Head of Innovation & GrowHub at Hempel, one of the leading paint and coatings companies worldwide, on overcoming the challenges of innovation by instilling it in the company’s culture and keeping the customers’ challenges in mind at all times.
| Shaped
Welcome to the September 2024 edition of INNOVATION Magazine.
ith a wedding and honeymoon to juggle last month, I am incredibly grateful to the whole team at iThink Media for all their support and fantastic work helping produce such a cracking magazine while I embarked on an exciting new chapter!
Innovation Magazine is a specialist technology platform with over 166,700+ readers.
We’re bringing you two exclusive interviews this month, together with the latest global technology news and features.
For our cover interview this month, I have the pleasure of chatting with Mark Sutton, Head of Innovation & GrowHub at Hempel. Mark joins me to discuss the enabling strategies and culture of innovation at one of the world’s leading paint and coating companies – while keeping customer challenges in mind at all times (
Our community consists of C, V and D level executives from a wide range of industries. A unique blend of thought leadership interviews and features that cover digital transformation, cloud & cyber, enterprise IT, artificial intelligence, machine learning and sustainability.
I sit down with Richard Evans, Head of Digital Supply Chain at Delaware, who shares his insights into aligning new technologies with common sense to shape modern supply chains at the leading tech consultancy (
Our features this month include covering the refreshed agenda at Network X ( announcing Alaska Airline’s partnership with JetZero ( ), exploring how emerging technologies are transforming mobility management ( ), unveiling how cancer research in space might save lives on Earth ( ), leveraging Copilot for Microsoft 365 to ) and sharing a guide to futureproof your AI strategy ( is Shaped – the developer-first platform making AI-powered personalisation radically easier, enabling small businesses to create bespoke user
Please enjoy our latest edition. As always, if you would like to be considered as an interviewee or you have a story for us to include, please do get in touch.
editorial@ithink.media connect with me on LinkedIn.
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Mark Sutton of Hempel on instilling innovation in the company’s culture to encourage consistent growth
Explore the refreshed for Network X 2024 only telecoms event together mobile and networks
How Alaska Airlines’ in JetZero is driving sustainability in the aviation industry
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Our guide to future your AI strategy 16
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The new advances in technology transforming mobility management
44 investment sustainability industry 26
proofing
98 SEPTEMBER
72 The best ways to leverage Copilot for Microsoft 365 to enhance efficiency and effectiveness refreshed agenda – the event bringing and fixed
Meet Shaped, our Startup of the Month
Discover the five projects utilising microgravity at the International Space Station to revolutionise cancer treatment
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We sit down with Richard Evans of Delaware to discuss the technological innovations shaping the modern supply chain
Mark Sutton, Head of Innovation & GrowHub at Hempel, one of the leading paint and coatings companies worldwide, on overcoming the challenges of innovation by instilling it in the company’s culture and keeping the customers’ challenges in mind at all times.
Established more than a century ago, Hempel is a unique company in the paint and coatings industry based in Denmark.
empel strives to shape a brighter future with its sustainable coating solutions which protect, beautify and improve the performance of its customers’ most valuable assets. From homes and wind turbines to boats and bridges, Hempel’s products are used in almost every country around the world to safeguard buildings, infrastructure and assets.
With more than 7,500 employees and leading market positions in marine, energy, infrastructure and decorative, Hempel has also been rated by
Newsweek magazine as one of the top 100 places to work in the world.
But how does Hempel embrace innovation and remain customerfocused during a time of success, growth and expansion?
Here to elaborate on the enabling strategies and culture of innovation at the company is Mark Sutton, Head of Innovation & GrowHub at Hempel.
Mark has been with the company for more than 16 years, and he has seen tremendous changes at Hempel during
that time. During his tenure at Hempel, Mark has seen the company flourish into an international multi-billion euro business. But even at such a large and profitable company, Mark asserts there are still notable challenges to consider when deploying innovation.
“On the surface, innovation seems exciting, with heaps of energy and abundant creativity,” says Mark. “But it’s not all fun and games, it’s actually incredibly hard. Many incubators like ours have failed in the past and are either completely disbanded or reabsorbed into their organisations. We are one of the few businesses who figured out the recipe to make this a success, and three major factors contributed most to our accomplishments.”
“Securing full executive support from our senior leaders was imperative but relatively easy,” says Mark. “We, as a company, rely heavily on R&D and innovation in order to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace and we understand the need for continual investment here, especially at the board level. Our CEO has been instrumental here, ensuring that our leadership team embraces the value of innovation in our organisation and drives it at every level.”
“We ensure we always start with the voice of the customer,” explains Mark. “Becoming intimate with our most important customers and truly understanding their challenges and communicating that to the organisation has been a crucial part of our innovation strategy.
“Without the companywide support, we would’ve never been able to punch a dent in the universe of paint and coatings. But we did, and I’m incredibly proud of them all”
Mark Sutton, Head of Innovation & GrowHub
“Of all of the elements of our success, this is what we are most proud of. In the first nine months of our existence as the GrowHub, we didn't innovate anything. Instead, we spent that time talking to customers across all our segments and learning about all their challenges, not just paint, as relayed in their own voices. This gave us real insights into the areas where we could differentiate ourselves.
“We generated a giant poster outlining the top 25 challenges across the coatings industry, and now when we go to our internal teams we don’t just ask people for good ideas – we point to the poster and ask people for creative solutions and fresh ideas for solving these specific challenges, starting the process first with a problem we want to solve for our customers.”
3: Champion diversity in idea generation
“Taking even the best ideas and transforming them into products isn’t a guarantee for success,” says Mark.
“However, by embracing diversity when it comes to the inputs on ideating new solutions – this is where the true potential lies. When it comes to innovation, we make sure that our great ideas come from the most diverse group of influential voices possible.
“At first, we tried to do it all ourselves – but we could never reach a point of critical mass where the organisation would take it and run with it.
“Eventually, we learned to start with the challenges and identify a diverse group of highly influential stakeholders in each segment, before bringing them together in one room to hear the voice of the customer firsthand. This way, everyone was in
the same space to understand their pain – then we could break down their preconceived solutions and ideas and get them to a blank slate.
“From here, we could use our innovation tools and methodologies together, understand the problems we had to solve and then sprinkle in some of our good ideas to drive them into new blended product/service solutions that could make a difference and add value for our customers and Hempel alike.”
According to Mark, by nurturing these three factors Hempel is fostering a pervasive culture of innovation across the entire company. Identifying and developing these three dynamics is only part of the story. Building a culture of
innovation is going to take a sustained effort over several years.
