Event review: What data-driven innovation means for business in Scotland

Last week we hosted an event to explain the enormous potential of data-driven innovation for industry and to show how companies are already using data technologies to enhance commercial performance.

Around 50 people from local businesses and enterprise agencies attended the event at our new home in the Bayes Centre in Edinburgh. We began with an update by EPCC’s Director Professor Mark Parsons on our activities in data analytics including the plans for building the EIDF, which will support work with complex, high volume, real-time datasets from across the City Region and beyond.

 

This was followed by my presentation of real-life examples of data analytics in use by the games industry, food manufacturing and digital scanning. 

The National Data Safe Haven, hosted by EPCC, is a secure place for storing and controlling research access to Scottish health-related data. The challenges of providing data safe havens were explained by EPCC System Architect Donald Scobbie.

Simon Chapple rounded off this event by describing the work of his team at The Internet of Things (IoT) Research & Innovation Service at The University of Edinburgh. His talk explained how companies are exploiting the real-time monitoring and tracking enabled by IoT technology, looking at areas such as healthcare, tourism and animal welfare.

  

This event followed on from our ‘Industry 4.0’ workshop in September. The format of these events, with short presentations and plenty of time for discussion, is designed to give a forum for the exchange of knowledge and ideas. It is proving popular and we plan to hold another event later this year.