We are so excited to announce our Data Prototype Teams!
These eight teams will receive funding from SWCTN over the next four months to produce their prototypes; each one will then be exhibited in our Showcase in March 2021.
Read all about the people and prototypes below:
BROKEN CIRCLES
About the project
Broken Circles is a data visualisation and consumer empowerment tool that takes data on the true and hidden costs of materials, manufacture, usage, and end of life costs, to make more fully informed choices possible.
Our prototype will support better public understanding of the hidden costs and consequences of our everyday choices. By casting a light on the data, connecting them meaningfully to common products, we can tell a more complete story about products, that is not included in the marketing copy. We are empowering citizens to make better choices for themselves and the planet. It will give users a wider-lens view on material, design, manufacture, transport, usage and waste issues and presenting this in a way that encourages awareness in consumers, and responsibility in the supply chain. It will link to social, well-being and health as well as environmental factors.
About the team
Dave Webb is a creative technologist and digital artist, who recently completed an MSc in creative computing at the Bath Spa University. Jon Somerscalesis a user experience and human-centred designer working mainly with sustainable and social impact projects focused around the South West.
CLUS
About the Project
Clus is a prototype software to which will highlight potential areas of bias in content. The objective is for Clus to be able to identify all forms of bias in imagery and literature content using machine learning.
At the current rates of hiring, it would take about 71 years (2080) to fill the employment gap between Black and White people in advertising agencies (Bendick & Egan, 2009). Factors like these and others contribute to campaigns with potential harmful racist content making it to the public. The inclusive marketing movement has intensified with the global awareness of the Black Lives Matter campaign. Brands and companies worldwide are committing to anti-racist actions in all aspects.
The Clus prototype will use intersectional data and machine learning to identify skin tone within images and provide resources.
About the Team
Joyann Boyce is an Inclusive Marketing Consultant and owner of The Social Detail. Joyann has placed data at the heart of her approach to marketing, from idea to creation to reviewing and consumption. Joyann is currently a Data Fellow with the SWCTN, researching data bias.
Tola Salau is a UX/UI designer with a masters degree in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. Tola has an in-depth understanding of designing with the user in mind.
Tessa S. Alexander is a Research Software Engineer/Systems developer with 20 years experience in web development, and over ten years within education, most recently with the University of Bristol.
CONTROLR
About the Project
Controlr is a decentralised Data Union with a difference. The project seeks to redress the unequal power balance between data providers and big tech by enabling ordinary people to earn revenue from the data they produce.
The project will also counter inequity within tech and its development processes where marginalised people are usually an afterthought in new product development.
Controlr will test new governance models by adopting a decentralised, cooperative structure and executing an ‘exit to community’ strategy after the beta test period has been successfully completed.
About the Team
The team is led by Mercury Music Prize winning artist, Tracey Bowen (Pka Onallee) and is curated with diversity and inclusion at its core. A large proportion of the lead or consultancy roles are filled by Black women to directly address the chronic lack of representation in tech leadership and development roles. Equality is an important aim for this start up and aligns with their mission to create equitable futures for all.
DATA CARGO
About the project
The Data Cargo project is a collaboration between The Data Place Ltd and Bikespace CIC, two social enterprises based in Plymouth, which is part of a national pilot to trial electric cargo bikes to speed up and green up local goods deliveries. Our project will feature a number of local creative businesses that have signed up to participate in the pilot.
We will assemble a set of sensors that fit into each bike and capture a range of data as the bikes travel the city, resulting in numerous data products that can inform urban planning and help bike users plan journeys better, and new ways for the businesses to share data with each other.
About the Team
This project is a collaboration between The Data Place Ltd and Bikespace CIC, two social enterprises based in Plymouth, which is part of a national pilot to trial electric cargo bikes to speed up and green up local goods deliveries. Our project will feature a number of local creative businesses that have signed up to participate in the pilot. We will assemble a set of sensors that fit into each bike and capture a range of data as the bikes travel the city, resulting in numerous data products that can inform urban planning and help bike users plan journeys better, and new ways for the businesses to share data with each other.
