to make ambitious changes in the way that statistics are disseminated and used. The established approach to stats releases, of PDF commentary and accompanying spreadsheet tables is part of the picture, but not enough in ...
Apr 17, 2020•51 min
Theo Blackwell MBE is London’s first ever Chief Digital Officer. A big role, indeed – but what’s it actually like to be dropped into a role which carries with it so many city-wide expectations? What challenges did he face, and why did London need him in the first place? Theo will talk about opportunities, challenges and where he came from. He’ll also have some handy advice for new CDO’s taking on big new responsibilities. About the speaker Appointed in 2017, Theo leads on London-wide digital tra...
Mar 27, 2020•52 min
In this podcast, the ODI's Data Institutions Lead, Jack Hardinges talks about our work with the INSIGHT Health Data Research Hub for eye health. When the podcast was recorded, the Hub was known as the Data Innovation Hub
Mar 12, 2020•15 min
Dr Wen Hwa Lee is the CEO of the charity, Action Against Age-related Macular Degeneration (AAAMD). The organisation is focused on tackling the leading cause of legal blindness in the developed world at its earliest stages. AAAMD is one of the partners delivering the INSIGHT Health Data Research Hub and the ODI is working with them to decide how the data made available by INSIGHT is shared. In this episode of the podcast, Dr Lee describes the potential that could be unlocked by INSIGHT and what m...
Mar 12, 2020•19 min
Described by The Times as ‘the world’s only Thrill Engineer’, performance artist Brendan Walker will give a broad overview of his creative digital projects from the last 20 years. Brendan’s projects often use live broadcast and recorded data from a mixture of sources that include: biomedical sensors, environmental monitoring and black box instrumentation. His projects span live performance and installation, and are just as likely to feature on the TV as factual entertainment, as they are to appe...
Mar 06, 2020•56 min
As a poet, I’ve always lived on intuition, imagination and inspiration. My world has often been something far removed from even the most remotest of clouds. So imagine my surprise when I was invited to compose data-related poems for the ODI. To try to find the abstract among the AI, the artistry amidst the analytics. Was it possible to find poetry within data? My talk will cover how my brief interactions with Data as Culture at the ODI allowed me to combine it with my love of classic poetry and ...
Feb 28, 2020•58 min
Data affects everyone. How it is collected, used and shared can have huge impacts – both direct and indirect – on people’s lives. Data and its (mis)use shape how companies profit, how we consume, even how governments see and serve their populations. But while some organisations are speaking more about responsible data and ethics, many members of the public still aren’t engaged. They see it as boring, dry or too technical to understand – let alone something they can have any real agency over. Thi...
Feb 14, 2020•37 min
As more of our essential public and private sector services become digital it is vital that providers know exactly who is and isn’t using the services on offer. The only way to do that is to ask, but how can that be done in a meaningful, secure and anonymous way? A new report written by the ODI and funded by the Legal Education Foundation seeks to explain the problem digital services face, explore why and offer recommendations as to how the issue can be tackled by service designers, regulators a...
Jan 31, 2020•42 min
Open source design has a plethora of hurdles to leap before it could become fully adopted by the global design community. These challenges include exploitative ‘work for free attitudes’, how software doesn’t yet allow for robust and collaborative versioning across different designers and how the open source community as a whole is over represented by those with privilege, access and ability. Ushahidi builds humanitarian tools, remotely for some of the most marginalised people across the globe. I...
Jan 17, 2020•1 hr 1 min
With the cladding crisis causing many homes to now have no value and onerous leasehold terms meaning other homes which do have a value still can’t be sold, Bob Cratchit has had a bit of a rough year. Martin Boyd from the pioneering charity Leasehold Knowledge Partnership describes the long history of flawed housing data and why that always benefits Scrooge and hurts Bob Cratchit About the speaker Martin Boyd Chair of trustees for the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership who first published work on th...
Dec 20, 2019•34 min
As part of our R&D project on digital twins, we chatted with Mark Enzer, Chair of the Centre for Digital Built Britain’s Digital Framework Task Group, about the purpose of digital twins, the national digital twin, and the spectrum of possible futures.
Dec 18, 2019•24 min
Lots of organisations are on a data transformation journey. They’ve written their data strategy and they recognise that interoperability is key – now they want different teams to talk to each other easily to achieve new and innovative things. Most organisations first try to start their data architecture from the middle – but this comes with its own problems. Simon Worthington, Founder of Register Dynamics will explain in this talk how most organisation’s data architecture already exists. People ...
