Tech For Good - Issue 15

TWO SIGMA’S DATA EQUITY MISSION CAN VERTICAL FARMING FEED THE PLANET? HOW TO MAKE HOUSING MORE SUSTAINABLE MR BACKUP’S DISASTER PROTECTION PLAN

ISSUE 15

GILEAD HOPE FOR HIV

Gilead Sciences has been at the forefront of the fight against HIV for over two decades. This year it rolled out its PrEP Hub digital platform, and we find out why it’s a game-changer

DANIEL BRIGHAM Content Director

I

t is 40 years since the first official report into AIDS was published in the American medical press. It quickly, terrifyingly, escalated into one of the world’s most serious public health issues, and remains so to this day.

There are over 37 million people living with HIV, and almost 700,000 lost their lives to it in 2020. But hope is slowly emerging. The last decade has seen a slowing of the spread of the disease, and, despite the awful numbers, fewer people are dying from AIDS than at its peak. Much of this is down to prevention work. While the search for a cure continues, prevention drugs – first introduced in 2012 – have been a game-changer.

Gilead Sciences has been on the frontline of HIV care over the last few

decades, and now it is rolling out its next stage in prevention: PrEP Hub, a digital platform that creates and delivers tailored pathways for those who may be at risk of HIV, and to reduce the stigma around HIV prevention drugs. We speak to the leaders in both the digital innovation and clinical departments at Gilead to find out how technology is not only helping in the fight against HIV, but also changing perceptions of how it can be prevented.

Elsewhere, we hear about Two Sigma’s mission to help those who need it most with access to good data, and speak to Philips Foundation about its work in medical training in underserved communities across the globe.

I hope you enjoy the issue!

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From wildfires to a Google shutdown, we round up the latest news

Mr Backup on protecting your company’s data against natural disasters

GLOBAL GOOD

LEADERSHIP

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Why Gilead Sciences’ PrEP Hub is a game-changer for HIV prevention

Meet the foundation providing medical training in underserved communities

CASE STUDY

HEALTHCARE

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The story behind Two Sigma’s Data Clinic’s mission to amplify data equity

We speak to 17-year-old app developer Emma Yang

SOCIAL GOOD

TEEN TECH STORIES

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GOOD OR BAD?

Should video games be banned?

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ENVIRONMENT

We investigate whether vertical farming is the solution to global food shortages

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EXPERT INSIGHT

Cambridge Consultants’ Nathan Wrench on sustainable housing technology

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GLOBAL GOOD

Agritech startup Arborea secures $3.6m in funding Portuguese startup Arborea has received $3.6m in seed funding to scale up its BioSolar Led technology. The startup’s technology uses synthetic photosynthesis to mimic the mechanisms of a leaf, which means using less energy and carbon to produce a sustainable solution for food production.

Google shutting down its healthcare division - reports Google is closing down its healthcare unit, although it will continue to pursue healthcare projects. Business Insider first reported the news, citing internal sources. Google Health chief executive David Feinberg is leaving to head up healthtech firm Cerner. A memo sent to staff reportedly said that workers in the healthcare arm of Google will be moved to different parts of the organisation.

India to give out $35bn to automakers under clean tech scheme

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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India will give about $35bn in incentives to automakers over a five-year period under a revised clean tech scheme, Reuters reports. The country has been pushing to boost the manufacturing and export of clean technology vehicles.

The government’s original plan was to give out $8bn to automakers to promote gasoline-powered technologies, but the scheme was re-drawn to focus on ecofriendly vehicles.

NEWS DEBRIEF

Israel’s Breezometer launches wildfire-tracking tool Israel-based Breezometer, which powers air quality analysis tools in Apple’s Weather app, has launched a new product to track the spread of wildfires. Wildfire Tracker will be able to identify the edges of wildfires in real-time and inform about the air quality of the area.

“People expect accurate wildfire information just as they expect accurate weather or humidity data,” Ran Korber, Breezometer’s CEO, said.

Alibaba pledges to invest $15.5bn in “common prosperity” fund

Scientists in Singapore develop AI-powered glaucoma diagnosis kit

E-commerce giant Alibaba is the latest Chinese company to support President Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity” initiative, pledging to invest $15.5bn by 2025. Alibaba’s investment will go towards supporting small and medium-sized enterprises and agricultural companies and towards helping to narrow China’s wealth gap. Tencent and Geely Automobile are some of the other Chinese companies to have recently made similar announcements.

