Tech For Good - Issue 12

NHS BLOOD AND TRANSPLANT’S TRANSFORMATION AWS’S MISSION TO TRAIN THE UNEMPLOYED WHY MEASURING FORESTS COULD SAVE THE PLANET BREAKING TABOOS AROUND FEMALE HEALTH

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HOW TO GIVE BACK JPMorgan Chase’s Tech For Social Good team has empowered its own workforce to lift up communities around the world by creating sustainable solutions for thousands of nonprofits. We find out its secrets to giving back

DANIEL BRIGHAM Content Director

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en years ago, a bank started doing something a little different. It created a department that had two goals: engaging its employees in skills-based volunteerism, and providing help to social good organisations. JPMorgan Chase’s Tech For Social Good team was born.

We spoke to four of the team’s senior figures to find out how, across a decade, it has gone from having to battle scepticism on both sides – employees and nonprofits – to using thousands of its employees to help thousands of social good organisations.

“Tech For Social Good was developed to bridge the gap between the access to technology resources in the corporate sector, and the lack thereof of that same access to technology in the nonprofit sector,” Madeline Hutchinson, Tech for Social Good Global Manager, tells TFG.

“I think as corporations, we have a responsibility to help nonprofits move along that journey and get access to technology that will help them scale their mission. And that’s really what Tech For Social Good was started as.

We harness the power of technology and our employees and their passion for wanting to make an impact by using their skills to ultimately better uplift the communities where we work and operate.”

Elsewhere, NHS Blood and Transplant tells us how a digital transformation is helping to save lives, we head into space with the European Space Agency, meet another inspiring teenage tech entrepreneur, and investigate the rising importance of femtech.

I hope you enjoy the issue!

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From Mars landings to nuclear fusion we round up the latest news

How tech is being used to improve female healthcare around the world

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JPMorgan’s Tech For Social Good team empowers its workforce while helping thousands of nonprofits

Benjamin Alleau, Managing Director of Future of Technology at Capgemini Invent

GLOBAL GOOD

CASE STUDY

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ENVIRONMENT

We investigate how measuring forest biomass from space could save the planet

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10 MINUTES WITH… Harriet Brettle, Head of Business Analysis at Astroscale UK

SOCIAL GOOD

EXPERT INSIGHT

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EDUCATION

AWS tells us about its cloud skills training programme for the unemployed

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TEEN TECH STORIES We meet Alaina Gassler, 16, who has developed a system for car blindspots

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Behind the scenes of NHS Blood and Transplant’s digital transformation

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GOOD OR BAD?

Do the benefits of cryptocurrencies outweigh their downsides?

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GLOBAL GOOD

UK scientists produce pollution-free electricity from nuclear fusion Initial results from the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s MAST Upgrade experiment might have opened the door for achieving pollution and radiation-free electricity derived from nuclear fusion.

The researchers believe to have found a way to remove the excess heat produced by fusion reactions. The device, called the Super-X divertor, would also make fusion power plants much more commercially viable.

Amazon extends police ban on facial recognition software Amazon has placed an indefinite block on police using its facial recognition software. The tech giant had originally enforced a one-year moratorium on police use of Rekognition following global protests against the killing of George Floyd. But after pressure from civil liberties groups, the ban has now been extended.

Rekognition is a service offered through the AWS cloud.

GLOBAL GOOD In case you missed them, we’ve debriefed six of the most interesting Tech For Good stories from the last four weeks 6

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BuffaloGrid and Techfugees launch sustainable educational initiative for refugees BuffaloGrid, a startup that provides phone charging and digital content to displaced people, and Techfugeess, a non-profit focused on providing free educational content for refugees, have partnered in a new campaign. The Knowledge is Freedom project will provide solar-powered BuffaloGrid hubs and unlimited free access to educational and health content to refugee camps across Kenya and Uganda.

NEWS DEBRIEF

China makes history with rover landing on Mars China has successfully landed a crewless spacecraft on Mars for the first time.

The six-wheeled Zhurong robot is part of the Tianwen-1 unmanned mission launched in July of last year. It is the first non-American rover to land on the Red Planet. Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulated the mission’s team on its “outstanding achievement”, and stressed “China’s strength in space technology”.

Indonesian agri-tech startup TaniHub Group raises $65.5m TaniHub Group, an Indonesian B2B e-commerce platform that connects farmers to customers, has raised $65.5m in its latest Series B funding round. The company helps farmers get better prices and more customers for their products. The round was led by the venture capital fund of one of Indonesia’s largest telecoms, Telkom Group. TaniHub currently has over 45,000 farmers and more than 350,000 buyers in its network.

Tritium agrees $1.2bn SPAC merger Tritorum, the Australian firm which builds fast chargers for electric vehicles, is going public via a SPAC merger. The SPAC is worth $1.2bn and will see Tritium merge with the newly formed Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation II. Tritium was founded in 2001 and has created proprietary hardware for advanced fast-charging. The deal is expected to generate $400m in cash for Tritium.

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JPMORGAN CHASE & CO

WALKING THE WALK JPMorgan Chase & Co’s Tech For Social Good team is celebrating 10 years of doing good. We spoke to four of its leading voices to find out how it has positively impacted thousands of nonprofits, as well as empowering its own workforce

PROJECT DIRECTOR: Richard Durrant AUTHOR: Daniel Brigham VIDEOGRAPHER: Ewan Donaldson

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his is a story that connects sustainable fishing in dangerous seas, phone connectivity in disaster zones, and dogs using iPads to help owners with sight issues. It is a story that brings together a mass volunteering programme and coding hackathons, and a story that is tied together by the collaborative desire to use technology to make the world a better place to live in.

You may be surprised, then, that at the heart of this story is one of the world’s biggest banks. But JPMorgan Chase isn’t your everyday banking institution. In fact, JPMorgan Chase prides itself on being more than just a bank.

It’s no use just talking the talk, though.

An organisation has got to walk the walk if it truly wishes to make a positive difference 10

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to the communities it serves. And this is where JPMorgan Chase’s Tech For Social Good programme comes in.

Ten years ago, Ali Marano made a decision that would change her life.

She was working for an organisation that provided technology assistance to nonprofits in the social good sector. The recession made the work tough: getting large corporations to provide funding to help her organisation deliver needed tech assistance became increasingly difficult, so Marano changed tack. Rather than asking for financial support, she started pairing skilled volunteers from her corporate funders with nonprofits in need of technology assistance.

JPMORGAN CHASE & CO

“We helped the nonprofits frame what their challenges were, we helped the skilled volunteers articulate what they were able to offer, and this allowed all parties to have a productive relationship leading to impactful solutions,” says Marano.

One of her biggest clients was JPMorgan Chase, and Marano had an epiphany: “What if I did this from the other side?”

“One day I sent a message off to one of the senior leaders at JPMorgan Chase in technology,” says Marano. “And said ‘I can help you rethink the way your staff volunteer their tech skills to nonprofits and this can have a tremendous positive impact not only in the communities where you live and work, but amongst your staff as well’.”

To Marano’s surprise, the exec responded by saying, ‘Ok let’s meet to discuss’. And the rest, as they say, is history.

“Ten years ago we began to change the dialogue about how to engage employees in skilled-based volunteerism to ensure meaningful results on both sides of the equation,” says Marano. “For JPMorgan Chase this work has always been about lifting up social Good organisations and their ability to serve their constituents.”

Efforts at JPMorgan Chase to engage their tech workforce in the social sector began slowly. But 2021 is the 10th anniversary of Tech For Social Good, which Marano is head of, and it has grown beyond anything anyone ever thought it

Ten years ago we began to change the dialogue about how to engage employees in skilled-based volunteerism to ensure meaningful results on both sides of the equation” Ali Marano

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would. It now helps hundreds of organisations every year, providing them with tech expertise and the opportunity to scale.

Tech For Social Good’s stated mission is to lift up communities around the world through the power of people and technology. This is how it works: Through skilled volunteerism, it uses JPMorgan 12

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Chase staff to work with students and nonprofits to meet their needs around technology. It does this through several programmes, including: Code for Good, a hackathon which brings employees and external candidates together to ideate on how tech can solve a problem a nonprofit is facing; Force for Good, which connects employees with nonprofits to

JPMORGAN CHASE & CO

build sustainable tech solutions and Youth Programmes, which address the tech skills gap through education and mentorships for people under 18.

The reason for Tech For Social Good is two-pronged: some of those bright candidates that JPMorgan Chase meets through Code for Good will end up being employed by the company, which means it can attract ready-made talent already familiar with them, while it also helps hundreds of social good nonprofits make the world a better place to live in. It’s win-win.

“Tech For Social Good was developed to bridge the gap between the access to technology resources in the corporate sector, and the lack thereof of that same access to technology in the nonprofit sector,” says Madeline Hutchinson, Tech for Social Good Global Manager.

“The corporate world has really embraced digital transformation, and nonprofits are trying to go on that journey, as well. And I think as corporations, we have a responsibility to help nonprofits move along that journey and get access to technology that will help them scale their mission. And that’s really what Tech For Social Good was started as. We harness the power of technology and our employees and their passion for wanting to make an impact by using their skills to ultimately better uplift the communities where we work and operate.”

Tech For Social Good formalises its goals as ‘Innovate for the social sector’, ‘Build the workforce of the future’, and ‘Develop skills through social good’.

Innovation is at the centre of it all, says Marano: “Everything doesn’t have to be done as it always was done. And it’s funny to say that from a company that’s over 200 years old, and has a deep, deep tradition, but the ability to innovate and think about how we can find talent in new ways as well is critical .