“To steal and tweak a quote from The Shawshank Redemption, innovation takes pressure and time,” says Mark. “We had to stimulate the conversation on the importance of innovation long enough to drive momentum. But it also took senior leadership truly buying into the importance of investing in multiple horizons of innovation not just (core) product innovation.
“Projecting concrete ROIs for innovation proposals is tricky, but at the end of the day, it’s a numbers game. The more you can spread your bets, the greater your possibility of a return.
“As with many, we struggled with confusing the terms innovation and invention in the beginning. Some 90% of our R&D is focused on invention, which is incredibly important for protecting our novel paints and coating technologies. But that is starting with the ‘how’ first. Customerfocused innovation starts with the why and what. That is to say, innovation is starting first with the customer and understanding their greatest needs, then innovating blended products and solutions to solve them and then leveraging our brilliant people who can figure out the inventive ‘how.’”
Emphasising the crucial importance of customer-centricity within the culture of innovation at Hempel, Mark lauds the structure and feedback mechanisms at the heart of GrowHub – the company’s innovation incubator.
“Listening to the voices of customers is the core purpose of the GrowHub,” shares Mark. “We have a process we follow for understanding customer challenges. It involves taking a large number of ideas, pulling them together, running workshops and hosting stakeholder management events with our segments. Then we prototype and seek customer validation before scaling and transitioning from there.
“To do something of this scale in a complex business ecosystem requires not only 110% buy-in from your business segment, services, R&D departments as well as regulatory bodies, but it requires continual customer validation to ensure you’ve got the perfect business concept, fit for purpose, delivering the value proposition where both Hempel and the customer wins.”
Building on the concept of working together with customers, Mark highlights the underlying role of
collaboration within the innovation strategy at Hempel by explaining the importance of external partners and internal teamwork for the company.
“Having a mature partner ecosystem is critical to the success of our innovation and Hempel more broadly as a company,” says Mark. “Especially in GrowHub, our internal teams focus on the customer challenges first to help crystallise the innovation vision of the ‘why’ and the ‘what’ – but we don’t always know the ‘how.’ Having a strong ecosystem of nimble partners
in chemistry, electronics, mechanical design and other cutting-edge technologies is critical for us to deliver value-driving innovations for Hempel.
“Our robotics partner CLIIN, for instance, has the kind of open and collaborative partnership behaviour that we look for when trying to find the ‘hows’ in some of our most challenging solutions. For example, one of our recent great successes is that we have innovated a new technology for preparing steel surfaces in the world’s most
“Leveraging cutting-edge robotic technologies from CLIIN we’ve been able to create an incredibly efficient, highly-optimised solution”
At CLIIN Robotics we create versatile, durable and easy-to- use solutions in our own development space and through co-development with end users across industries who use the Magnetic Universal Crawler (MUC) as a platform to bring big ideas to new heights Using strong magnets, the crawler can access high, often inaccessible areas on ferro-magnetic surfaces of ship hulls, ship cargo holds, storage tanks and more
CLIIN Robotics provides complete chemical-free cleaning solutions for the shipping and oil and gas industry while working with end users to develop other industry-specific solutions to combine with our MUC.
Take the first step toward more simple, safe and sustainable industrial operations – contact us at info@cliin.dk
Contact us via info@cliin.dk www.cliin.dk
sustainable way. Leveraging cuttingedge robotic technologies from CLIIN we’ve been able to create an incredibly efficient, highly-optimised solution for performing steel surface preparation in a very industrial dry dock environment – all while optimising safety, sustainability and performance that is unmatched in the industry.
“Innovation is hard but more importantly it’s a team sport. The success we’ve had over the last four years could never have happened without the support and
sponsorship of our board and our senior executive team. Moreover, it wouldn’t have been possible without the drive, passion and enthusiasm of our innovation teams and project managers, industrial designers, customer futurists and technologists. Without the companywide support, we would’ve never been able to punch a dent in the universe of paint and coatings. But we did, and I’m incredibly proud of them all.”
For further information about Hempel, visit hempel.com.
Earlier this summer, Mark travelled to San Francisco, California to meet with several senior leaders and C-suite executives from Denmark. Each year, Mark meets with these colleagues to discuss the latest trends in the technology and innovation fields.
“The hot topics for me right now are AI and quantum computing,” says Mark. “I believe these two technologies have the greatest amount of potential future impact on the coatings industry, because we’re ultimately working in the material science space. Right now, everyone's focused on artificial intelligence. But I believe we're going to see the same explosion of attention around quantum computing in the next couple of years.
“The companies who approach quantum computing with the right prioritised problems to solve identified, combined with the math prepared to solve them, will already be ahead in the next material science race.”
Hosted by Informa, the third annual Network X will highlight the most innovative telco network infrastructure technologies and services. The event returns with a refined agenda and attendees can expect a dynamic showcase of cutting-edge technologies, interactive workshops and insightful talks from industry leaders.
The global B2B telecommunications industry is set to converge in the heart of Paris this October for Network X, the premier event that unites leaders, innovators and visionaries from across telecoms network infrastructure.
eld from 8-10 October at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, Network
X 2024 promises an immersive experience, showcasing the latest network technologies, fostering invaluable connections and setting the stage for the next wave of advancements in connectivity.
Attendees will have the opportunity to explore firsthand the advancements shaping the future of fibre access, RAN, Wi-Fi services, network cloud solutions, and more at the Partner Workshops.
These workshops bring together esteemed industry non-profits and standards bodies, including Broadband Forum, ETSI, GSA and more, who will share their expertise and equip attendees with the knowledge and tools to stay ahead of the curve. These interactive sessions offer invaluable insights into interoperability, best practices, and emerging trends across a wide range of domains, including fibre, smart home technologies, FWA, NTNs, and the complexities of service monetisation.
For those eager to witness telecoms innovation, the Accelerate stage is the epicentre of groundbreaking advancements. The stage aims to highlight the transformative potential of NTNs, network APIs, 6G, Gen AI, Quantum and other emerging technologies that will redefine the industry. Accelerate is future-facing, inspiring attendees to embrace the possibilities and drive the next wave of progress.
Recognising that the success of the telecoms industry is not just about the hardware, but the relationships and collaboration behind it, Network X has launched the Green Networking Lounge, providing a welcoming and relaxed environment where attendees can connect with colleagues, schedule crucial 1-2-1 meetings and recharge between sessions.
As the day winds down, the Network
X Party on the show floor offers a vibrant atmosphere to celebrate achievements, forge new connections and strengthen existing bonds. Ahead of the show each day, attendees are invited to join a scenic 5km run, meeting at the Porte de Versailles each day – enjoying views of the Eiffel Tower before doors open.