A team in Singapore are using AI to diagnose glaucoma. Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, in collaboration with clinicians at Tan Tock Sen Hospital, found their method delivered 97% accuracy in scanning for the group of eye diseases. The AI analysis ‘stereo fundus’ images to separate optic nerves with glaucoma from those without. Glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness worldwide.

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CREATING A PATHWAY TO HOPE HIV prevention drugs have helped reduce infection rates globally.

Now Gilead Sciences has rolled out its digital platform, PrEP Hub®, in the US with a mission to help improve access to drugs and reduce stigma among the communities that most need it. We find out why it’s a gamechanger in the fight against HIV

PROJECT DIRECTOR: Chloe King AUTHOR: Daniel Brigham VIDEOGRAPHER: Ewan Donaldson

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GILEAD SCIENCES

Official Gilead Sciences PrEP Hub image These are model images for illustrative purposes only

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n June 5, 1981, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report that described a rare lung infection in five young, healthy men in Los Angeles. The men also had unknown infections that were causing the immune system to malfunction.

That article, published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, would become the first official record of what was later named Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome – AIDS. Sadly, all five men would die of the virus and, by the end of 1981, there had been 331 reported cases in the US. In the 40 years since, AIDS – discovered in 1984 to be caused by HIV – remains one of the planet’s most serious public health issues. According to research by HIV. 10

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gov, around 1.5 million people acquired HIV in 2020, with 37.6 million living with the disease. There were 690,000 deaths – 690,000 devastated families.

There is hope among those terrifying numbers, though. There has been a 30% drop in new HIV infections since 2010, and a decline of 61% in deaths since the global peak of the epidemic in 2004. Although there is still no cure for HIV, better understanding of the virus, improved treatment and an emphasis on prevention means that those numbers are declining.

It is a similar picture in the United States.

HIV.gov estimates that 1.2 million people in the US have HIV, but new infections are going in the right direction. Again, progress is relatively slow, but it is real, hopeful progress nonetheless.

GILEAD SCIENCES

A leader in HIV care has been Gilead Sciences. Founded in California in 1987, six years after that article appeared in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, and just a few months after the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first AIDS medication, Gilead has grown into one of the most important forces in the global resistance against HIV. It currently has 11 HIV medicines on the market, and is committed to halting its spread and, ultimately, finding a cure. Its focus is global, working both in countries that most need access to treatment, as well as using innovative techniques in

communities within the US that are disproportionately impacted by HIV. “Gilead has been at the forefront of advancing the care of people with HIV,” says Cristina Carlis, Vice President of Digital Innovation at Gilead. “When you think about the early days of the epidemic, patients were taking a handful of pills a couple times a day – as many as 50 pills per day – to live for two years and the quality of life for those years could be detrimental.

“But look at where we are today. We have a single pill that really helps you manage your condition, and has really turned HIV from an acute infection into a chronic disease that is

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We have a single pill that really helps you manage your condition, and has really turned HIV from an acute infection into a chronic disease that is manageable and allows for a normal lifespan. So we’ve made tremendous progress over the last 40 years and Gilead has been right at the forefront of those advances”

manageable and allows for a normal lifespan.

So we’ve made tremendous progress over the last 40 years and Gilead has been right at the forefront of those advances.”

A significant milestone in HIV prevention was when the first PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) drug was approved in the US. It is designed for communities disproportionately affected by HIV, given to people who don’t have HIV in order to reduce their risk of acquiring it if they are exposed to the virus.

While PrEP changed the landscape, the uptake could still be higher in communities that really need it. This is where PrEP Hub comes in.

PrEP Hub was rolled out in the US by Gilead in June 2020. It is a digital platform

Cristina Carlis 12

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GILEAD SCIENCES

Official Gilead Sciences PrEP Hub image

that delivers tailored pathways for people who may be at risk of HIV, at different stages of their PrEP journey: from people who’ve not even heard of PrEP to those who use PrEP but need access to more information, and for those who may have been on PrEP but have since come off and are thinking about starting again. The idea is to make the process of receiving PrEP simpler and more accessible, and allow people to find out details in private.