“Innovation can be defined in many different ways, and it’s not just about what a corporation might think about at an enterprise level, but innovation truly means your ability to serve your constituents in a greater and more impactful way.

It’s enabled because of the work that we do with them. We start conversations not by saying, ‘What’s wrong with your technology and how do I fix it?’ We start conversations by saying, ‘Help me understand your mission and what you’re trying

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The corporate world has really embraced digital transformation, and nonprofits are trying to go on that journey as well” Madeline Hutchinson

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to do to serve your clients and I will talk to you about how innovative uses of technology can further that mission’.”

Let’s return to Tech For Social Good’s programmes; the heartbeat of its operation.

It starts young, with Youth Programmes attracting school-age children to think about technology. It gives JPMorgan Chase the opportunity to encourage and influence the next generation of technologists, and to help inspire schoolchildren about how technology can make a difference to the world. One of the youth events it runs is Generation Tech, where school-age students are invited into JPMorgan Chase offices to take on design challenges for social good organisations. They work in teams, with their goals aligned with United Nations’ sustainability goals.

Code for Good is for any external candidates looking for employment at JPMorgan Chase, and provides the company with a really meaningful way of recruiting talent. Again, they work in teams on challenges posed by charities, building out solutions to the problems.

The events tend to involve four or five challenges being taken on by around 150 students – although that expands to over 600 when done remotely due to COVID-19 restrictions. The students produce proofof-concept ideas and demonstrate how challenges can be overcome through the

Madeline Hutchinson application of technology, and these ideas are carried through for the organisations.

This is where Force for Good comes in.

Force for Good is for JPMorgan Chase employees. They work together in teams, usually over a multi-month period, to build out the solutions for the organisations. JPMorgan Chase steps back only when it is confident that the ideas can be adopted and utilised fully by the organisations, ensuring the process is sustainable for them.

“In our Youth programmes we start by working with youth who come from groups that are often under-represented in professional tech roles,” says Ed Boden, Tech For Social Good global lead. “Then we focus on inspiring and encouraging ISSUE 12

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them to become technologists. Code for Good is a great opportunity to showcase us as an employer of choice, hoping that they might attend and join us. Not every candidate that comes does join us, but a number of them come back and do internships with us, and a number of those then subsequently join our company as a full-time employee.

“Once they join JPMorgan Chase, then they get the opportunity to work on the Force for Good projects. That is a great opportunity to feel they can give back in a very meaningful way to help the social sector. In many cases they get to choose the nonprofits they work with, so they can choose the mission that best aligns with their own personal choices.”

The organisations JPMorgan Chase works with are many and varied. Marano admits that when Tech For Social Good first started it was a tough proposition to sell to nonprofits: a well-known bank coming in and helping them improve the technical side of their operation seemed surprising: “Organisations expected us to help them with their finances, not technology,” says Marano.

Over time, Tech for Social Good has helped add to JPMorgan Chase’s reputation as a strong technology organisation that is also a bank. Now it can ensure that organisations selected to receive its 16

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services will be those it feels will most benefit and be able to translate that impact to better serve its communities and constituents.

“When I think about some of the projects I’m most excited about, there are so many to pull from,” says Marano. “One example is work we did with an organisation where we helped local, sustainable fishermen who would go out to sea and didn’t have high-end fleets or boats, which was a real challenge when going out in dangerous weather. So we helped them create a beacon technology that worked on their phones, which would send out a beacon if they were going to be lost at sea or were approaching a storm.”

JPMORGAN CHASE & CO

A collaborative effort

Madeline Hutchinson, Tech for Social Good Global Manager, talks us through JPMorgan Chase’s Tech For Good symposium, which brings together some of tech’s biggest players to find common goals and ways to collaborate

“Our goal for starting the Tech For Good symposium was an opportunity for us to really think about how we could collaborate across the industry to move the needle in terms of nonprofit technology.

“I think, for us, social good has always been in our DNA. The symposium gives us the opportunity to recognise that we aren’t the only player in this space; there are a lot of organisations doing great things. And we wanted to amplify our impact by working together with these organisations, and that’s a really important focus for us in the symposium.

“On an industry-wide level, a lot of organisations are pivoting to have social impact or tech for good programming within their cultures and we’ve found that now, more

than ever, employees want to give back and use their skills for good.

And we as organisations and corporations have a duty to be able to help uplift those communities where we work and operate.

“We want to find ways to connect technologies that some of our symposium members are building so that we can go deeper into providing a holistic solution to the nonprofit partners. I think in order to be successful at that, we really need to bring the nonprofits on board and think about how we can build with them, not for them.

I think if we can do that, we will be able to scale the impact of tech for good globally and hopefully be able to solve some of the most pressing issues that face our world today.”

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Marano is also fond of an iPad application that assistive dogs can use in medical situations. Yep, that’s right: an iPad app that a dog can use. If the dog’s owner has a medical emergency, such as falling, it is trained to use its paw prints to send a message that its handler needs immediate help.

“One great one we worked with was an organisation based in the UK that focuses on disaster relief,” says Scott Malinowski, Head of Technology for Tech for Social 18

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Good. “And when there’s a natural disaster, they send volunteers and folks on the ground to help them distribute supplies, and really help the area that’s affected.

They really need technology to do so.

“One of the big challenges in that scenario is there may not be cell phone connectivity. So we worked with that organisation to set up tools that they could use from their phones to help prioritise need, to help understand what inventory is available and distribute items on the

JPMORGAN CHASE & CO

takes both the skilled volunteers and nonprofits through the entire collaborative process. It trains and advises its staff and the nonprofits’ staff, and reviews all tech decisions to ensure the technology that is being built is both impactful and sustainable for the organisations.

Our role is about empowering our staff to be able to give back” Ed Boden

ground to support people in those areas.

“What was really timely about that was we were focused last year on working with that organisation, when COVID started to spread, and they were able to pivot their mission to focus not just on international disaster relief, but domestically in the UK to provide supplies for people in need, who were struggling to get certain things, whether it be medicines or household items locally in the UK.” Malinowski heads up a tech team that ISSUE 12

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The team monitors all data on each project to ensure they’re on track, provides infrastructure and tools for volunteers to build the technology, and manage risk and security for the nonprofits, as well as JPMorgan Chase’s staff.

It’s this level of detail and care, from start to finish, that has meant Tech For Social Good has been able to grow each year, and why social good organisations continue to turn to it for help. There is one big question, though, that needs answering: how on earth does the team at Tech For Social Good convince so many of JPMorgan Chase’s staff to volunteer?

“I don’t actually think about what we do as a volunteer programme, I think about it as social good initiatives,” says Marano. “And it allows us to really show that we don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk. So when we say

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we care about the communities we live and work in, we show it. We don’t just show it by giving dollars which might be expected, we show it by engaging, we show it by giving up our skills, our time, and we do it in thoughtful ways.”

Not everyone is expected to volunteer – far from it. Tech For Social Good wants people to volunteer, not be “voluntold”.

Those who do put their hands up – and there are thousands of them – do all of their volunteering within their work hours. Nothing is expected during out-of-office hours.

“Our role is about empowering our staff to be able to give back,” says Boden.

“Giving them the opportunity to do more than just pick up a pay cheque every month. For many of our staff it’s vitally important to them that they can give back to all different sorts of organisations, be it working with charities, or be it working with school children.”

With 2021 being the 10th birthday of Tech For Social Good, it begs the obvious question: what will the 20th anniversary look like? Marano is keen to stress that nothing too bold needs to happen: what they’re doing is working. But data is becoming increasingly important. After a decade of Tech For Social Good, the team has a wealth of data that it plans to put back out to the communities in order to ensure social good organisations aren’t starting from scratch each time.

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If a homeless charity, for example, comes to JPMorgan Chase looking for help solving a specific problem, Tech For Social Good can immediately share examples of other homeless charities it has worked with on similar issues. The goal is to create a self-help environment in which nonprofits and social good organisations can help and learn from each other to reduce the reliance on JPMorgan Chase.

There has also been an increasing realisation that the skills gap doesn’t exist only in coding. So Tech For Social Good has expanded its focus to take in data science and cyber safety, allowing its staff to give back in broader ways.

“I think in the next 10 years we’ll be looking at opportunities to support project models beyond just building technology solutions,” says Malinowski. “So in our 50,000-employee tech workforce, we have skillsets beyond just software engineers. We have project managers, we have people who handle change

management, we have data scientists; a huge number of skillsets throughout the company. And when we talk to a lot of organisations, they have needs beyond just delivering a piece of technology.”

“We’re recognising that tech doesn’t happen in a vacuum and we need so many other skillsets and disciplines to truly make the impact that I would expect over the coming years,” says Marano.

“We will have evolved and expanded our remit beyond technology.

“We don’t look at Tech for Social Good as a competitive advantage, we look at it as the right thing to do, we do it because we can and because we have needed skills that can better the communities where we live and work. We love it when peer companies across the world reach out to learn how to do similar work.

“The more focus we all place on leveraging tech in service of social good, the faster we can help address the issues the world is facing today.”

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A GREEN SPACE ODYSSEY Human activity has been destroying forest biomass for decades.

But just how much? Tech For Good speaks to Capgemini and the European Space Agency about the project they have developed to measure forest biomass from space AUTHOR: Beatriz Valero de Urquía

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A 3D visualisation tool

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ometimes, ambitious initiatives can be rocket science, and that is the case with saving the planet.

Forests cover approximately 30% of the global land surface. Why do we say ‘aproximately’? Because, even though they store around 45% of terrestrial carbon, there is a distinct lack of accurate information about the true extent of forest biomass in the world.

