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Slides are viewable here https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1v-5z6HwGy8bq3j6EV4ZnsUt35HzEPAoZvGLOgWX3pfs/edit?usp=sharing

In this talk, Claire Fram (Director and Product Manager, Diagonal) and Gala Camacho (Director and Data Scientist, Diagonal) discuss the challenges of making use of fragmented (open) data in the built environment. City planners, architects, developers and engineers are faced with a plethora of data that exist in orthogonal layers, limiting their ability to interrogate how city systems interact.

The solution includes new technologies that can unlock greater value from myriad open data sources by stitching them together in a systematic, semantic model of the world. We can get more out of existing open data with the right tools. This lecture will introduce Diagonal’s approach to building data models for data science in the built environment.

About the speakers
Claire Fram

Claire specialises in delivering digital tools for city planning. She is a founding member and Product Manager at Diagonal, building tools and visualisations that unlock creativity, progress and better decisions in the built environment. She’s currently on maternity leave from Arup, where she’s been the product lead for their agent based modelling toolkit – building a suite of data processing tools to model transport networks, infrastructure, and simulate millions of individuals’ unique days. Claire is interested in open data and inclusive technologies for urban design.

Gala Camacho

Gala is a mathematician and programmer, with a background in education, optimisation and all-things data. She has worked at big corporations and startups within the civil infrastructure and urban planning ecosystem, leading analytics projects strategically and technically. Gala is passionate about using analytics to explore and break down urban and social inequalities. She sits on the board of Women in STEMM Australia, and the steering committee of Women+ in Geospatial.

ODI Fridays: How can we make better use of open data in the built environment?

The cultural sector is one of the UK’s strongest assets. It encompasses world-leading broadcasters and some of the best museums and art galleries globally; their collections contain objects that are as important as anything in any other collection in the world.

Most institutions are looking hard at how they open up access to these collections, but in an environment where nearly every public sector institution is facing substantial funding challenges are they getting enough support? Richard Leeming talks about the work of the Research and Education Space and suggests that open data could transform the galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) sector.

About Richard Leeming
Richard is the external relationship manager at the Research and Education Space, a three-way partnership between the BBC, Jisc and the British Universities Film and Video Council (BUFVC). He is building a Linked Open Data platform which will power better learning experiences and make it easier and more efficient for collection holders to enable access to their precious assets.

Watch a video of the presentation here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pfo_sw_EQ0

find out more about ODI events here http://theodi.org/lunchtime-lectures



Friday Lunchtime Lecture: Richard Leeming on Opening the Cultural Archives

Plexus is a mental wellbeing startup that aims to support people in and out of work.

In striving to reflect, review and help empower change in people’s daily lives, Plexus builds on the NHS 5 steps to wellbeing and government reports into digital empowerment in the workplace.

Since winning the ODI Showcase in 2015, the first product that Plexus has produced is ‘Grace’, an AI bot. For five minutes each day, Grace asks users questions about their challenges, confidence, positivity and how useful they have felt the day has been. Users can then explore the data they record in weekly, customised emails and a personalisable online dashboard.

Plexus also uses machine learning to direct users to its knowledge base, which aggregates data sourced from over 25 different government services, NGOs and charities including Mind, Martin Lewis’s Money Saving Expert and Shelter. Open data sits at the heart of this process, from supporting users learn to helping develop Grace’s ability to understand and predict. A primary goal for Plexus is to produce meaningful open datasets that have the power to shape service provision on a regional and national level.

About Martin Vowles
Martin Vowles is Creative Director & co-Founder of M/A and also CEO of Plexus. With a MA in Communication Art and Design from the Royal College of Art, in 2008 Martin co-founded digital design studio M/A, which has created digital and physical design products for Mind, NSPCC, Southbank Centre, Tommy’s, Visit Bankside, Headlong, Sam Mcknight and Kings College.

Martin’s interests include Typography, civic tech, data visualisation and encrypted fabric printing and you can find him on twitter @martininma.

Watch a video of the lecture here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkayFmLj9zk

Find out more about ODI events here https://theodi.org/events

Friday Lunchtime Lecture: Martin Vowels introduces Grace, a bot to boost your wellbeing at work

ODI Writer / Editor Anna Scott speaks with Martin Vowels about his software company Plexus, which creates digital products to empower workplace wellbeing. 

Plexus has developed a knowledge base pooling diverse data from different platforms to help users understand mental health standards and services in their areas, from support networks to legal aid and job opportunities.

ODI Podcast: Martin Vowels, CEO of Plexus on using data to improve mental wellbeing at work

Humans use multiple senses to navigate their surroundings in day-to-day life. But data is largely confined to the realm of the visual; from the ways the systems that collect it are designed and programmed, to the spreadsheets and databases that analyse it, to the visualisations that help us make sense of it.

But is this enough?

‘Data manifestation’ describes how we move data away from the screen and into physical and environmental forms, so we can use different senses to understand its meaning.

Giles Lane will talk about the Lifestreams project – which works to express complex datasets into 3D forms to help people recognise patterns and understand meaning by using spatial and tactile senses – and hint at future possibilities.

About Giles Lane
Giles Lane is an artist, designer and the founder of creative studio Proboscis. He has led internationally acclaimed transdisciplinary projects such as Mapping Perception, Urban Tapestries and Navigating History, with a strong focus on research, public engagement and participation.

Proboscis collaborates with research partners including UCL, the London School of Economics, the Institute of Child Health, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and Birkbeck College, and also with industrial companies including Orange, HP Labs, France Telecom R&D, Channel 4 and Ordnance Survey.

Friday lunchtime lecture: Artist Giles Lane on using Data to stimulate your senses

In 2012, the same year that CERN discovered the Higgs boson, another experiment was underway that crossed more than just scientific frontiers: Arts@CERN.

Since 2011, when the first Collide residency awards were announced at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, there had not only been engineered collisions between protons at CERN, but also orchestrated collisions between artists and scientists.

So what does a curator add to a highly scientific and technological environment? Why are they necessary to make creative collisions happen and matter? These and many more questions will be answered in this Friday lunchtime lecture by Ariane Koek, founder of Arts@CERN, who initiated, created and designed this extensive multi-stranded international arts programme.

Friday lunchtime lecture: Why should the arts collide at CERN?

Listen to podcasts from the Open Data Institute – discussing the impacts of data across areas including health, cities, the built environment, government and finance. Speakers also delve into issues around data ethics, trust, art, culture, corruption and accountability.

ODI Fridays: How can we make better use of open data in the built environment?

The Open Data Institute