Network X Headliners Stage will feature insights from the visionaries
“Network X is a crucial platform for collaboration and learning and we’re excited offer a refreshed agenda for the 2024 event”
Sam Oakley, Senior Portfolio Director, Informa Tech
and thought leaders who are shaping the future of telecoms. These presentations will feature the industry's most respected executives from Orange, BT, Deutsche Telekom, Tele2, SK Telekom, CityFibre and more, sharing their perspectives on the trends and technologies that will define the next decade. From network APIs and NTNs to NextGen PON, industry M&A, and the development of 6G, these talks will challenge, inspire and inform.
Recognising the significance and their support for Network X, Orange are the Host Operator for the 2024 edition and will be supporting the event with Executive Keynotes, technical sessions and more.
For a more intimate and interactive learning experience, join the Meet the Speaker sessions at The Green. This is a unique opportunity to engage in Q&A with industry experts, gain practical advice and forge lasting connections with the individuals who are driving the industry forward.
New for 2024, Network X introduces the exclusive VIP Roundtables, offering an unparalleled opportunity for senior executives to engage in candid discussions about the industry's most pressing challenges and opportunities. These intimate, moderated sessions provide a confidential setting for thought leaders to share insights, exchange ideas and shape the future of telecoms. Already confirmed to host roundtables are Peter Arbitter, Senior Vice President of Magenta Business API, Deutsche Telekom, and Juraj Sedivy, CEO and Chairman, CETIN Group.
The VIP Roundtables will delve into critical topics such as the future of 5G, the impact of edge computing and the evolving regulatory landscape for fibre. With limited spaces available, these sessions promise to be a highlight of Network X 2024, fostering highlevel dialogue and collaboration among the industry's most influential figures.
The Network X Awards – held in conjunction with Network X – take place on Tuesday 8 October, 2024, at the iconic Hôtel de Ville in Paris and will crown the competition amongst industry leaders from over 25 countries. Solution providers, products,
and services covering smart homes, fibre, cloud, network AI projects, and 5G communication services will all be recognised at this year’s ceremony with categories matching the key themes of this year’s main event.
Commenting on the updated agenda for Network X, Sam Oakley, Senior Portfolio Director, Informa Tech, said: “Network X is a crucial platform for collaboration and learning and we’re excited to offer a refreshed agenda for the 2024 event. The telecommunications industry is in constant evolution, and with Network X facilitating discussions on shared
challenges and lessons learned, the event should leave attendees empowered to fuel innovation and growth, driving strategic technology investments to drive new revenue streams and services. We eagerly anticipate welcoming the industry to Paris this October and look forward to fostering a vibrant exchange of ideas and expertise.”
Network X will return to the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles in 2024, between 8-10 October.
To register for the event, please visit here.
Network X, next taking place on 8-10 October 2024 at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, is the only event that brings the fixed and mobile markets together to connect and build business models, frameworks and approaches to monetise B2B and consumer segments with AI and cloudenabled fibre and 5G networks.
Network X attracts a global audience of 5,000+ senior network infrastructure and service professionals from telcos, leading vendors, industry bodies, governments, analysts and media, including 1,500+ operators. The 2024 event will address current industry challenges and changes through five key themes: Fibre, Wi-Fi Networks and Services, Optical Transport, Mobile Networks and Mobile Services.
Source: Informa
JetZero's pioneering blended wing body aircraft contributes to aviation's sustainability journey with significant improvements in fuel efficiency.
Alaska Airlines recently announced an investment in JetZero, a pioneering company developing a new blended-wing body (BWB) aircraft that will provide up to 50% less fuel burn and lower emissions.
he investment reflects Alaska's commitment to advance new technology that will benefit the future of aviation, including those that enable the airlines' path to net zero carbon emissions. Alaska invested as part of JetZero's Series A last year and is the first airline to do so.
The investment, which includes options for future aircraft orders, was made through Alaska Star Ventures (ASV), the airline's investment arm whose purpose is to influence the future of the aviation industry. ASV is focused on identifying and enabling the technologies that can
“At Alaska, we are always looking for ways to innovate and shape the future of air travel for our guests, employees and industry”
Diana Birkett Rakow, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs and Sustainability at Alaska Airlines
help Alaska reach its ambitious goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2040. This initiative is one piece of Alaska's comprehensive sustainability strategy along with operational efficiency, fleet renewal, sustainable aviation fuel, waste reduction and electrified aircraft.
“At Alaska, we are always looking for ways to innovate and shape the future of air travel for our guests, employees and industry,” says Diana Birkett Rakow, Senior Vice President
of Public Affairs and Sustainability at Alaska Airlines. “We are proud to invest in JetZero's development of this innovative next-generation aircraft, with a significant step-change in fuel efficiency. We and JetZero share a vision for more sustainable aviation, and we are excited to partner with them in creating that future.”
JetZero's BWB aircraft stands out with its innovative design that integrates the wings and fuselage into a single
“We're
thrilled to welcome Alaska to our team of innovators, and our belief that this aircraft will reshape aviation”
Photo: www.jetzero.aero
Tom O'Leary, CEO and Co-Founder at JetZero
smooth shape, greatly reducing aerodynamic drag. Due to an expected 50% fuel reduction compared to the current tube-andwing design, the BWB will result in potential lower carbon emissions and operating costs. The aircraft's spacious interior will enable innovative seating arrangements with benefits to passenger comfort, such as a quieter and more enjoyable flying experience. Its unique shape will significantly reduce weight and drag and offers great promise in contributing to a more sustainable future in aviation.
“The biggest challenge for airlines is lowering fuel burn and emissions,” says Tom O'Leary, CEO and Co-Founder at JetZero. “Of all the great new technologies in work, the BWB design delivers the biggest impact by far. Airlines will see immediate benefit in cost savings, dramatically lower emissions and improved customer experience, compared to aeroplanes flying today. We're thrilled to welcome Alaska to our team of innovators, and our belief that this aircraft will reshape aviation.”
While the BWB design is not new, JetZero has shown unique leadership in collaborating closely with the United States Air Force, NASA and the FAA to develop its revolutionary blended wing aircraft and ultimately bringing it to market.
Source: Alaska Airlines
From supporting to managing technologies mobility-related
supporting public transport managing an airport, new technologies serve to improve many mobility-related issues.