Since the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, many international agreements have recognised the importance of monitoring 24

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forest biomass as a way to understand the carbon cycle, developing new ways of reducing carbon emissions and fighting deforestation. However, obtaining this data is not without challenges. Geographical remoteness, economic concerns, data paucity or armed conflicts are some of the factors that make the acquisition of accurate measurements regarding the amount and distribution of forest biomass an almost impossible task.

But there’s a place where these challenges disappear: outer space.

Space-borne remote sensing technology is the most accurate and

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cost-efficient method of measuring forest biomass that exists today. And this is what the European Space Agency’s Biomass programme is all about. The Biomass satellite will launch at the end of 2022 and, during the following five years, it will obtain information about the state of the global forests and their evolution.

This data will be essential to research endeavours regarding the carbon cycle as well as to the United Nations’ goal of drafting treaties on the reduction of emissions resulting from deforestation and forest degradation.

“Biomass is a radar satellite that measures the stored carbon in the forests of the world,” says Michael Fehringer, ESA Project Manager of the Biomass Project. “Basically, what we measure is how many tonnes of wood there are in the forests of the planet.

Wood is, in a sense, a synonym for carbon that is stored on the trees. This is because, if you cut down a tree and measure a kilo of wood, about half of that weight is carbon.

“Why is this interesting? Well, with all the issues that our planet is facing with regards to climate change, we need to know where the carbon that is emitted at the moment via human activities goes in order to make a difference.”

When carbon is burned, mainly from fossil fuels, it goes into the Earth’s

We need to know where the carbon that is emitted at the moment via human activities goes in order to make a difference” Michael Fehringer

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Measuring the Earth’s biomass atmosphere. However, only one-third of this CO2 stays there forever. The second third of that carbon then comes back to the Earth’s surface and is used for plants and forests to grow. The final third is absorbed by the oceans, killing coral reefs, warming up the water and causing severe sea-level rise.

We can’t cool down the oceans, but we can plant more trees and, more importantly, reduce deforestation, to increase the amount of carbon dioxide that is absorbed by forests. Biomass is ESA’s tool to be able to monitor just 26

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how many trees are being planted or cut down, protect the global forest biomass and slow down global warming.

“We will observe the planet, and produce maps of its biomass content,” Fehringer says. “When we fly over the planet for the first time we will make the first maps and the next time we come around we make another map, and measure the changes.

And that’s how we’ll see where the carbon goes, how much has been burned and how much is available.”

The first map is predicted to take around a year to put together, as the

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first measurements always take longer, according to Fehringer. During the following four years, Biomass will make new carbon maps of the entire globe every six months. Fehringer’s team is responsible for ensuring that this project is delivered in lighting time, with accurate performance and on budget.

Moreover, his team is also developing the ground segment that will receive the data from the satellite and process it.

However, when it comes to Biomass’ data and the goal of protecting the global forests, there’s no such thing as

too much help. Enter Capgemini, a multinational consultancy firm with a long history of expertise in the space sector and a commitment towards fighting climate change.

“Capgemini has a significant footprint in space projects and Earth observation in particular,” says Carine Saüt, Business Developer in Capgemini’s space team.

“This can be defined on two main streams. The first one is the preparation of current and future Earth observation missions for monitoring our planet, such as Biomass. The second stream is the setup and implementation of operational decision services, addressing the 13 Sustainable Development Goals on climate actions.”

Capgemini is no stranger to the development of infrastructure that allows for sustainable processing of Earth observation data. The firm has had a long relationship with France’s CNES (National Centre for Space Studies), for whom they have developed tools to support its CO2-mapping and ocean monitoring missions, among many others. They are now working together to process the data from Copernicus, the biggest Earth observation data provider in the world. In addition, the consultancy giant has worked alongside ESA for the past 20 years in projects regarding Earth observation, ISSUE 12

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We have this approach of creating a digital climate platform to reinforce technological assets and innovative solution engineering to better prepare the missions of tomorrow” Carine Saüt

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data exploration and data exploitation, such as Biomass.

“We have this approach of creating a digital climate platform to reinforce technological assets and innovative solution engineering to better prepare the missions of tomorrow,” Saüt says.

“It makes total sense to bring our expertise in a mission like Biomass, as a very good example of best-practice for the next generation of exploration and exploitation of data from space.”

As part of the Biomass project, Capgemini has been commissioned by the ESA to develop the pilot version of the Multi-Mission Algorithm and Analysis Platform (MAAP). This platform will represent a new way of accessing and processing the rocket’s data, improving the mission’s algorithms and sharing the findings with the global scientific community.

“Saying that tropical forests are home to over 70% of the terrestrial biodiversity is not news to anyone,” says Marie Boutet, Project Manager for MAAP at Capgemini. “Forest covers approximately 33% of the Earth’s surface, so taking care of forests is a major stake for everyone on this planet.

“Biomass is the seventh Earth Explorer mission within ESA’s Living Planet project. It’s going to produce an estimation of forest biomass over the next

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Monitoring the Amazon rainforest five years. And what is new about this mission is that it uses radar technology to see through the canopy, in contrast to the previous optical missions.”

Radar technologies use specific wavelengths that allow scientists to accurately estimate the amount of wood that a forest has while avoiding the need for people to go and physically measure the size of all the trees on the planet. This technology is light years

away from the previous optical missions that make estimates of forest biomass based on pictures of the Earth. Optical missions are rarely accurate in their biomass measurements, as the leaves often hide the wood from view. Although Capgemini is not involved in the development of this technology, it has created the platform that will allow scientists all over the world to gain access to and be able to exploit this data.

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“Of course, there is more to the carbon story,” Fehringer says. “We are not the only ones that are building satellites to observe this, which is good. NASA and India’s ISRO are also working on it. So the idea of this platform is to bring the data from various missions and satellites together into one platform that all scientists can have access to.

“The overall goal is to make data easily available and bring the scientists community together, to get everybody out of their own corner and provide

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a platform and tools that can be used more openly. That is the objective of the MAAP, and Capgemini is building the infrastructure to make it possible.”

In the three years since Capgemini started working on this project, it has been able to develop a pilot version that is currently delivering full visualisation and parameterisation tools. Thanks to the MAAP, every scientist that is interested in data regarding forest biomass can get a data space on the platform, look at the existing algorithms and even upload their own, share them and get feedback from their peers. The MAAP is also an interoperable platform between ESA and NASA, giving both agencies fast access to reliable data.

To achieve this, Capgemini has worked closely with scientists to understand their needs and perfect the platform, with the goal of improving research regarding forest biomass in the years to come.

“The idea is to really reinvent the way scientists work with data,” Boutet says.

“They’re going to be able to work on the cloud, close to the data, and develop their own algorithms. The MAAP is going to provide an environment with collaborative tools and community facilities, but it is also going to provide the official algorithm to process the Biomass data. When it is available, the official maps will be delivered to the

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Recording the biomass above Italy community with an open-source licence so that everyone can improve them or participate in this global improvement of biomass results.”

However, the launch of the satellite is still several months away. In the meantime, Capgemini is working on a v1 version of MAAP. When completed, it will produce maps showing biomass density and even feature 3D-visualisation tools in certain areas. It will also allow the global scientific community to rapidly access hundreds of thousands of

megabits of in-situ data, airborne data and data from the BIOMASS satellite, all while providing a single virtual and collaborative environment comprising powerful storage and high-performance computing capabilities.

As technology changes and improves over the coming years, Saüt and Boutet want to make the platform available to everyone, to raise awareness of the problems that come with deforestation or even help people plant environmentally-friendly vacations.

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The idea is to really reinvent the way scientists work with data” Marie Boutet

“Thanks to the MAAP we’re going to produce maps that people can use to decide where they want to go for the next holiday, for example, because they’ll see how the carbon would be like in these specific regions,” Boutet says. “We will know the extent of deforestation, and we will be able to measure it and share this result with everyone so that everybody can understand its impact. And, of course, this new way of work could be reproduced for other similar space missions. Some 32

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agencies are already looking at our project to see how far we go and what we do to reuse the concept of computing at scale to build collaboration between agencies.”

“We truly believe that Earth observation can create sustainable action and commitment to give a better life to societies impacted drastically by climate change,” Saüt says. “It has been very challenging and inspiring for our team to invent a different application that could serve society.”

Over the last 30 years, 420 million hectares of forest have been lost to deforestation, while only 18% of the world’s forest are considered to be protected areas. Real action to address this issue cannot be taken without accurate information and international collaboration, and this is exactly what the Biomass mission will strive to achieve. As it stands, sometimes you need to leave the Earth’s atmosphere to be able to see the forest for the trees.

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10 MINUTES WITH…

10 minutes with... a space debris removal expert In this series, Tech For Good gets a 10-minute glimpse into new technologies. This month we sit down with Harriet Brettle, Head of Business Analysis at Astroscale UK, to find out more about the problem of orbital debris and how to secure space sustainability

INTERVIEW BY: Beatriz Valero de Urquía

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FG: Harriet, tell us why space debris is a problem, and why it has not been adequately addressed so far?

Harriet: The global economy is dependent on satellites providing communications, navigation and Earth-observation services that support terrestrial industries ranging from finance to emergency services, energy to agriculture. A potential loss of satellite services could be immensely damaging to the global economy; the loss of global positioning services [GPS] alone is projected to cost $1 billion per day.

Space has been steadily getting busier and more congested since the growth in space exploration and satellite telecommunications. Orbital debris presents one of the highest risks to the International Space Station [ISS], which performs up to four debris avoidance manoeuvres a year.