“PrEP Hub really came about out of the notion that there’s still a lot of stigma when it comes to PrEP,” says Carlis. “So using technology to provide information about

access to that care to raise awareness about PrEP, and really provide the tools for consumers to get information relevant to them in their PrEP journey, was really, really important to us.”

Creating PrEP Hub started with asking the right questions: who are the consumers?

Who could benefit from PrEP? How do you communicate to a community that someone should take a drug despite being healthy? What are their specific needs based on their place in the PrEP journey?

From that, Gilead created a digital navigator, accessible on phones, that allowed users to understand why they might need PrEP, ISSUE 15

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why they might be at risk or how they might benefit, and then provided options on how to find healthcare providers, testing sites, pharmacies, and home delivery options.

Jared Baeten, Vice President, HIV Clinical Development, joined Gilead a year ago after a career in academia working on HIV prevention globally. He was part of the scientific development of PrEP, working on early clinical trials that showed it was effective. But any medicine – including PrEP – is only effective if it reaches the right people, and that’s why Baeten believes PrEP Hub is an important step in the fight against HIV. “The challenge that PrEP Hub is trying to address is not all individuals who might

Official Gilead Sciences PrEP Hub image

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benefit from PrEP have yet been able to take it up,” he says. “That could be because it’s not resonating in their lives, it’s not part of the conversations in their peers, their family, or their community. Maybe they don’t feel that it’s right for them. So PrEP Hub gives them that entrée about having to have a discussion, wherever they are across the spectrum, from ‘I’m ready to use today’ to ‘I haven’t really even thought about this much yet but tell me a little more’. So to be able to say ‘let’s give you some information and help you work through whether this is something individually for you’ is vital.

“It’s person-centric: meeting people where they are, to try to get towards that community-level impact that we’re all

GILEAD SCIENCES

In Partnership: BCG Digital Ventures Strategic partner

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Building what’s next, together.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a paradigm shift in digital adoption, driving both companies and consumers alike to adapt their operations and behaviors.

BCG Digital Ventures, in partnership with its corporate partners, enables digital transformation across every sector through cutting-edge innovation. We share a deep appreciation for the opportunity to re-shape the health care ecosystem and enable resilience by leveraging digital tools, pioneering technologies, and deploying new business solutions to empower patients, physicians, care teams, and more.

BCG Digital Ventures (BCGDV) is the corporate innovation and digital business building arm of Boston Consulting Group. The organization invents, launches, scales, and invests in industry-changing new businesses with the world’s most influential companies. BCGDV’s diverse, multidisciplinary team of entrepreneurs, operators, and investors work cross-functionally, rapidly moving from idea to market in less than 12 months. Founded in 2014, the organization has 12 Innovation Centers and satellite locations around the world.

GE T IN TO UCH : WWW.B CG DV.COM

CASE STUDY

Our goal – our ultimate goal – is to not work on HIV anymore. Our intention is to work as hard as we can to do what we can to help end the epidemic. We at Gilead are one part of that, but it is a global endeavour and we all have to do our part” Jared Baeten Official Gilead Sciences PrEP Hub image

looking for in HIV prevention. And doing that over and over again.”

A platform like PrEP Hub, with so much at stake, had one core principle when it came to product design: it had to be easy for the user to navigate. That might sound simple, but when you consider the complex journeys that can be taken, and the varied information that has to be delivered to the consumer base, it was a task that needed an innovative product team.

Gilead partnered with Boston Consulting Group’s Digital Ventures (BCGDV) team.

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GILEAD SCIENCES

With a focus on healthcare, BCGDV specialise in innovative product design, engaging individuals more efficiently, and providing a differentiated customer experience. In what was traditionally a patient-physician environment, PrEP Hub is a reimagining of that relationship, shortening cycle times through digital engagement. One critical aspect was ensuring it was rich with data, and therefore rich with insight.

BCGDV helped Gilead engage with the PrEP digital community and derive

actionable insights from the online interactions, understand how it should be engaging with users, who it should be engaging with, and how to make the most of the insights it gained. As well as traditional management consulting, BCGDV comes with cross-functional digital and data capabilities. The combination means, together, Gilead and BCGDV can be agile with PrEP Hub. “A well-designed product in the technology sense helps with prevention, in that it can make a medicine so much more accessible,” says Carlis. “You could have the correct medication, but if a consumer or patient doesn’t know how to get it, or access it, the outcome will be sub-optimal.