New advances in technology are making it possible, in terms of mobility, to better understand the needs of travellers and manage the fleets of different transport models.
auging the demand for mobility and having detailed information on the use of transport services or the intelligent management of vehicle fleets are some of the issues that new technologies can offer in order to be able to offer services with a greater degree of adaptability, efficiency or sustainability.
Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica Tech, which boasts significant experience in projects of this nature with both
public and private entities, has obtained highly accurate results on mobility through the use of mobile network data and IoT sensorisation.
Specific passenger insights – such as finding out how passengers move between different points – can be useful for carrying out mobility studies, planning new routes or even offering different services.
Mobility management can be aided by various technologies such as IoT, big data, Artificial
Intelligence and blockchain to help evaluate possible routes or analyse competition (whether by road, rail, aviation or sea) with the aim of achieving more efficient and safer fleets.
Similarly, technology can be used to size and plan transport so that information such as the real
demand for mobility can be known in greater detail or unsatisfied demand can be studied and assessed in detail.
One of the key areas of mobility that can be streamlined by new technologies is public transport. Some of the major disadvantages faced by companies involved in
passenger mobility are steep fuel costs, the deterioration of vehicles due to mechanical failure and other fleet management problems.
However, emerging technologies can facilitate greater competitiveness, process automation and resource efficiency in the public transport sector.
“One of the key areas of mobility that can be streamlined by new technologies is public transport”
Here are four ways new technology can reduce the impact of some of the issues faced by public transportation operators:
Thanks to this wireless technology, companies can collect data to monitor and control assets by controlling fuel usage, detecting damage and managing indicators such as weight or cargo temperature.
Thanks to GPS technology and mobile apps, this software analyses the most suitable routes for each vehicle, saving time and better planning the use of the fleet.
A tool that monitors the location and real-time status of vehicles, used to supervise vehicle manoeuvres or speed, analyse routes and detect low fuel efficiency.
As the name suggests, this is a series of cameras installed inside the vehicle that collect information in real time. This can be used to respond to emergencies, provide security for both passengers and employees and prevent driving malpractice.
“Thanks to GPS technology and mobile apps, this software analyses the most suitable routes for each vehicle”
With these tools behind them, Telefónica Tech has supported the implementation of new technologies in Heathrow Airport – transforming the UK’s largest and busiest airport into a data-driven organisation taking full advantage of technologies such as artificial intelligence and data science.
This success story shows how a centralised data platform provides insight into data, which is particularly relevant for organisations with complex business models.
Obtaining detailed information about airport activity can be useful for gaining insight into operations,
understanding cargo volumes or discovering trade routes.
It can also allow concessionaires in the retail sector to know what is the most suitable offer for the type of traveller. Similarly, from a security perspective, it can better understand what incidents have occurred at the airport and where it makes the most sense to introduce preventive measures.
Equally, Heathrow can take advantage of emerging technologies, such as generative AI, to be able to implement even more sophistication in passenger knowledge, operations and experiences.
Source: Telefónica Tech
Five projects have been by the International Space Solicitation in partnership utilise microgravity to revolutionise options for Image:
chosen for exploration
Space Station National Lab partnership with NASA, and will revolutionise treatment for cancer.
Image: NASA
in partnership with NASA's Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) division, recently announced the joint selection of five projects through the inaugural Igniting Innovation solicitation for cancer and other disease-related research and technology development on the ISS.
The projects, which were announced at the annual ISS Research and Development Conference (ISSRDC) in Boston, will harness the unique microgravity environment to advance cancer research to benefit patients on Earth.
Turn over to see the five projects chosen for this initiative
This project seeks to produce cancer therapeutics in space using Janus base nanomaterials (JBNs) designed to target drug delivery to solid tumours, improving cancer treatment and reducing side effects.
JBNs are formed by DNAinspired building blocks that self-assemble. Producing JBNs in microgravity could make them more uniform, increasing both safety and efficacy. This would allow JBNs to carry larger amounts of drugs for more effective treatment.
The research conducted here builds on prior space station research that Eascra and the University of Connecticut conducted with support from Axiom Space to examine the use of JBNs to treat arthritis.
Image: NASA
With this project, researchers are aiming to grow cardiac spheroids with blood vessels from induced pluripotent stem cells in space for cardiovascular disease modelling and to test how cancer drugs affect the heart.
In space, cells grow into 3D structures that are more like cell growth in the body. Blood vessels may also grow better within the spheroids in microgravity. Spacegrown cardiac spheroids could provide a better disease model to study cardiovascular disease and test cancer drug toxicity.
Using patient-derived tumour organoids, this project aims to study accelerated cancer development in microgravity and identify new cancer therapeutic targets. After cancer treatment, cancer stem cells can remain in the body. These cancer cells self-renew, evade the immune system and develop resistance –resulting in their ability to spread throughout the body.
The research team will observe the rate of cancer stem cell growth in space, where cancer cells can grow more quickly, to test whether blocking a specific enzyme prevents cancer stem cell growth. Results could lead to new treatments that target evasive cancer stem cells to prevent cancer recurrence. The UCSD team has launched multiple investigations to the ISS through private astronaut missions and NASA-sponsored missions.
CASSIAN YEE University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Researchers on this project are aiming to use microgravity to better understand how T cells work in order to develop new immunotherapy treatments for patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases.
T cells are a type of white blood cell that play a key role in the immune system. Previous research has shown that microgravity induces changes in the structure and function of these cells. The team will study T cells in space to better understand what controls them, and results could lead to improved immunotherapy drugs that use the immune system to fight cancer.
This project seeks to use organoids created from cells recovered from colorectal cancer patients to see if chemotherapy works better in space, offering insight into improved chemotherapies. Microgravity causes changes in cancer cells that may make them more sensitive to chemotherapy.
The team will study how spaceflight changes gene expression in the organoids to identify targets for new, more effective chemotherapy drugs. Results from this project could also lead to personalised cancer treatment. WFIRM is actively involved in research on the space station and will launch an investigation on NG-21 analysing the behaviour of engineered liver constructs, which could lead to in-space production of tissues for organ transplants on Earth.
All five research teams intend to work with ISS National Lab Commercial Service Provider Axiom Space, together with BioServe Space Technologies, who will provide engineering and logistical support to prepare the projects for spaceflight and successful operations on station.
“We are thrilled to support this critical in-space cancer research,” says Lisa Carnell, director of NASA's Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) division.
“The unique microgravity environment of space offers incredible opportunities for researchers to study the effects of spaceflight stressors on human tissue.
“This research could be used not only to help protect crew health on long-duration missions but also to contribute to initiatives like the Cancer Moonshot and improved treatment options for patients here on Earth.”