The European Space Agency estimates there are almost a million debris objects larger than 1cm in size that could cause catastrophic damage to the satellites that we rely on in everyday life.

TFG: What is Astroscale’s mission?

Harriet: Astroscale is the first private company with a vision to secure the safe and sustainable development of space for the benefit of future generations.

TFG: What technology will ELSA-d demonstrate?

Harriet: ELSA-d is the world’s first mission to demonstrate the core technologies necessary for debris docking and removal.

We’ve launched two spacecraft into lower Earth orbit to test how we capture and release a client satellite in multiple different ways. The servicer satellite is the spacecraft capturing the piece of debris.

It has been developed to safely remove debris objects from orbit, equipped with proximity rendezvous technologies and a magnetic docking mechanism. The client satellite is essentially the demonstration defunct satellite which we plan to capture using the servicer. After we have proven how to capture the satellite debris, we will then manoeuvre it to a

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safe location, beneath the ISS, before it eventually burns up on re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

TFG: What will be the most challenging part of the ELSA-d demonstration?

Harriet: The mission will run over the course of approximately eight months and will be demonstrating that we can safely capture the client satellite under a number of increasingly challenging scenarios. The most challenging part will be when we try to capture the client whilst it is tumbling through space at speeds of more than 17,000mph.

TFG: What are the main changes that you want to see in regards to space legislation?

Harriet: We recognise that addressing the growing risk of space debris is a © GK Services

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multi-faceted problem that will require consideration of technology, policy and business aspects. There are many changes that are needed for global policy to support a cleaner space environment, including reducing the number of years that satellite providers should be required to de-orbit their space junk. We’d like to see the de-orbiting process drop down from 25 years to well below 10 years. We also need bolder steps in mission licencing to incentivise providers to integrate debris removal into the life cycle of all satellites. Finally, we want all new spacecraft to be prepared for future servicing, through incorporating docking plates before launch that allow satellites to be removed from orbit if needed.

TFG: Half of the satellites currently in orbit are privately operated. How important is it for governments and businesses to collaborate to address the problem of space debris?

Harriet: It is very important! Space debris poses a direct threat to the future of space activity, leading to higher risks, increased costs and potentially unusable orbits. This is an issue that affects all space actors, as well as our way of life on Earth. As space becomes busier and critical orbits get crowded, there is a pressing need to remove

HARRIET BRETTLE

debris from orbit and return the space environment to its natural state. Collaboration between all space actors is needed to adopt sustainable practices and develop innovative technologies for debris removal.

TFG: What can you tell me about Astroscale’s collaboration with OneWeb? Harriet: Responsible space actors such as OneWeb are leading the way in committing to docking interfaces on all current and future satellites. All new OneWeb satellites will include a docking plate that is compatible with our satellite servicer, this means that when they reach the end of their useful

life, they’re ready to be removed from harm’s way if required.

TFG: What’s in store for Astroscale over the next few years?

Harriet: We hope to launch a commercial debris-removal service by the mid-2020s that will be capable of removing multiple pieces of debris in a single mission, thus reducing the cost of launch and overall service provision. We’re also inspecting a piece of real debris in partnership with JAXA [Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency] in the next two to three years; the inspection will look at an upper stage rocket that requires removal as part of a future joint mission.

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TECHNOLOGY DRIVING BLOOD SUPPLY The work of NHS Blood and Transplant keeps people alive. Wendy Clark, Chief Digital Information Officer, and David Rose, Director of Donor Experience, tell us how new consumer-facing technologies and a deep digital transformation aims to help NHSBT deliver even more for donors, employees and patients

PROJECT DIRECTOR: Richard Durrant AUTHOR: Ben Mouncer VIDEOGRAPHER: Fraser Harrop PHOTOGRAPHER: Krystian Data

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HS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) could, quite poetically, be described as the beating heart of the NHS. The source and supply of blood, organs and tissues is vital to meeting the needs of our hospital patients - and to ultimately saving and improving lives.

Every year, NHSBT collects up to 1.5 million voluntary blood donations in England. But guaranteeing the reliable delivery of this blood to hospitals country-wide represents a significant supply-and-demand challenge. On top of keeping this complex system running, NHSBT is also continuously striving to better its service; from improving a donor’s experience, through to getting the right blood components to the right patients more efficiently.

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Technology is a crucial part of the puzzle for NHSBT and its dedicated team.

Strategically, the organisation has put technology at the core and it has committed budget and people to a series of ongoing transformation programmes. In January 2020 it appointed Wendy Clark, previously a senior executive for NHS Digital, as its Chief Digital Information Officer.

“We couldn’t do what we do without technology,” Clark tells Tech For Good.

“The logistical nature of what we do would make it impossible to try, and it also allows us to reach out to donors and attract them in different ways. Everybody who works for NHSBT touches technology in some way in order to communicate and collaborate.”

Clark oversees blood supply technology projects largely focused on two

NHSBT

priorities: to enhance the donor experience end-to-end, and to extract NHSBT from legacy infrastructure so that it can maintain and improve its processes and services in the future. It is a mix of short- and longterm programmes which will collectively affect every element of the NHSBT operation. It is technology, coupled with amazing donors, driving blood supply.

––– Saving and improving lives through the right mixture of donor types is key for NHSBT, which is why a lot of tech focus is

on the donor experience. The UK model of altruistic donations means extra care and attention is afforded to donors – donation in other countries can be based on payment to citizens. David Rose was last year appointed as NHSBT’s first Director of Donor Experience to align the organisation and its objectives in this area.

Rose’s background is in the private sector and he has led customer loyalty programmes for global brands such as Virgin Atlantic and Starbucks. He was recruited by NHSBT to drive a renewed

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Everybody who works for NHSBT touches technology in some way in order to communicate and collaborate” Wendy Clark

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NHSBT

focus on its donors and their experiences with the aim of building a donor base right for the future.

“PPE, masks, gowns - you can manufacture all of that, but no hospital or country can manufacture some of the life-giving elements of what we use in our bodies, such as our blood,” says Rose. “So today we still rely on the generosity of our donors to donate so that our hospitals can continue to treat patients.”

Donor engagement is a fundamental part of the donor experience; this covers everything from marketing campaigns for new donor acquisition to direct engagement with donors through NHSBT’s booking portal and app.

When it comes to marketing, NHSBT increasingly adopts a hyperlocal approach to target donors with in-demand blood types at donation centres where there are appointment slots to be filled. On the tech side a major investment underway is the upgrading of the portal and app that donors then use to book appointments. Over 75% of donor appointments are made through these channels. A new-look, improved service founded on a human-centred design approach will go live this year.

“The application will have things built into it like improved ability to book appointments and accessibility enhancements, and the whole design of the app is going

to look and feel a little bit different,” says Clark. “The red and white colours that you see throughout all of our digital technology are great from an organisational branding perspective, but they’re not necessarily the most accessible when it comes to digital.

“We’re also replatforming the app on modern, scalable technology, so that when we get lots of traffic we don’t need to do anything - the platform will scale with no intervention from any of the tech folks. It will make a massive difference initially, but then it also will be the enabler for personalisation. If we want to send information out to our donors, we will be able to do that through the portal and the app. So it’s a real platform for lots of the improvements that will come over the coming years.”

Hippo Digital has been one key development partner in NHSBT’s Donor Experience Product Centre - the function where new products like the donor app and portal are created. Hippo worked with NHSBT’s internal development teams to define the project roadmap, deploying its own people-centred design methodology and supporting the replatforming of the technology.

“Hippo Digital has been instrumental in the delivery of both the app and changes to the portal,” says Clark. “Hippo has done this before, having worked across other areas of the NHS. It helps when you get a team of people who come on board and ISSUE 12

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they know what good looks like in this space. It means we’re not having to set down standards and train people.”

As Clark highlighted, one ambition for NHSBT is to deliver a more personalised service to donors. The organisation’s current methods of managing its donor base are effective but donors are still often treated as a cohort, with the same messages sent out to large groups of people. The updated app and portal will go some way to offering personalised

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experiences but NHSBT is undertaking a broader piece of work it calls the “contact strategy”.

To get a 360-degree view of a donor and all the interactions with that individual, NHSBT is updating its CRM (customer relationship management) capability, aggregating as much data as possible from different sources. It also wants to reduce friction for users by offering automation tools and potentially chatbots, all of which plug into the system and

NHSBT

In Partnership: NHSBT and Hippo Digital Hippo Digital is a key development partner in NHSBT’s Donor Experience Product Centre, working on the new donor app and portal

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Digital services that work for real people We collaborate with government teams and healthcare providers to create digital services that are used by millions of people every day across the UK. We can help your organisation put patients and frontline staff at the heart of your digital transformation.

www.hippodigital.co.uk

CASE STUDY

I’m particularly excited about the opportunity through online or mobilebased experiences, and the self-service element. In an ideal world for me and my teams, we almost want to take a step back - it’s the donors that do all this valuable work” David Rose

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NHSBT

offer a single “pane of glass” for NHSBT customer experience staff. Previously customer data sat in different locations and wasn’t utilised effectively.

“Our donor carers, who do most of the legwork in the centres, taking your blood and looking after people, will be equipped to understand actually what the background of the donor is,” says Rose.

“That means we can make sure that we have the right number of new donors throughout the day, because those firsttime donors require a little more care and attention, and helped through their first steps in donation.”

Technology change is even improving the process of blood collection. NHSBT has 23 fixed donation centres across the country and 50 mobile blood collection teams who operate thousands of community-based sessions each year.

