Innovation and emerging technology

Our sister company Methods Analytics, with our support, worked with a major defence client to apply Machine Learning techniques on their employee satisfaction survey. This enabled the organisation to quickly identify key themes in the enormous free text dataset, cutting their analysis work down from months to weeks.

We worked with a Central Government client to introduce them to the notion of Data Collaboration Frameworks, which enable big, public sector organisations to collaborate responsibly via data sharing. We completed this work with our sister company Methods Analytics.

We worked with a public sector organisation to explore how Robotic Process Automation could innovate their routine processes and relieve bottlenecks. Our recommendations focused holistically on how RPA could be used to progress a broader transformation programme and the organisational structures required to make it work. Here’s a more detailed case study on this project.

We worked with Swindon Borough Council to demonstrate how Image Recognition (an Artificial Intelligence technique) could help them proactively spot, log and then deal with potholes, graffiti and fly tipping. You can read more about it on our blog.

We worked with the UK Green Building Council to identify the kind of digital platform they need in order to facilitate innovative thinking and problem-solving with their members (over 400 organisations!).

We think a lot about the ethics of applying Artificial Intelligence techniques to digital services. To explore the power and pitfalls of Facial Recognition technology we built an internal prototype from scratch, which scanned people’s faces and sorted them into fake wizarding houses. You can read more about our work to address biased AI on our blog.

Responsible innovation occupies a lot of our thoughts here at the Open Innovation Hub. We research it, write about it (like this blog) and we hold workshops on it. We also work with our clients to embed ethical innovation as a capability, for example with a Defence client as they adopt Artificial Intelligence (as part of a larger piece of work being led by our sister company Methods Analytics).

We worked with a large public sector organisation to develop a technology business case and roadmap that would future-proof the organisation. This included a holistic assessment of their current business needs, the current state of their technology, their mindset towards adopting innovation and the future services they would need to provide.