Source: ISS National Laboratory
"The team were professional and diligent throughout"
Leigh Feaviour, CTIO for BT’s Supply Chain
"Absolute pleasure working with the Digital Innovation team"
Mun Valiji, Chief Information Security Officer at Sainsbury’s
"A highly professional approach"
Andy Brierley, Vice President, Cloud Application Modernisation at IBM
"Digital innovation Magazine is a very flexible and professional team"
Kim Larsen CTIO, T-Mobile Netherlands
Richard Evans, Head of Digital Supply Chain at Delaware, on the technological innovations shaping the modern supply chain.
Located in over 20 countries, technology consultancy Delaware’s cutting-edge solutions and work with key partners like Microsoft and SAP have enabled the company to deploy innovative solutions for clients worldwide.
or Head of Digital Supply
Chain Richard Evans, Delaware’s expertise lies in the company’s ability to apply emerging technologies seamlessly to a client’s circumstances.
“We help our customers become better at running their supply chains,” says Richard. “We help them innovate, and we help them apply these innovations to their key problems. I’ve always been curious about how the physical and digital worlds meet, and in this role I’m helping clients solve problems that directly address that concept.
“Very often, we turn to technology to solve our problems, but at Delaware we like to apply a lens of common sense –one informs the other. Because if you’re having technology make decisions that are impacting real world safety, you need to be very comfortable that you’ve got a model that works, and will continue to work years down the line. Our approach is taking the data the technology provides us, and working out what the next best step is based on that information.”
Alongside this strategy, Richard has been paying attention to the key trends shaping the supply chain industry, and the way this is impacting clients’ specific needs.
Richard. “We’re seeing significantly more focus on hyper-personalisation within the supply chain. In our personal lives, there are so many more products available now where you can get your name on them or your own logo. Services are customised to your tastes and preferences. This concept is spilling over into our professional expectations, meaning that everyone across the supply chain is having to react faster to create these tailored products or services, especially with demand rising.
“A lot has changed recently,” reflects
“This is particularly challenging in relation to current geopolitical uncertainties. In some cases, companies are having to significantly adapt and redirect inputs, transforming their supply chain completely. With any disruption, the impact is far reaching. If an incident reduces capacity in a major shipping route, it’s not just affecting everything on the one ship causing the incident, but all the goods on the ships stuck behind it.”
“We partner heavily with SNP – they are incredibly helpful with data mapping, even in cases where master data is changed significantly”
One crucial area people don’t typically think about when considering disruptions, Richard suggests, is internal supply chains.
“We do a lot of work with companies in asset intensive industries, such as energy and heavy manufacturing,” says Richard. “When you see news relating to the supply chain, it’s typically about end stock and raw materials, but what people don’t often think about is the spares and the inventory that you need to keep those machines running.
“What we’re looking at the moment with one particular customer right now is their internal supply chain and maintenance spares, because they’re a business that does a lot of maintenance out in the field. This is where VertiGIS comes in for us, because they help us visualise geospatial characteristics of an operating environment.”
As an SAP Gold Partner, SNP has been supporting companies worldwide to carry out business and data transformation projects in their SAP systems for over 25 years.
SNP’s selective data transformation platform CrystalBridge® and approach, known as BLUEFIELD™, provides a streamlined and efficient approach to managing data within your SAP landscape.
At SNP we understand that supply chain companies have a unique set of challenges and requirements when it comes to SAP data transformation projects.
Supply chain operations generate large volumes of data, and managing the velocity at which this data is created, processed and transformed can be difficult.
Preserving accurate and consistent master data across the supply chain is crucial. Challenges arise in harmonising master data across different systems and ensuring its accuracy.
Maintaining continuous operations is crucial for supply chain companies and extended periods of downtime are not an option.
CrystalBridge® and BLUEFIELD™ offer many benefits associated with supply chain operations:
A thorough scan of your systems means you know exactly what you are working
with, and what you need to do. Focusing on migrating specific data, essential for ongoing or upcoming operations rather than migrating entire data sets, minimises the complexity and time involved in the migration. It reduces data volume and helps focus efforts on transforming the data with the highest business impact.
Customisation of data transformation processes to meet specific business needs enables companies to define rules and criteria for data transformation, aligning data to business requirements. This streamlines mandatory elements of migration journeys.
Selectively transforming and loading only the necessary data guarantees optimal system performance, ensuring systems operate efficiently and deliver timely and accurate information to support supply chain processes.
Identifying data in your system with archiving potential – or even decommissioning entire legacy systems and moving them to more cost-effective, easily accessible storage solutions –ensures compliance and slows down future data growth. The ability to set up retention management, legal hold and data destruction provides additional peace of mind.
Supply chain companies require continuous operations. Our nearzero downtime approach minimises
system downtime during the transformation process. A selective data transformation (SDT) approach means business interruptions are kept to an absolute minimum resulting in no impact on business as usual.
SNP provides companies with the agility to adapt to changing business needs. Flexibility to selectively transform and update data allows for quick adjustments to accommodate evolving requirements in the business landscape.
Selective data transformation reduces the amount of data being processed and migrated. This, in turn, can lead to cost savings in terms of storage, processing power and overall infrastructure requirements. It also removes several pre-project steps – meaning only investing time in the things that add value and are relevant to your future state.
By transforming and preparing data in a structured manner, SDT facilitates more accurate and meaningful reporting and analytics. Supply chain companies can derive valuable insights from their data, enabling better decision-making, forecasting and strategic planning. Our data integration software, SNP Glue, helps to bridge the gap between SAP and non-SAP data by smoothly providing SAP data to your cloud innovation platform in real-time and in a format ready for analytics.
Enterprise spatial management solutions by VertiGIS.
Manage the entire life cycle of your network assets consistently, in one system, and across all domains with VertiGIS Networks. From planning, construction and commissioning to maintenance, servicing and renewal, our web-based spatial solutions support you – online and offline.
Synchronise your spatial data with SAP and other systems (SCADA, ERP, CRM) using VertiGIS Integrator and benefit immediately from consistent data sets and efficient map-centric workflows in both systems.
“VertiGIS does a really good job at mapping out those networks – whether it’s pipes, substations or dams”
Global software development company
VertiGIS has been a key partner for Delaware in this endeavour, providing a visual aid to efficient operational planning.