Clark describes the technology used by donor carers as “archaic” but this is set to change with the implementation of Session Solution; a mobile, connected solution to increase efficiency and vastly reduce paper usage.

Session Solution has been piloted at three sites to great success and will be rolled out across NHSBT’s mobile collection centres before the end of 2021. Data indicates that Session Solution will cut most donor journey times and NHSBT believes its adoption will also improve ISSUE 12

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I have no doubt that deploying the use of things like artificial intelligence and machine learning can help transform the way this organisation runs” Wendy Clark front-line morale and increase donor satisfaction.

“If you’ve ever given blood, you’ve probably turned up and somebody’s had bits of paper and a highlighter pen, and that’s how you get checked into the session,” says Clark. “This will make a real difference to the way our collection staff operate. It’s a new, modern solution that they can use to check donors in.”

Gennaro, the software underpinning Session Solution, was coded by Savant, a long-term partner to NHSBT. Savant’s primary engagement with NHSBT is around PULSE, the control system for blood management which was first implemented in 1996 and remains a critical infrastructure for the blood supply process today. PULSE controls everything from the management and enrolment of donors to laboratory testing, labelling and stock tracking as blood is dispatched to hospitals.

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“It’s a spider at the centre of a web of everything that we do,” says Clark.

“What it actually is, is about 80 applications which sit on top of a database and various other bits of infrastructure.

And Savant are the PULSE programme in some ways. They do all of the engineering around the application and the database, and we work with them on the infrastructure side. There would be no blood supply tech if it weren’t for Savant, and in many ways, Savant are almost part of NHSBT.” NHSBT, Savant and other partners are currently working on modernising PULSE and the wider IT stack in what Clark says is the organisation’s biggest technology mission. The Blood Tech Modernisation programme, which officially kicked off at the beginning of 2021 and will take five years, is a transformation initiative to “deliver the stabilisation and security

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In Partnership: NHSBT and Savant Savant delivers PULSE, NHSBT’s control system for blood management, and has also helped develop Session Solution

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SAVANT LIMITED Savant are a long-established SME providing innovative solutions for critical business processes with over 30 years experience. Services include: • Project Management • Software design & development • Database Services • IT Support services (24/7)

• Mobile application development • Software test & Validation services • OpenVMStm Support & Migration Services

Savant is an employee-owned company based in Cumbria in the UK. The company is wholly owned by the Savant Employee Benefit Trust (known as the EBT) – to which all eligible staff belong. Our firmly held belief is that the company’s assets go home at the end of the day.

PRODUCTS • PULSE - Blood Bank Control & Management System. PULSE powers the whole donation-to-recipient lifecycle for blood, tissue and ocular services. PULSE is in daily use by: NHS Blood & Transplant, States-of-Jersey BTS, Isle-of-Man BTS and Northern Ireland BTS. • Gennaro – Hand held Donor Management system at Session. Utilises the latest handheld technologies in order to manage the flow of donors through the donating process at session and synchronising to and from PULSE. • LiLac - Human Breast Milk Labelling and Tracking System. Enables management of all aspects of human breast milk banking: from donation, to labelling, testing and production; through to tracking and distribution.

• LabelCyte - JACIE & ISBT128 Compliant Human Tissue Product Labelling application. Assists hospitals, stem-cell labs and tissue banks in complying with the JACIE-accreditation requirement for human tissue product labelling.

• Mataco - Cloud-based business continuity software system which gives you the ability to continue running your business through a crisis • SSC - Savant Stock Control System.

A secure, cloud-based stock management service for clinical laboratories tracking deliveries, stock issue, stock movements, quarantine, discards, stock reconciliation and stock reporting & ordering.

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of blood IT” and lay the groundwork for a cloud-first future.

In building a modern IT stack, NHSBT is carrying out remediation work on its database, database servers and the PULSE applications themselves. It will also be changing the way it integrates with that system so data can be consumed from other applications and services more readily via an API integration layer, opening up NHSBT and its systems for wider benefit. A long-standing partner in this area has been Cisco, which in multiple ways has helped NHSBT move to a hybrid cloud model.

NHSBT uses Cisco’s Multi-Cloud Architecture, which is composed of Cisco ACI Software Defined Networking with Hyperflex HCI deployed at edge sites and inside two data centres. The 54

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solution is provisioned, managed and maintained proactively via Cisco’s Intersight software and provides an always on, highly available and easily scalable platform for critical NHSBT applications. The solution will also be used to provide an extension of Cisco resources into the public cloud.

“Cisco provides us with whole solutions rather than products, and that makes our job a lot easier because we have quite a small in-house technology services function really and anything that can make their products easier to work with is very helpful for us,”

says Clark. “There’s really deep expertise you get from Cisco and we’ve got a good and solid account team, and they’re always very helpful at value-add.

“Legacy technology is a problem for NHSBT, as it’s a problem for many other organisations. We find ourselves in situations where our data is in some ways trapped inside a monolithic legacy system and getting access to that data to use through other applications has been tricky. That’s why we have the Blood Tech Modernisation programme going, so that we can liberate that data and get access again.

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“By the time we get to the end of this modernisation journey, we don’t want to invest in the infrastructure again. When we get to the next five-year upgrade, we should be able to easily move to infrastructure-as-a-service and continue on that journey and reduce our data centre footprint further.”

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service for the long-term. The organisation’s work has been eye-opening for Rose - not only is he relatively new to his role, but he’s also new to donating having previously been unable to enrol because of the amount of travel involved with his work.

Now a regular donor, Rose understands the sense of togetherness in the blood donation community.

At the final stage of the donor experience, when recognising and thanking

NHSBT

In Partnership: NHSBT and Cisco Cisco has supported NHSBT as it has moved to a hybrid cloud operating model, supplying a number of end-to-end solutions

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More access.

More opportunity.

Cisco has pledged to positively impact 1 billion people by the year 2025. We’re committed to powering a world where everyone has access to information and education.

To contribute. To be bold. To participate.

It’s called the Inclusive Future. When everyone and everything is connected, anything is possible.

cisco.com/go/bridgetopossible

© 2021 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

NHSBT

donors, NHSBT is taking extra steps to build that community feel. A follow-up message to donors thanks them for their participation and lets them know which hospital their blood has been issued to. Notable milestones are marked, for example if a donor has reached their fifth, tenth or even their hundredth donation.

Before COVID-19 struck, NHSBT ran events to get donors together and recognise their role”, and during the pandemic it has launched a series of popular virtual community groups. It is a wholesome mission to look after its own and attract the 135,000 new donors it needs every year to continue its work.

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“It really is fantastic,” says Rose. “You’re part of this community; it’s not just you giving blood, it’s a group of fantastic people giving blood. And that’s really something that you’re very proud to be a part of. Personally, I like to make sure when I walk into work, or dial in to work these days, I’m contributing something valuable. And to know that my work has a 60

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social purpose, a contribution so valuable, especially in these times of the pandemic, is really, really rewarding.

“I’m particularly excited about the opportunity through online or mobilebased experiences, and the self-service element. In an ideal world for me and my teams, we almost want to take a step back - it’s the donors that do all

NHSBT

In this organisation you’ve got people, altruistic donors, who are giving their blood, who are giving their plasma, who are giving their tissues, who are giving their organs, for the benefit of other people’s lives. Everywhere you look, there’s great people doing great things. You can’t buy that, can you?”

Wendy Clark

this valuable work. They’re the ones that are helping the patients, we’re there just helping them do that. And so, the opportunity with digital experiences is really to empower our donors to do this themselves, effortlessly.”

Clark is equally enthusiastic about the work NHSBT is undertaking. She was recently involved in its efforts to collect

plasma for clinical research into treatments for COVID-19, a huge effort that was able to progress at speed only because of NHSBT’s technology base. Clark is also encouraged by the organisation’s leadership and commitment to digital.

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Our donor carers, who do most of the legwork in the centres, taking your blood and looking after people, will be equipped to understand actually what the background of the donor is” David Rose

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comes from the private sector and she’s seen the difference technology can make.

I’m looking forward to the point where we’ve got a few more of these foundations in, and we can start lifting our heads up and being more experimental with what we can do with technology, because I have no doubt that deploying the use of things like artificial intelligence and machine learning can help transform the way this organisation runs.”

Clark previously worked for a number of years in national security, where the mission was very different: how to stop bad people doing bad things. At NHSBT, it’s about helping good people do good things.

And it is that fundamental duty, she says, that motivates NHSBT’s staff every day.

“People come to work because they know they’re saving and improving lives, and that’s what keeps them coming.

Many people probably could go and work somewhere else, and maybe get paid a bit more money sometimes, but it’s that real kind of mission of what we do that keeps people here.

“In this organisation you’ve got people, altruistic donors, who are giving their blood, who are giving their plasma, who are giving their tissues, who are giving their organs, for the benefit of other people’s lives. Everywhere you look, there’s great people doing great things.

You can’t buy that, can you?”

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GOOD OR BAD?

GOOD OR

BAD? Great power comes with great responsibility, and that is particularly true of new technologies. Each month, Tech For Good discusses the potential benefits and dangers of technological advances that are coming to market. This month we ask: Do the benefits of cryptocurrencies outweigh their downsides?

AUTHOR: Beatriz Valero de Urquía

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CRYPTOCURRENCIES

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rypto has long left the deep web.

If anyone were unsure of the eventual spread of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether, this year’s GameStop frenzy and the investments made by giants such as Tesla have made it obvious. Cryptocurrencies are here to stay and it’s now the responsibility of governments globally to make sure that their use is responsible and regulated.

Crypto has many financial benefits.