Our team are:
- Martin Howitt (technology lead, TDP)
- Simon Gough (design and prototyping lead, TDP)
- Lucy Knight (data lead, TDP)
- Gareth Thomas (Bikespace CIC)
- Sabrina Simpson (market research lead, TDP).
Our team has backgrounds in creative design, technology, data science/management and bicycle maintenance. We’re particularly interested in the power of open data in fields that have previously been data rich but where that data is not shared effectively: as such our idea will hopefully not only be interesting from a data analytics perspective but also have potential to model a new kind of open data institution for transport data.
IN THE LOOP
About the project
In the Loop is about creating better feedback loops between audiences and cultural organisations in our rural context. Our prototype will enable the co-creation of meaningful stories of impact through a community centred approach.
Our prototype will be a flexible data collection and analytics platform using the Cornwall 365 website and brand as the interface between audiences and cultural producers. It will manage an ongoing conversation about what people do in Cornwall, finding new ways to illustrate how culture is valued by audiences, confirming how in many cases it doesn’t reach them at all and generating community solutions.
It will also to generate new digital and data driven experiences, effectively turning the measuring of things into a form of creative participation.
About the Team
The prototype brings together an interdisciplinary team including:
Bethany Lyne Project Manager at Cornwall 365, a creative consultancy promoting Cornwall as a year round, sustainable Creative Destination.
Christopher Hunt Director of Controlled Frenzy, a creative prototyping, research and development consultancy.
Dr Fiona Wotton Chief Executive of Creative Kernow, charity supporting the production, promotion and distribution of work by creative practitioners in Cornwall.
John Knell Director of Counting What Counts Ltd, the consumer insight toolkit on behalf of Arts Council supporting data collection and analysis from National Portfolio Organisations.
Professor Mike Phillips Director of Research at i-DAT, an Open Research Lab for playful experimentation with creative technology.
Zander Grinfeld Director of Venn Creative, a creative design agency specialising in building brands that connect.
MindFlow
About the project
MindFlow is a personalized wearable system designed to provide the user with calming, restorative audio and tactile experiences through an innovative use of their real-time physiological data. MindFlow provides a data-driven, multimodal approach to reducing anxiety, and builds on neurobiological theories of emotion that explain the biophysical basis for emotional states. The Mindflow team will be working with people with Dementia during the SWCTN R&D period alongside partners Age UK in order to produce a prototype which will provide data-driven anxiety reducing experiences.
About the Team
- Audio Research and Innovation company dbs-i (Plymouth) – Dawn Melville, Dr John Matthias, Brayley Pearce
- Plymouth-based textile manufacturers, Makers HQ
- Age UK, Plymouth
- Writer, Actor and Embedded Researcher, Saul Jaffe
- Embedded sensor-chip microelectronics and Computational Neuroscientist, Dr Susan Denham, Director of Research, Wotelsat UK, Plymouth
- Consultant Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon, Director of Medical Education, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, Scientist and Qualitative Researcher – Miss Jacqueline Rees-Lee MA(Cantab) MPhil(RCA) MEd FRCS(Plast) FEBS
- Producer/ Composer/ Sound Artist and Audio Technologist, Jay Auborn at dBs Pro, Bristol
- Consultant tactile technologist and Design Researcher, Dr Diego Maranan at The University of the Philippines Open University
- Falmouth University, BA Textile Design Programme
POLLENIZE
About the Project
The focus of the project is to gather environmental intelligence data to research and combat the drivers of insect decline and deliver public led rewilding solutions using the honeybee as a vehicle to green recovery.
From the start of our beekeeping journey, we could see there was more value in keeping bees than just for their honey, we now see the future role of the beekeepers as scientists and the gatekeepers of bee knowledge.