“VertiGIS helps us visualise assets,” explains Richard. “If you take water companies as an example, they might need to repair a pipe. But a pipe is not physically accessible, it’s underground. So we need to know where it’s rooted to conduct those repairs, and VertiGIS does a really good job at mapping out those networks – whether it’s pipes, substations or dams – and bringing it into a real-world context. It’s crucial to get this right, because if you dig in the wrong place, you have the potential to release hydrocarbons unexpectedly. But with VertiGIS, we can plan things objectively and execute it correctly the first time.”
Technological innovations such as this have been critical for Delaware, and the company is now exploring the use of automation solutions to help clients build more efficient supply chains.
“At its heart, Delaware is a technology company, and keeping abreast of the latest innovations from our partners, including SAP and Microsoft, helps our
clients deliver their best outcomes,” says Richard. “We’re running a really interesting investigation at the moment, to attempt to reduce the amount of spares in our clients maintenance supply chains. These spares sit in vans and consume energy as they are moving around the country, so an innovative, operational redesign and the setting of stock levels will help to reduce working capital and obsolescence and also consume less energy on a day-to-day basis.”
So, what technologies are Delaware leveraging for this investigation?
“We’re looking to SAP’s MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) capability, to ensure we’re getting stock levels right,” says Richard. “This is a reasonably straightforward form of AI, because it’s going to involve a forecast – but instead of forecasting sales, we’re forecasting consumption into work orders to inform decision-making about stock levels.
“Another phase of this process involves utilising our key partnerships to connect Microsoft Copilot with SAP, democratising the way people can interact with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. If someone
needs to know how much stock is in a location, or when the next purchase order is arriving, then they type that into the system and can easily access it. We don’t want our clients having to waste time on complex processes when all they want is a piece of information.
“We first began this process when we integrated Microsoft Teams with SAP around six years ago, but the technology at the time didn’t have the capability to use context when answering a question. That’s been a really exciting development for not just us, but Microsoft and SAP, because no one’s ever done this before.”
Here, Tim Rowe, Head of Microsoft Strategy at Delaware, joins us to explain how these exciting developments are transforming the end-to-end supply chain.
“With this in mind, we have built a groundbreaking solution connecting Microsoft Copilot and SAP’s platforms. In essence, this will allow you to have a conversation with SAP and allow us to deliver a true end-to-end business process. With our current assets, you can create purchase orders, query master data and send order requests, all from Microsoft Teams. You can even create a new customer and associated sales orders in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and appear in SAP virtually instantly.”
“As a business, we’re working to implement solutions based on SAP and Microsoft Dynamics,” says Tim. “During Sapphire 2024, SAP announced they are going to prioritise collaborative ERP by integrating Joule with Microsoft CoPilot. For me, this acknowledges many business processes start and finish outside the traditional boundaries of an ERP platform and therefore, combining the power of both platforms will enable a genuine step change in process efficiency.
Tim sees the use of AI in this new tool as being particularly transformative in streamlining processes such as this.
“CoPilot for Finance is a Microsoft application to support Accounts Receivable processes such as sending an email requesting payment, with supporting sales invoices, without leaving Microsoft Outlook. Something that once may have taken half an hour – can now take thirty seconds. And Delaware is the first partner in the
world to build this connector to SAP Public Cloud.
Microsoft and SAP we can make these processes even easier.
“Generative tools can significantly reduce the time taken on tasks like this, and by building a tool to connect
“SAP and Microsoft both do a great job in providing rich capabilities for automation. But while those capabilities stop within the boundaries of that application, business processes typically do not. We want to automate from the very first touch point and take it from that initial demand through the entire business process. That’s the difference.”
By implementing these processes, Delaware is able to prioritise helping clients with streamlining solutions.
“Our focus is on efficiency,” says Richard. “We’ve developed our own, internal version of ChatGPT that we use to help us prepare answers for bids that we’re working on, which helps us from a company standpoint. Outside of that, we’re trying to warm people up to using conversational language models to help them in their day-to-day lives.
“It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking, but if AI can save you ten minutes of your time, then you’ve got ten minutes to do something else. It’s really that simple. There’s always going to be purists that want to do things manually, but having an eye on the future is what improves business outcomes.”
A part of this planning for future development, Richard explains, is the company’s partnership with German IT consultancy SNP Group.
“We partner with technology providers to deliver the right solution to our clients,” says Richard. “If I categorise the technologies we use into two areas, we have the technologies that help deliver products efficiently, and the technologies that are used in operations after a big project has gone live.
Tim Rowe, Head of Microsoft Strategy at Delaware
“In the case of the first area, we’re seeing more and more businesses transformed through acquisitions and divestments – these are significant events in a company’s history, and our current technological capabilities offer a rich opportunity for harmonisation.
“The actual methodology used can vary depending on the context of the merger or the acquisition, but we utilise our partners such as SNP with their CrystalBridge® product to help us accelerate these transformations, because it allows for a much simpler data journey between two systems.
“We partner heavily with SNP – they are incredibly helpful with data mapping, even in cases where master data is changed significantly. In some cases, it’s just the only thing that will do the job. If a client has a complex data
journey they need help with, that’s where we’ll go first.
“Our partnerships with leading companies – SAP, Microsoft, VertiGIS and SNP being key examples – are crucial. We’re not trying to be a one stop shop for every technology, but we want to be able to connect clients with key players.”
This work in connecting clients is underpinned by Delaware’s commitment to utilising AI, which has come at a crucial time, explains Tim.
“There have been five waves of innovation since the Industrial Revolution,” says Tim. “We are now in the sixth. Each wave gets shorter than the previous one, and they each have a material impact on power, transportation and communications.
“What history has shown us is that when we have these waves of innovation, we tend to overestimate their impact in the short term, but drastically underestimate their longterm impact. Things start to happen really quickly once you get to that tipping point, which is where we are with GenAI.
“When we’re looking at this as a company, we’re looking at how people and companies are embracing this technology. There are a broad range of use cases, and many businesses are targeting low-hanging fruit – primarily customer service, knowledge and content generation.
“At Delaware, we have to respond to that. So, we’ve developed a four-step process to guide our clients through the adoption of generative AI, starting with an exec briefing to make sure the board understands what this technology is, where and how it can be used and how it can be taken into production.”
The company has implemented AI solutions in several client areas – this includes GenAI solutions to create product marketing materials for a large European pharmaceutical business, enriched distress signals for marine vessels to sanction reports for a bank.
These innovations, alongside Delaware’s key partnerships, gives Richard an optimistic outlook for the future of the company.
“The beauty of Delaware is that, due to the nature of the company, we can never be sold,” explains Richard. “That’s why a lot of clients come to us, because when they’ve worked with previous consultancies that have then merged with another company or been acquired, the tone changes. We’re not going to do that.