The use of these currencies eliminates transaction fees and facilitates asset transfers. It’s reliable encryption techniques ensure the privacy and security of all transactions while providing easier international exchanges. But cryptocurrencies can also make a huge positive impact in the world, having the potential to fight global poverty and corruption.

Since many more people have access to

GOOD? the internet than to banks, some experts believe that cryptocurrencies could be incredibly valuable assets in helping “the unbanked” and encouraging a more equal redistribution of wealth.

What the expert says: “ The benefits of cryptocurrencies are many and profound.

We’ve heard how they’re going to solve problems across the current financial system that nothing else could – everything from the truly significant, such as banking the unbanked, to the seemingly trivial, such as providing a more efficient way to buy a car” Marcus Swanepoel, CEO of Luno

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BAD?

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What the expert says:

here is a reason why people are still weary of embracing crypto.

Despite the many benefits of cryptocurrencies, they are also economically volatile and highly polluting.

Most of the existing cryptocurrencies are decentralised, and therefore unregulated. February’s GameStop frenzy is a very obvious example of Bitcoin’s volatility. Over the last few months, cryptocurrencies’ ability to reach record high market positions, as well as plummeting on the stock market, has been contingent upon a few tweets or declarations from people such as Elon Musk.

The fear is simple: that this volatility can spill over to traditional markets.

Moreover, the environmental impact of most cryptocurrencies is also a huge concern. Mining Bitcoin - increasing the supply of coins - requires an enormous amount of electricity. During 2019, Bitcoin consumed as much electricity as whole countries like Argentina, Norway or Chile.

And the more people mine cryptocurrencies, the worse their impact gets, and so does the threat to Planet Earth.

“ Bitcoin alone consumes as much electricity as a medium-sized European country.

This is a stunning amount of electricity.

It’s a dirty business.

It’s a dirty currency” Professor Brian Lucey, Trinity College Dublin

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SOCIAL GOOD

TECH THAT BRE AKS TABOOS In many places, talking about female health is still taboo, but women are taking steps to change that.

Tech For Good speaks to four female entrepreneurs that are using technology to improve girls’ education and access to healthcare around the world

AUTHOR: Helena Pozniak

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FEMTECH

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hen a nine-year-old girl starts her period in rural Pakistan, she may have no idea what’s happening to her.

Billions of dollars have already been invested in services for girls, from health to education and business, but millions of girls aren’t using them, says non-profit Girl Effect. Either the information doesn’t reach them, they don’t trust it or it just doesn’t seem relevant to them. But as access to mobiles increases, could femtech - tech made for women - offer a better solution?

“Girls in many countries grow up with no knowledge of menstruation or contraception,” says Saba Khalid, a 70

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former Pakistani journalist and founder of Aurat Raaj, a user-friendly chatbot educating girls as young as eight about menstrual health and hygiene. “Puberty and menstruation are tied up with child marriages. There are just so many issues associated with women’s bodies.”

Femtech, a term coined six years ago to cover technology services addressing women’s health, has become a burgeoning sector attracting nearly a billion pounds of investment in both 2019 and 2020.

From an early focus on menstrual health and pregnancy, new femtech platforms now offer information about sexual pleasure, fitness or wellbeing.

FEMTECH

In remote parts of the world, femtech can also unlock basic and life-changing information and confront taboos. In the past year, millions of girls from low and middle-income countries will have stopped school altogether, and so the need to educate them by other means is more urgent than ever.

There already was, according to Khalid, a gap in the information given to girls in Pakistan and elsewhere, as they grow up. This matters - misinformation damages girls’ lives. “No one is starting the conversation on menstruation in time, even when girls start periods before the age of ten,” Khalid says.

“They need information before they reach puberty.”

While knowledge on reproduction is low, abortion rates are high. Girls in some parts of the world still use homemade cloth bags rather than modern sanitary products and skip school out of embarrassment. “They won’t go out because they fear they might have a stain,” she says. “There’s a stigma for them. With all of these problems, femtech could really change the situation.”

Prejudice against women during their periods is widespread, and the shame girls feel is present in many places beyond Pakistan. Last year, a conservative Hindu leader in India warned that

women who cook while menstruating “would come back as dogs”. In Nepal, girls are kept separate in huts because of the belief that they are dirty during their periods. Some 800 million people menstruate every day and “period poverty” - a lack of information, facilities and products - is well documented.

Girls in many countries grow up with no knowledge of menstruation or contraception” Saba Khalid

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SPOTLIGHT ON GIRLS’ RIGHTS It is estimated that over 11 million girls will never go back to school after the pandemic, leaving them at greater risk of violence, child marriage and pregnancy Just 39% of rural girls attend secondary school, compared to 45% of rural boys Every additional year of primary school increases girls’ eventual wages by up to 20% Worldwide, 12 million girls get married before the age of 18, and 12.8 million births occur among adolescent girls each year Lack of access to family-planning services due to the pandemic resulted in 1.4 million unintended pregnancies during 2020 across low and middle income countries 52% of adolescent girls and young women from rural areas in 28 Sub-Saharan Africa need approval from their husbands or family to make decisions about their own healthcare

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“Our government and healthcare sector has failed them,” says Khalid, who believes it’s down to innovators to change the status quo. “Information is not provided in the classroom, nor by parents. And that’s a major gap that our chatbot fills.”

But when she launched her app - designed with buttons for those who don’t yet read - it didn’t exactly take off, with just a few thousand downloads on Google Play. “Tech doesn’t work here the way it does in developed countries,” Khalid says.

Khalid, however, has the goal to eventually reach millions of girls with tailor-made information for different communities, and now she’s taking a more personal approach.

Working with teachers before the pandemic and with trusted health advisors since then, she’s finding an audience in rural areas.

Community workers help girls to try out her chatbot, designed to be available in local languages, in contrast to the most popular, apps and platforms, which operate only in English. “I wouldn’t get that access on my own in rural areas,” she says.

“Their needs and usage patterns are completely different. But this is where the next billion users are coming from.”

FEMTECH

After doing a pilot in Pakistan, Khalid aims to expand her chatbox to include services in other languages and across other countries. “There’s very encouraging feedback,” says Anjum Malik, Communications Officer at Rural Support Programme Network, which has worked with Pakistani communities for some five years and is now collaborating with Khalid.

Even the men are on board with helping girls learn more about periods - and that’s key. Women are less likely to own a mobile and are 26% less likely to use it for internet access than men, though Khalid finds the girls are as tech-

savvy as boys. “Women can’t participate unless they have the support of male household members,” she says. “If we want to stimulate female empowerment, we need to have the men on board.”

While three-quarters of the Pakistani population own a mobile, the gender gap that exists in the country in terms of ownership and usage is the greatest in the world. Outside the larger cities, smartphone penetration is just 51% and only one million school-age children have regular access to digital devices.

But phones can still reach rural communities. “If they are more educated and they are leaders in their community, then

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older women aged 30-35 will have some kind of smartphone,” says Malik.

To date, Khalid and her collaborators have targeted 15,000 users including adolescent girls, teachers and health workers. She’s part of a European-based femtech accelerator, Femtechlab, where she’ll be mentored and coached. Her plan is to perfect an app that will be tailored to local communities and easy to scale. The project will be a commercial rather than charitable venture, funded by schools and commercial businesses.

Femtech enables women and girls to keep their worries private - no public clinics or face-to-face consultations.

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Often, these worries are questions about sex. For this reason, Sanasi Amos, a Nigerian-based sex coach who’s just started offering virtual classes, has launched a helpline and newsletter and is working on an app, called Revaginate. “People shy away from using social media,” she says.

“It’s too public and they don’t want anyone to see what they’re asking.

They fear they’ll be judged.”

People post questions anonymously on her forum, with women mostly wanting to know about pregnancy, while men often ask about sexual appetites. Her recently-launched free helpline has begun ringing - for many, a phone call is still more accessible than the internet.

Amos has great ambitions to smash taboos and reach more African countries, and is even funding her venture from her own pocket. “I want everyone to learn about sex regardless of where they are,” she says.

“Solutions are best created by the people who live and experience issues - in this case, women”, says Lindsey Simmonds. She’s just handpicked nine femtech startups from a mix of African countries to become part of a new Senegal-based accelerator offered by her non-profit Intrepid Entrepreneurs.

During a six-month programme, the young women will be offered mentoring,

FEMTECH

If we don’t get girls in school, we’re talking about unskilled labour for them for decades if not generations to come. We’ve got to change that now” Lindsey Simmonds

training, strategic support and access to seed funding. It’s the first programme of its kind on the continent and Simmonds hopes to follow with more.

Nearly a third of applicants for her Next Health Accelerator programme are focused on menstrual health - which remains by far the biggest focus of femtech - and the potential impact is huge. “Girls are missing out on education,” she says. “In Africa this is important. 50% of the working-age population will be in Africa by 2035. Currently a

quarter of the world’s children live on the continent. If we don’t get girls in school, we’re talking about unskilled labour for them for decades if not generations to come. We’ve got to change that now.”

With over 15 years of experience in philanthropy, Simmonds is familiar with women’s reproductive health programmes in Africa, and this concern is represented in the businesses she’s picked to be part of the programme.

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girls,” she says. “It’s time for Africans to solve African problems, and time for women to solve women’s problems. We want to foster, inspire and accelerate African business.”

The innovators she’s selected come from all over the continent, including countries such as Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Rwanda. Some focus on telemedicine and doorstep delivery of medicines, or menstrual hygiene and products, such as eco-friendly sanitary pads made from locally grown 76

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bamboo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But these entrepreneurs face serious logistical hitches. Internet coverage can be patchy - and prone to government control.