Bees make incredible biosensors – Each colony is made up of 50,000 individual bees that will visit nearly 5 million flowers within 100km2 of their hive every year.
The pollen and honey they collect when analysed via molecular techniques paints a picture of their foraging preferences and exposure to harmful chemicals.
By utilizing AI cameras and algorithms we may be able to ‘detect and decode’ the waggle dance which is the bee’s method of communicating the location of forage to each other.
Combining the datasets allows researchers to measure biodiversity in space and time. A unique ‘End User’ perspective.
This project will rely on a public facing mapping tool and content management system to be created to communicate and visualise the multiple data streams as well as provide a platform to collect seed sowing location data from the public.
Pollenize is looking to bridge the gap between science and the public by calling upon the skills of the network and collaboration with The Data Place and Simon Dobson to achieve this vision.
Simon will compose a dynamic musical output of the multiple data streams to demonstrate the health status of the beehive and their relationship with the environment.
Communicating science to the public through this regenerative media allows a wider audience to tune into their local beehive – connecting them to nature in an inclusive way.
About the Team
Matthew Elmes – Cofounder – Chartered Manager – Environmental Scientist – Far Out Thinker
Martin Howitt – With a solid background as a technical lead, project manager, enterprise architect and architecture team leader in the public and civic sectors, our technology lead and co-founder Martin has the depth and breadth of technical experience to understand all the things it takes to exploit data and technology in a variety of organisations, and in particular to facilitate open data release from proprietary systems, as well as solid experience managing and delivering technology projects.
Lucy Knight – Our Data Lead and co-founder Lucy is an ODI Registered Trainer, a co-founder of ODI Devon and has a background as a Data Lead in local and central government. Added to over 20 years experience including production monitoring in the telecommunications industry, database management, performance reporting, data analysis and visualisation, and open data publication, she has built up significant expertise across all aspects of managing data and applying her range of skills to problem-solving.
Simon Dobson is an award winning composer, conductor, multi-instrumentalist, and producer.
VANA
About the project
Our afforestation-with-data app Vana aims to aggregate available data (including Land Registry, Companies House, WENP, the Forestry Commission and TISCreport) to identify:
- Corporate-owned land banked for the long-term
- Current usage of that land
- The overlap with maps from public bodies/environmental NGOs/groups
Our prototype should determine:
- Significance of corporate land ownership to the UK climate emergency response
- The effect of transparency of land ownership on corporate behaviour
- Key influencers creating the desired response from stakeholders
The aim of Vana is to:
- Increase effective tree coverage
- Reduce ineffective/damaging, unstrategic afforestation
- Engage corporate activism in the war against climate change.
About the Team
Stuart Gallemore, CTO, strategist, data scientist with 25 year’s experience in digital media, UX focussed and has led on successful projects (Visit Cornwall website, Enotria app for wholesale wine purchase, Rocksteady mobile website (A major games label with titles including the Bat-man game)), LittleBigPlanet website, and now TISCreport.org.
Melaine Virot, UX/UI Designer, Animator & Prototyper, responsible for design & comms for our digital clients. Recent work has included Visit Cornwall, TISCreport and The Institute for Social Impact Research.
Ross Tovey, Chief Dev-Ops, a full stack developer, also excels at UX, Interface design and Drupal. He has led projects such as Visit Truro, BetterByBike and further developed Visit Cornwall since redesign in 2016, and most recently Inside Asia. Now responsible for TISCreport data interfaces, integration & server security.
Jaya Chakrabarti MBE, Data Scientist, Digital Strategist, Social Impact Researcher, recognised by Her Royal Highness with an MBE for Services to the Creative Digital Sector. Also named one of the top 100 Asian Stars in Tech in 2019, she serves on the DCMS Digital Economy Business Advisory Group. A data scientist turned social entrepreneur turned norm entrepreneur, Jaya seeks to influence corporate behaviour to save the planet.
