Open Tech Calendar

Come along for some beer and pizza, and meet other like-minded individuals interested in data science in your local community. This event is open to people with all levels of data science knowledge.

The first-ever Highlands data science meetup will also be celebrating the opening of The Data Lab's Inverness office.

Speakers:

1. Karen O’Hanlon, Business Development Lab, the Data Lab Hub Inverness - Welcome and introductions programme.
Karen has considerable business development, sales and commercial expertise. Her recent roles include Business Development Manager at the University of the Highlands and Islands and Head of Engagement at Aridhia Informatics. Karen has a wealth of experience in developing and managing innovative collaborations across academia, the NHS and industry, and working with Innovate UK and the Horizon 2020

2.Dr Sara Thomas is Scotland Programme Coordinator for Wikimedia UK - ‘Wikidata: Linked open data the Wikimedia way’
Sara previously held the role of Wikimedian in Residence for both the Scottish Library and Information Council, and Museums Galleries Scotland. Her background is in Events and Volunteer Management, Fundraising, and Digital Skills training. She attended Fortrose Academy before moving to Glasgow in 1997.

3.Robin Huggins, MBN SolutionsAs Director of Academy & Client Services at MBN Solutions - “Data Talent Magnetism”
Rob has spent his career at the sharp end of Talent Acquisition practice for the Data & Technology sectors. Working as Delivery Partner for The Data Lab's MSc. Placement Programme, Rob designed and deployed the highly successful Employability framework that has seen over 200 aspirant Data practitioners placed into Scottish organisations over the last 3 years. In addition to sitting on The University of Glasgow's School of Maths & Stats Industrial Advisory Board and acting as Talent Lead for DMA Scotland, Rob was recently recognised by Data IQ as one of their most influential Data and Analytics practitioners in UK organisations.

4.Dean Mann, BlakesEye - 'AH & I. - The human in artificial intelligence’
Dean is a specialist in analysing complex systems and their associated data. A software/hardware/systems design engineer and engineering manager by experience. Dean is a biologist by training. He has a long track record in leading commercially applied R&D. Current work includes the design and development of ‘The Bridge’ Smart data platform tools and A.I models for healthcare and predictive management of complex assets. He is also developing a novel hybrid blockchain technology, with arange of industrial and healthcare applications. In his company; BlakesEye, Dean has lead 2 successful SMART Scotland Awards extending data science.

5.Graeme Gordon, CEO of IFB - ‘Data Movement and Connectivity’
Graeme has worked at IFB for over 20 years, and provides leadership, strategic vision and direction to the business. IFB is committed to maximising and supporting its customers’ uptime through its connectivity, security and data management offering. Graeme will speak around data movement and connectivity, giving examples of a recent project with offshore connectivity where IFB has enabled smart platforms and rigs to work real-time with data analytics to improve operations and performance.

6.Jude McCorry, Head of Business Development, the Data Lab - ‘UNICEF Data for Children Hub’
Jude has over 15 years experience in Sales and Marketing in the Technology Sector working with B2B and public sector for companies like Dell, Firefly Communications and Xnet Data Storage. Jude has also worked in Academia at Edinburgh Napier University where she set up their commercial arm – The Edinburgh Institute – providing leading-edge practice based executive education to Scottish Executives

This marks the start of our quarterly meetup in the Highlands, and we want to hear from you about how to shape it. If you have any suggestions for topics, speakers, demos, or discussions please get in touch.