“Our electricity may be cut off,” says Simmonds. “And getting a generator is a pretty big expense when you are starting up. Likewise, it’s often cheaper to import from China rather than manufacture in Africa. So how do we create a logistics system that encourages African products?”

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But smartphone penetration across the continent is high, and this could allow countries to “leapfrog” developments in healthcare, just like Africa was able to skip the flip phone and the Blackberry and go straight to the smartphone or jumped into fintech.

Health systems in many countries are weak or broken, and health insurance is patchy. “But introducing private telemedicine is actually easier - they don’t face the obstacles they do in the UK or US for instance,” Simmonds says. “And ISSUE 12

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Being able to use a tech platform improves access and democratises health” Lina Chan

self-care items- such as self-administered contraceptive injections - can be delivered by femtech.”

And tech helps cut costs. Lina Chan founded the digital health platform Parla after she went through a traumatic journey to motherhood. She lost two babies at 25 and eight weeks of pregnancy. Like many founders, she’s influenced by her own experiences and wants to give women information and support to confront taboos around fertility. Born and raised in Brazil, she understands the reach of smartphones, and how this could unlock healthcare access for women.

“During the tech revolution, people had better access to a mobile than a landline or kitchen appliance,” she says.

“It’s not only about getting information but about reducing the costs.

Clinics are expensive and women’s health issues may not be covered by insurance. Being able to use a tech platform improves access and democratises health.”

What does femtech give girls and women in developing countries?

Privacy, education - and input into their own health, says Chan. Allowing women to connect anonymously and overcome cultural barriers and stigma can save lives. And no one can do it better than other women.

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EXPERT INSIGHT

EXPERT INSIGHT: Towards a greener IT Benjamin Alleau, Executive Vice President, Managing Director of Future of Technology at Capgemini Invent, breaks down how companies can make their IT operations more sustainable and reduce their carbon footprint

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he rise of digital acceleration during the COVID-19 pandemic has enabled enterprises to continue to operate smoothly – but this comes at a price. Technology leaves an indelible mark on the environment, especially as enterprise IT accounts for a significant part of a growing carbon footprint. In total, digital technologies already represent between 3% and 4% of global CO2 emissions, which is more than the entire aviation industry (accounting for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions). If IT was a country, it would rank third with regards to energy consumption, just after China and the US. This trend will accelerate in the coming years, with CO2 emissions and energy consumption expected to double by 2025 in worst-case scenarios.

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BENJAMIN ALLEAU

In addition, IT generated 53.6 million tons of e-waste worldwide in 2019 — an increase of 21% in five years.

With this pressing concern, are organisations focusing enough on making IT operations more sustainable? In short, they can do better. Research from Capgemini Invent has found that organisations are not yet viewing sustainable IT as a priority, as only 22% plan to reduce more than one-quarter of their carbon footprint through sustainable IT in the next three years.

It’s clear an awareness gap about the environmental impact of IT has emerged, with 57% of global respondents across sectors unsure of their own organisation’s IT carbon footprint. This lack of understanding is compounded by the fact that sustainable IT currently does not get the same attention and resources as other green initiatives.

So, a bleak future for sustainable IT? Not necessarily, but action must be taken now. The way forward lies in a plan of action that must see enterprises addressing three challenges: creating

Sustainable IT is a critical element of postpandemic recovery”

a sustainable IT strategy, designing a sustainable governance process and operating sustainable IT initiatives.

Creating a sustainable IT strategy It seems remarkable that only 18% of organisations have a global sustainable IT strategy with well-defined goals and target timelines. While organisations may have multiple initiatives aligned to sustainable IT, a coherent corporate strategy is critical to focus efforts and accelerate progress.

So, what makes a good sustainable IT strategy for enterprises? The organisation will need to include clearly defined goals and timelines and show the potential cost-savings and environmental benefits that come with this transformation.

Another tactic is to ensure that the sustainable IT strategy is part of the organisation’s wider approach to measuring, managing, and reporting on its performance against environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals. The need for credible ESG disclosures is becoming ever more important and can impact an enterprise’s reputation.

Finally, a roadmap with clear milestones is essential for organisations to chart the path to sustainable IT deployment. We found that 95% of the High Maturity organisations have one.

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If IT was a country, it would rank third with regards to energy consumption, just after China and the US”

Cisco, for example, has established an Integrated Greenhouse Gas Reduction roadmap as a part of its sustainable IT strategy, which aims to reduce emissions associated with its suppliers.

Designing a sustainable governance process In order to create sustainable governance, enterprises will need to align their services, business models, and go-tomarket strategy with their sustainable IT norms, to ensure that their focus on sustainability is consistently reflected in their overall business strategy.

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A good example of this alignment mindset is what Google has achieved.

Since 2017, it has matched global electricity consumption with 100% renewable energy and it has become the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy. By 2030, Google aims to run its business on carbon-free energy everywhere, at all times. This means tools such as Gmail, Google Search, or Google Assistant, as well as YouTube video will run only on clean energy.

In terms of a dedicated sustainable IT team driving greater progress, simply putting sustainable IT initiatives with

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existing IT teams may not provide the singularity of purpose and coherence demanded by sustainable IT. It must be joined-up and backed at the C-suite level.

Operating sustainable IT initiatives To have sustainable IT operations it is important for organisations to ensure their employees are environmentally aware and engaged. However, only 40% of companies say that their employees show a desire to change the company’s practice when it comes to the initiatives that can support sustainable IT, such as employees turning their

computers off during non-working hours and reducing data usage by limiting the number of emails and video streams.

The most adopted use case of sustainable IT is moving to enterprise cloud applications. The adoption of cloud computing could prevent the emission of one billion tonnes of CO2 from 2021 to 2024. However, moving to the cloud will not be sufficient in itself if applications are shifted as-is without being redesigned from a sustainability perspective.

Such a “lift-and-shift” migration approach can negate some of the sustainability benefits of moving on-premises applications to the cloud. Organisations should therefore redesign their applications before migrating to the cloud.

In addition, the adoption of a green cloud architecture is equally important as it reduces power consumption and improves resource utilisation in the cloud-computing environment.

Sustainable IT is a critical element of post-pandemic recovery. To achieve it, organisations need an informed strategy, engaged employees and leadership, and sustainable software architectures. This will not only leave a greener footprint; it will also unleash the potential of smart technologies to drive environmental innovations and improvements in sustainability performance. In summary, sustainable IT is the backbone of a greener future.

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AMAZON WEB SERVICES

SEEKING CLOUD SKILLS

Amazon Web Services is rolling out a new cloud skills training programme with the goal of helping people from underemployed areas while also mitigating the skills crisis that comes alongside the exponential growth in the adoption of cloud. Tech For Good speaks to the people behind it to learn how cloud skills can change lives

AUTHOR: Stuart Hodge

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merican web pioneer, co-founder of Netscape and Facebook board member Marc Andreesen, once remarked: “Every kid coming out of Harvard, every kid coming out of school now thinks he can be the next Mark Zuckerberg, and with these new technologies like cloud computing, he actually has a shot.”

But every kid is not coming out of Harvard, or even an education system that arms him or her with the skills necessary to succeed in the modern world. And, when it comes to cloud skills training, it is an area where there is an identifiable shortage of skills globally given the exponential increase in the adoption of these platforms.

That’s why Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched its re/Start programme, with the mission of “preparing unemployed and underemployed individuals for cloud careers through classroom-based training”.

The initiative is already available in 16 countries around the world and is part of AWS’s commitment to helping 29 million people globally grow their tech skills with free cloud computing training by 2025. The countries involved include Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ghana, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, the Netherlands, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, the US, and now, the UK. 86

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If you are a business analyst or a software developer, or the stakeholder of a project, you will need to know what’s happening in the cloud and why you would need to protect the data” Irina Loghin

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And it could not come at a better time.

In September 2020, A Cloud Guru released the “State of Cloud Learning” report which shows that cloud expertise is becoming increasingly more valuable, both for companies and employees.

However, 80% of cloud leaders point to an unskilled workforce as the biggest hurdle to overcome.

The same report also noted that 90% of IT leaders surveyed expect to expand their cloud services in the coming three years or so, and AWS expertise was cited in the survey as the most commonly used platform. More than 80% of people surveyed trained on it, with a wide gap to the other two major platforms: Azure at 35%, and Google Cloud Platform at 30%.

It’s clear that an initiative focused entirely on preparing participants for entry-level cloud roles such as cloud operations, site reliability, infrastructure support, and technical-adjacent business support functions can only be a positive thing.

Tech For Good spoke to Irina Loghin, a former mathematics and computer science graduate, who said that she wishes an initiative like the re/Start scheme she now trains people on would have been available when she pivoted earlier in her career, from working on the theoretical side of technology into the practical application side. Loghin is a passionate advocate of the need for cloud skills training, particularly due to the need to keep data safe.

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The training received by AWS re/Start graduates saved me considerable time as a manager. They came into the job with the background knowledge and fundamental understanding required to take challenges specific to Hive and run with them” Christopher Livermore

“Nowadays, the most commonly used applications are focusing on the cloud, and having those applications on the cloud has provided lots of benefits,” Loghin says. “During the lockdown, lots of people started to do business online, and started to use the cloud, even though they weren’t skilled to do that. That has led to lots of, let’s say, ‘unhappy’ cyber events happening.

“Given my own cyber training, I can bring cyber awareness to people who didn’t have it previously, and this is what we’re doing with the cloud skills training 88

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as well. We have the security of the cloud being treated as a very serious topic.