“Our approach to clients is founded in the knowledge that we’re running the company today for the people who are going to be working in it tomorrow. There’s a community feel here that can’t be found anywhere else.”
Learn more about Delaware at delaware.co.uk.
“In the last few years, I’ve picked up mountaineering and indoor climbing,” says Richard. “I look at screens for a living, so once I’m done with work I don’t want to sit and play video games all evening. Instead, I’ve been prioritising physical activity outside of work, and taking any opportunity I can to get out in the outdoors.”
“My daughter recently graduated with a degree in chemistry from the University of Leeds,” celebrates Richard. “My wife and I have always encouraged her to take self development opportunities, and she’s off to Cambodia in a few weeks to become a diving instructor, because she’s interested in going into marine conservation. We’ve always instilled the importance of living your best life, because you never know what’s going to happen.”
Richard recommends the book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss.
“This book is a sales and negotiation training manual, written by a former hostage negotiator,” explains Richard. “It’s an interesting read, because of the experiences he’s had. I’ve been listening to it as an audiobook on long car journeys, which is a great use of that time.”
Connect with Richard
How Transparity is leading the way in leveraging Copilot for Microsoft 365 to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
“I’M THRILLED WITH THE PRODUCTIVITY AND WELLBEING IMPACT WE’VE SEEN”
Jodie Rodgers, Chief AI Officer at Transparity
TECHNOLOGY PARTNER TRANSPARITY’S KEY MISSION IS EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS THROUGH INNOVATIVE AI SOLUTIONS, ENABLING THEM TO ACHIEVE MORE WITH LESS TIME AND EFFORT.
“I’m thrilled with the productivity and wellbeing impact we’ve seen,” says Jodie Rodgers, Chief AI Officer at Transparity. “Our approach has empowered employees to fully utilise Copilot, and we’re excited to support our customers on their own adoption journey.”
But how did the company integrate Copilot for Microsoft 365 seamlessly –and how can other businesses replicate this strategy?
Transparity began by empowering its employees, identifying key user groups that would benefit most from Copilot and tailoring training to maximise their productivity. This training was delivered through communications, storytelling and reporting – fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Once the company had seen proven
improvements in these employees’ daily productivity, they moved on to a three-phase rollout across all employees:
1. Excitement and training: Transparity launched Copilot with targeted training, prioritising team leaders and managers to support their colleagues. The company leveraged Microsoft’s Copilot guidance combined with its own insights to make the experience more tailored to Transparity employees.
2. Cultural and operational changes: The company then facilitated knowledge building and practical application, allowing employees to experience Copilot’s benefits firsthand.
3. Ongoing support: To facilitate further development, Transparity continues to reinforce new working practices, document success stories and facilitate coaching.
“COPILOT FOR MICROSOFT 365 LEVERAGES LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS THAT INTERACT WITH YOUR ORGANISATION'S DATA USING MICROSOFT GRAPH TO GENERATE PERSONALISED EXPERIENCES WITH RELATED CONTEXT, REDUCING THE STEPS TO FIND THE INFORMATION YOU NEED AND GENERATE CONTENT”
The company credits these steps as being instrumental in a successful rollout:
• Stimulating activities: Transparity created channels for employees to exchange best practices and share their learnings.
• Continuous updates: The company kept employees informed about any Copilot innovations and capabilities.
• Personalised support: By combining Microsoft’s guidance with its own insights, Transparity was able to provide tailored support to employees.
• Dedicated channels: The company had four pillars to ensure a successful rollout: communication, technology, enablement and operations.
This strategic approach led to Copilot licences being assigned to 60% of Transparity employees, of which there are over 90% active users month-on-month – versus an original target of 40%. This impressive milestone was achieved in less than 100 days, with twothirds of employees reporting improved work quality and productivity.
Copilot for Microsoft 365 leverages large language models that interact with your organisation's data using Microsoft Graph to generate personalised experiences
with related context, reducing the steps to find the information you need and generate content.
Take these five steps to make sure your organisation is ready to roll out Copilot for Microsoft 365:
1. Understand your data: Gather insights into your data estate, and discover stale, sensitive or high-profile data that may need
additional protections in place. Microsoft Purview can assist with inbuilt classifiers that it may already have discovered within your cloud environment.
2. Manage your data: Armed with the insights gathered in step one, you can ensure data is stored in appropriate cloud locations and protected with the right permissions to keep the content safe. Stale data can be archived or removed to be
out of the scope of Copilot.
3. Classify your data: Tools like Microsoft Purview Information Protection can be used to apply labels to the most sensitive data and use encryption to restrict access to files in case they are moved or shared incorrectly.
4. Protect your data: Stop oversharing of sensitive information being surfaced within prompts, or classified information
being copied to external AI assistants with Microsoft Data Loss Prevention (DLP).
5. Retain and audit Copilot activities: Using Data Lifecycle Management and Communication Compliance companies can ensure Copilot prompt information is retained, and interactions reviewed in an instance of inappropriate use.
Source: Transparity
Take a deep dive into the process of developing scalable AI infrastructure.
A
RESEARCH STUDY BY TATA CONSULTANCY
SERVICES, ONE OF THE LARGEST IT SERVICE PROVIDERS, HAS FOUND THAT MORE THAN 80% OF C-SUITE LEADERS HAVE ALREADY DEPLOYED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI).
ccording to the Fortune Business Insights 2024 survey, AI’s market size is to rise from $621bn in 2024 to $2740bn by 2032. AI is now seen as one of the key strategies organisations are eyeing to achieve their business objectives and ambitions.
The rapid evolution of AI has led to a substantial increase in the demand for computational resources and marked the importance of the underlying layer that hosts such AI platforms and models. Computer limitations remain one of the biggest challenges to overcome while deploying an AI model.
Here we share insights from KPMG UK on building AI infrastructure to help your business embrace this burgeoning tech trend.
AI infrastructure refers to hardware and software environments designed to develop, deploy and execute the AI workloads. What makes AI infrastructure special is its high performance and scalable characteristics. Scalable AI Infrastructure is crucial for global businesses, as it ensures that their AI systems can handle growing computational demands.
Many big players like NVIDIA and Intel are investing heavily to build chips that can run complex AI models. Recently, NVIDIA launched a new Blackwell GPU that can enable organisations to build and run real-time generative AI on trillionparameter large language models at up to 25x less cost and energy consumption than its predecessor.
What are the core components of AI infrastructure?
Irrespective of the type of organisation or industry, the core AI infrastructure components remain the same. At a high level, it includes computation resources, data management & storage, data processing frameworks and Machine learning (ML) frameworks.