Dec 13, 2019•36 min
Machine learning is revolutionising healthcare provision and delivery, from mobilising previously inaccessible data sources to generating increasingly powerful algorithmic constructs for prognostic modelling. However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that if we do not learn from the mistakes of our past, that we are doomed to repeat them; if it isn’t already too late… In this (irreverent and misleadingly titled) talk, Dr. Bilal Mateen will discuss the importance of definitions, revisit a seri...
Dec 02, 2019•53 min
Data and AI is changing the way we manage workplace risk. Discovering Safety are using data and analytical tools to generate new insight and solutions. Thousands of lives are still lost each year through workplace accidents and ill health. The Health and Safety Executive is leading the way in improving global health and safety performance through its new Discovering Safety Programme. Discovering Safety uses data and analytical tools to generate new insight and develop solutions to address key he...
Nov 22, 2019•48 min
Mike Rose has been working with the ODI and CABI to help the Ethiopian Government develop and implement a Soil and Agronomy data sharing policy. This talk is looking at how they approached this, how they ensured that they got as much buy in as possible and how they developed a policy – that landed well – based on the principles of FAIR data (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Mike will also discuss his hypothesis that open data as an outcome is dead and we need to refocus how we app...
Nov 17, 2019•45 min
ODI Fridays are free lunchtime lectures for everyone. You bring your lunch, we provide tea and coffee, an interesting talk, and enough time to get back to your desk. Could ophthalmology be first branch of medicine to be fundamentally reinvented through the application of artificial intelligence? Ophthalmology is among the most technology-driven of the all the medical specialties, with treatments utilising high-spec medical lasers and advanced microsurgical techniques, and diagnostics involving u...
Nov 08, 2019•45 min
As politicians enter an intense period of campaigning, questions are being asked about how data about us might be used to micro-target messages. So now feels like the right time to revisit the About Data About Us report by ODI (for the RSA and Luminate) published in September. The interviews we carried out for the report indicated that people can have different attitudes about being micro-targeted with information that might affect their opinions, than they do about products they may want to buy...
Nov 08, 2019•30 min
The NSPCC is on a data ethics journey to ensure all interactions support their work to safeguard children, and this includes how they work with advertising networks. They started by looking at cookie tracking across our websites and understanding what is collected and where it goes. From data to people, this will be a practical presentation on the steps they’ve taken, what they’ve reviewed, the questions they’ve asked and their path forward. About the speaker As Head of Data for NSPCC, Dawn Hemi...
Nov 01, 2019•39 min
Marius and Steve from Bristol City Council will be talking about city’s innovative approach to open data, with a focus on air quality data. Marius will describe the council’s engagement projects and collaboration with city partners and the role of open data in delivering on the commitments in the Mayor’s One City Plan as well as Bristol’s new Smart City Strategy. Steve will explain the context of air quality management in the city as well as the technical aspects of integrating a range of real t...
Oct 18, 2019•40 min
With ‘Big tech’ is seen as the catalyst, or even the source, of a wave of distrust in truth and institutions, this talk explores the role of technology in creating and maintaining trust. Deep fakes. Addictive technology. Data breaches. New technology and its (mis)use in the past decade seems to have resulted in a crisis of trust in institutions, and in truth itself. The fix will be slow, complex, and among many other things, we will need to put technology to good use to make things better. In th...
Oct 11, 2019•52 min
The idea that human perceptual systems, bodily and social knowledge can be explicated and used in interface design processes, training datasets and enhancing the experience of ‘end users’ runs across many areas including robotics, AI, surveillance and immersive VR. Artists, scientists and industrialists are all busy responding to the latest technology advances. The field of contemporary dance can be drawn into this discussion, particularly through a number of seminal projects initiated by leadin...
Oct 04, 2019•52 min
The UK’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was enacted at the start of the century, and is a central plank of the UK’s openness agenda. Arguably if FOI hadn’t happened, there would be no open data. One aspect of FOIA that is often ignored though is how it works behind the scenes: who is involved in answering FOI requests? What resources do they have? How do they organise the logistics of dealing with what can be thousands of requests a year? What are the challenges of doing so successfully? Paul...
Sep 27, 2019•50 min
Everyone around me talks about data but I have no idea what data can do for me. Do I need to start from scratch to enter the ‘tech’ world or do I already have some basic skills that can help me take the first step? This lunchtime lecture is designed to provide you with an overview of the skills that are involved when working with data to help you identify where your strengths are and what you can do to improve them. As a bonus, you will gain a perspective of the potential skills sets you can tra...
Jul 12, 2019•27 min