“If you are a business analyst or a software developer, or the stakeholder of a project, you will need to know what’s happening in the cloud and why you need to protect the data. You also need to learn how to protect the data and be aware of what the risks are if you’re not doing that.

So that’s why everyone would need to have this training in place, no matter their role.”

But this programme isn’t just aimed at those who already have some fledgling

AMAZON WEB SERVICES

WHY CLOUD? Cloud computing is one of the most significant technological advances of our time, and it has become vital for businesses in the UK and Ireland.

experience or a desire to work in the technology sector. AWS re/Start focuses on very diverse learner audiences such as young people, military veterans, or those made redundant from non-tech careers, with the aim of providing a meaningful impact on their career prospects. The programme is designed to accommodate differing levels of experience and even those with no previous technical knowledge whatsoever can apply.

“It’s more than a training programme, it’s also a ‘change your life’ programme,” says Tejas Vashi, Global Leader for AWS

In fact, a report published by economic consultancy Public First reveals that companies running on the cloud are nearly three times as likely to be growing over 5% a year compared to those not on the cloud. It’s no surprise that cloud computing skills were among the top three most in-demand skills for employers in the past three years, particularly in the context of COVID-19, which prompted businesses to move online and led to soaring demand for cloud skills and training.

If the UK and Ireland are to realise the true potential of cloud computing, greater investment in people and skills is absolutely vital.

For example, according to the Public First report, boosting cloud prevalence in North East England to match London could help boost productivity and wages by 2.6% - the equivalent to £1.4 billion, or three years’ of pay rises in one go.

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re/Start. “We work with populations who are unemployed or underemployed, re-skilling them and connecting them to real job opportunities. We aim to reach different groups who wouldn’t otherwise have a pathway to technology careers.”

And it’s people like Loghin, who graduated in Romania and is now in the UK working as an AWS Lead Instructor, who make that happen. She says her mission is to “inspire and support people of all 90

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backgrounds in achieving their tech career goals”.

With that in mind, she reflects with pride that all students from her previous cohort who sat the AWS cloud practitioner exam passed it. But how does the delivery of the programme actually work for people and what are the benefits for those who take part in it?

“This programme will take you from having zero knowledge or zero guidance

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on what you want to do next, to giving you a purpose,” she says. “It will take you from ‘I have no idea what cloud is but I know a little bit of Python and I would like to do more’ to ‘I know a few DevOps concepts and a few services’, right through to ‘I would like to be a developer working on doing these kinds of applications’, later on. The programme itself gives you a purpose, it helps you understand what you want to do next with your career, or how you can start it.

“Then, once we’re into the programme by a couple of weeks, we do some mock interviews where students will think about a certain role they would like to apply to. I then, will have done some research, collated some interview questions based on the role and once paired with a colleague, they will discuss the role to understand: ‘Is that role something I would indeed like to apply to?’

“If the answer is ‘yes’, we give them what they need to learn to get their hands dirty in that role, to start working in that capacity. By doing that, they can experiment and realise, actually, ‘I want to go forward with applying for this role’ or ‘I would like to move on to some other roles in cloud or in tech in general’.”

The full-time, 12-week, skills-based re/ Start training programme works usually with a cohort of 20-25 people and

We work with populations who are unemployed, or underemployed, re-skilling them and connecting them to real job opportunities” Tejas Vashi

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SECOND CHANCES Nazar Razak left school in London aged 16. The early years of his career were unstable until he took part in AWS re/Start. Now in his mid-20s, Nazar is a cloud structural engineer for The Financial Times, where he excels in Python coding and enjoys an agile work culture that is enabling him to build a long-term career in technology.

Janine O’Connor is another example of the programme’s impact. After helping young people find jobs for years, she found herself unemployed. Janine was interested in launching a career in technology and working towards becoming a software engineer. After completing the AWS re/Start programme in London, she is now an Associate Consultant at ECS helping to develop contact centres in the cloud using AWS and Salesforce.

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covers fundamental yet transferable AWS cloud skills, alongside practical career skills, such as effective communication, time management, collaboration, interviewing, and CV writing.

Upon completion of the programme, graduates are also connected with potential employers.

AWS re/Start works with different local partner organisations in the respective countries, to help with the delivery of the programme around the world and as part of the company’s mission to build a diverse global pipeline of entry-level trained talent.

It’s now being rolled out across the UK, where it is working in conjunction with local partners to arm more individuals with skills that can provide them with gainful employment in a vastly growing field in need of skilled talent.

The benefits are felt very keenly by employers too, with AWS connecting over 90% of graduates globally with interview opportunities at local companies within their communities.

“The training received by AWS re/ Start graduates saved me considerable time as a manager,” says Christopher Livermore, Head of Operations at Centrica Hive, whose family of products includes the award-winning Hive Active Heating. “They came into the job with the background knowledge

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and fundamental understanding required to take challenges specific to Hive and run with them.”

Michael Fordham, UK Platform Capability Lead at Manchester-based technology consultancy BJSS, has overseen the recruitment and development of ex-military graduates from AWS re/Start.

“The alumni that we have recruited from the AWS re/Start programme are delivering solutions for our clients, and they contribute significantly to our organisation internally,” he says.

“It’s a testament to these recruits that we’re expanding the idea and looking at other ways to attract more diverse candidates, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

And for trainers like Irina, a natural teacher with a passion for seeing those who aren’t often afforded the necessary opportunities go on and succeed, it’s a joy to witness on a day-to-day

basis, students developing their skills and having fun whilst they learn. That, in turn, energises her to ensure she’s giving her all as a trainer.

“That’s my fuel every single day,” she says. “Every time I find a fun thing to do, to integrate, for example, AWS with Slack, this is something that we’ve done just last week, it’s really fun.

“Now we have a banana boat on a slider that has been created by one of my students! I don’t take credit for that.

I’ve just shown them how to do it. So now we have a banana boats show with a message every single day or week, sending us a fun fact about bananas every day because the students like to eat this fruit during their breaks!

And that’s just one of the latest fun facts we’ve done lately. I could tell my mission as a trainer was complete when they started to experiment with these tools and have fun as well.”

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TEENAGE TECH STORIES

Teenage tech stories Each month, Tech For Good speaks to one teenage entrepreneur about their incredible achievements in the world of tech, and how they’re contributing to making the world a better place

Name: Alaina Gassler

Age: 16 Born: Westgrove, Pennsylvania, USA Achievements: Alaina is the 2019 winner of the prestigious Samueli Foundation Award at the Society for Science Broadcom MASTERS competition. She earned this recognition for her development of a system that solves blind spots in cars. Alaina has also worked on vests to help blind people and grabbers for wheelchair users.

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ALAINA GASSLER

I

have been doing Science Fair for a really long time, I think since 4th grade, because my dad was always super passionate about me and my brothers going into Science Fair and working on that.

I’ve always wanted to use my projects as a way to help people.

My main purpose with any Science Fair project isn’t to make a final device that can be implemented immediately; it’s to make a prototype that I can display the idea on.

In the past I have made a vest that vibrates to help blind people know if there’s an object in front of them. It had a strap that you could put around your arms and your chest and it would have sensors that would measure if an object was a certain length away from you; and it would vibrate more aggressively the closer you got to the object.

So, potentially this could be used if someone was blind so they wouldn’t run into things as much.

Inside of a projector and replacement part With my blindspot project I really wanted to help out my mum, who said that she struggled with the large blindspots that were caused by the pillars in my dad’s car. And, with my older brother just starting to drive, blindspots were a big concern in general.

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on the outside of the pillar or the cause of the blindspot, on the outside of the car, and it would send the video recording in a live feed to the projector that was above the driver’s head. And this projector would project the image behind the blindspot onto the blindspot on a reflective piece of material.

The reflective piece of material allows for the image to be enhanced to the driver, and also for the image to be not visible to anybody else in the car.

Because it can be very discombobulating when I was sitting in the passenger’s seat and I would see just a bunch of light that didn’t line up with my view.

The hardest thing was probably getting the image to line up, so that the project would actually work. Because, oftentimes the scale was off or there was warping and I really wanted the picture to line up best as possible.

Broadcom MASTERS was such an amazing week of my life because it’s not like any other Science Fair that I had gone to. Normally, a Science Fair is strictly a competition but this organisation encouraged us - all 30 of the Broadcom MASTERS - to come together and work in teams.

A lot of people would see my project and tell me how they had a friend or they themselves had gotten into a crash that was caused by blindspots. It was really cool to see how my project would have been able to impact so many lives if it had been implemented.

The award meant a lot because it shocked me so much when I got it. It was crazy. It was an awesome experience overall and the award was something that I never thought I’d be able to get but I am very grateful that it was awarded to me.

My plans for this project are a little on hold at the moment, because there is already a patent that covers the idea of being able to see through blindspots about nine years ago. And since, with my project, the projector idea couldn’t be implemented into a car straight away, it would probably have to be a very different design, if it were to actually be used.

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ALAINA GASSLER

I want to make a grabber for a young boy who lives down the street from me who is in a wheelchair. I want to make him a grabber that would allow him to pick things off the ground that’s better than the ones that are on the market, that are very difficult to use.

I think there’s still a lot of lack of support for women in science and STEM. But I think we’re making steps towards implementing the idea that women can work in STEM and that girls should be inspired to work in STEM.

I honestly have no clue about what I want to be. I am looking into a bunch of different ideas and thinking about maybe engineering or videographer, because I took a videography class and that was really fun. Acting has also always been a fun thing for me.

So there are a lot of paths I can see myself going down.

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