AI applications require specialised hardware such as a central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) to cater to high computational needs. AI applications also require a large amount of data to provide predictions and analysis. This historic or real-time data is stored in a data management system which performs tasks like data ingestion, data processing, and data analytics.
Data processing frameworks are critical for handling and transforming data efficiently before it can be used for model training and inference. ML frameworks provide necessary tools, libraries, and interfaces to develop, train and deploy AI models.
What should I consider when deploying AI infrastructure?
Deploying an AI infrastructure is a complex process that requires careful consideration of various factors to ensure optimal performance, scalability, compatibility and cost effectiveness. AI models and their
“THE CORE AI INFRASTRUCTURE SHOULD BE BUILT CONSIDERING THE EXISTING TECHNOLOGY STACK OF THE ORGANISATIONS”
datasets are meant to drastically grow with time, and the underlying AI infrastructure should be scalable enough to support these models. The infrastructure should also be modular and upgradable to cater to emerging trends in the AI world.
Any AI model involves huge chunks of data that need to be ingested and processed. Model training is also a crucial piece in the overall AI deployment. The machine learning algorithms should be able to process the enormous data sets swiftly, leading to faster model training and inference.
The core AI infrastructure should be built considering the existing technology stack of the organisations. This ensures smoother integrations with the vast amount of historical and real-time data, making
the model training method more mature.
Every AI use case is different and may require specific hardware, software, data management and integration capabilities. For example, a complex machine learning model like linear regression would require less computational power compared to the deep learning models like convolutional neural networks, which need powerful GPUs or TPUs.
Real-time applications like autonomous driving require ultralow latency and high-performing infrastructure. Any batch processing tasks can still tolerate higher latencies and may use less powerful infrastructure.
What is the most efficient way to deploy new AI systems?
Many organisations are unsure where to begin their AI adoption
journey. According to “The 2023 State of AI Infrastructure Survey,” 54% of respondents had highlighted that they are facing infrastructure related challenges while developing and deploying their AI models. Weak infrastructure and cloud security controls can impact the integrity of the AI operating environment. A critical question before deploying AI models is to ask if the existing IT infrastructure and data ecosystems can support the AI technologies.
To overcome the above challenges, the organisations can follow the below three-phased approach to discover the current technology estate and assess the open-source AI platforms/ frameworks to recommend the best-fit technology.
To ensure a comprehensive AI implementation, conduct a current
“FOR
ON THE FEASIBILITY ASSESSMENTS”
state discovery focused on specific AI use cases and business capability. Then assess the existing technology and infrastructure to identify gaps, evaluating components such as compute resources, storage solutions, data processing frameworks, security measures, data flow, application architecture and integrations. Finally, analyse the current programming languages and frameworks to understand integration requirements.
To determine the technology suitability for specific AI use cases, research and evaluate both enterprise and open-source AI technology options like Microsoft OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, PyTorch and TensorFlow. Then engage in discussions with these AI technology partners to assess factors such as scalability, performance, security and integration compatibility.
Additionally, evaluate large language models (LLMs), the type and volume
of data available for training, and the application architecture.
For target state recommendation, shortlist the best-fit AI technology or service stack based on the feasibility assessments. This includes recommending appropriate AI models and frameworks, suitable data storage solutions, necessary virtual machines, or containers (GPU, CPUs) and programming languages & LLM models. Finally, define a future roadmap for implementing the recommended AI technology, outlining deployment and integration strategies.
How can developing AI infrastructure work for my business?
It may not be the right business case for organisations that don’t have deep pockets or the required skillset to build the AI infrastructure, LLM models, deep learning frameworks or the machine learning libraries from
“ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAS SHOWN TREMENDOUS GROWTH YEAR ON YEAR, BECOMING THE CRUCIAL LINK FOR BUSINESS GROWTH”
scratch. Cloud service providers like AWS, Azure & Google Cloud offer fully managed AI services and AI-trained models that may reduce an organisation’s initial investments.
Artificial Intelligence has shown tremendous growth year on year, becoming the crucial link for business growth. Therefore, all the components of an AI model/ platform need to be addressed by organisations. They must engage in thorough planning, starting with a comprehensive discovery of their current state to understand existing capabilities and gaps.
This groundwork enables informed decisions when selecting the appropriate AI technology stack, ensuring the infrastructure is robust, scalable, future proof and aligned with the specific needs of their AI use cases.
Source: KPMG UK
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How developer-first platform Shaped is making AI-powered personalisation radically easier, enabling small businesses to create personalised user experiences.
hen Shaped co-founders
Tullie Murrell and Daniel Camilleri met at the Unearthed Hackathon in Adelaide nearly a decade ago, they had no idea that they would one day start a business together. The two of them then went their separate ways, working independently in a range of US-based roles with tech giants such as Google, Uber and Meta.
Over the years, they have established themselves as tech veterans – Tullie is an expert in AI and machine learning,
having previously worked with AI within healthtech to enable MRI machines to run more efficiently.
Daniel is a registered psychologist with a wealth of experience in user experience (UX) and behavioural economics, having held senior roles at Uber and Afterpay before launching Shaped.
In 2021, the two of them combined this experience to establish Shaped, a developer-first platform where customers are able to choose data sources, integration methods, language models and scoring mechanisms for recommendations and search results. Shaped's AI platform empowers businesses to create personalised user experiences that deliver measurable results.
By analysing user behaviour and content, Shaped helps tailor recommendations and search for increased engagement, conversions
“AI
is elevating both the expectation and costs to build these experiences. Shaped empowers companies to leverage their data into powerful user experiences that drive business outcomes”
Tullie Murrell, CEO & Co-Founder
and customer satisfaction. It achieves this by seamlessly integrating with existing data sources, understanding content without manual tagging (thanks to its generative AI capabilities) and adapting to user behaviour in real-time.
Shaped’s ambition is to make AIpowered user experience accessible to small businesses. The company’s existing customers include brands like outdoor travel marketplace Outdoorsy, Brazilian grocery delivery app Trela and QVC, who through their use of Shaped’s technology are all able to access the level of focused hyper-personalised UX that is readily available within tech giants.
“Consumers expect personalised digital experiences with every brand, but under the hood, this can be difficult to build and orchestrate,” says Tullie. “AI is elevating both the expectation and costs to build these experiences. Shaped empowers companies to leverage their data into powerful user experiences that drive business outcomes. We're not just building another personalisation engine – we’re building the foundation for a future where every user interaction is informed, intelligent and impactful.”
Learn more about Shaped at shaped.ai.