So having these types of tools that are complementary to your medicines is really important in advancing the cure.

“With Boston Consulting Group, we had a really good partnership and a great understanding from the beginning. We were both working together to ensure that we could galvanise a community, and get the insights out of this community, so that we could create the right solutions for the right consumers. And I think their knowledge, and their work in this space, was instrumental in accelerating some of the work for us. I’m very grateful for the partnership and the investment that they put into PrEP Hub.” As world-class as Gilead’s scientific knowledge is, and as excellent as BCGDV’s ISSUE 15

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Official Gilead Sciences PrEP Hub image

technical expertise is, in this instance it takes three to tango: engaging the communities most impacted by HIV meant it was crucial to work collaboratively with people with experience in serving those areas. As Baeten says, “It’s important to remember that PrEP exists because of collaboration from scientists, from clinicians, from community members in society and advocates from across the world.”

Without buy-in from the communities, PrEP Hub would have been a non-starter.

So Gilead has a network of local 20

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community groups it works with across the US, including My Brother’s Keeper (MBK). A non-profit, MBK’s mission is to reduce health disparities in the US by working with and enabling minority and under-resourced populations. A lot of its work is focussed on HIV prevention.

MBK’s CEO, June Gipson, works closely with Gilead and participates in a number of their community advisory groups. She has worked in HIV prevention for 20 years, and is an advocate for the power of good that PrEP can have. MBK started offering

GILEAD SCIENCES

PrEP in 2013 and, although the uptake was slow, it now has over 400 patients on PrEP across Mississippi.

“PrEP Hub is a great platform,” says Gipson. “It provides the information without having to search everywhere. So with PrEP Hub, individuals who are interested in PrEP can go in, put in their information and do the survey, and then they’re provided with information – regardless of where they are in the country – about clinics, and community-based organisations, that can provide PrEP services.

“Tools like this give a person the opportunity to pace themselves; to learn what they need to learn, to have a resource that actually gives them a guideline for what can happen. I think that that’s very important.”

Baeten sees working with communities as a way to help address disparities in PrEP use. “In many places where PrEP has had traction it hasn’t had full traction in every community in these areas,” he says. “To be able to provide tools, to be able to make those connections easier for individuals in disproportionately affected, ISSUE 15

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Official Gilead Sciences PrEP Hub image

disproportionately burdened by HIV communities, is particularly meaningful because in order to be able to talk about ending this epidemic in a real way we have to talk about really ending it for everybody.”

Gipson believes the COVID-19 pandemic has hastened the acceptance of PrEP Hub among communities she works with. The response to Coronavirus has shown that digital platforms can be an effective way of 22

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helping an individual’s healthcare, and also provides the comfort blanket of privacy.

“When you think about PrEP and the sensitivity of it – you’re talking about someone’s sex life, you’re talking about someone’s medication – PrEP Hub gives them the opportunity to learn more on their own,” says Gipson. “Genetically, we’re self-directed learners. And as self-directed learners, we want the opportunity to be

GILEAD SCIENCES

able to go online, find what we need, and understand it from our perspective so that you can be more learned in the process.

“PrEP changed how community-based organisations had to work. It changed not only the community’s perception of how we prevent HIV, but it also changed how we decided how we could prevent HIV, and what type of entity we needed to become to be able to do this from multiple angles.”

The pandemic has shown that giving a patient the ability to monitor their own health isn’t the scary process that many assumed it would be. It empowers patients, keeps them informed, offers the protection of privacy while also providing access to face-to-face appointments with physicians or doctors.

Similarly, PrEP Hub has shown that well thought-out online platforms that can engage communities are an increasingly effective tool. In the year since it was rolled out, PrEP Hub has already been a success, with thousands of users across the US. “I think when it was first introduced there was some hesitancy around it,” says Gipson. “Everything used to be so face to face, everything was so predicated on the person that you spoke with. But now this is the future, this is how they’re going to communicate. It’s easier on the patient, it’s also easier on the staff.”

Carlis sees the future of HIV medicine as hybrid: tools that can give a patient as much information as possible, alongside access

PrEP changed how community-based organisations had to work. It changed not only the community’s perception of how we prevent HIV, but it also changed how we decided how we could prevent HIV” June Gipson

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Official Gilead Sciences PrEP Hub image

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GILEAD SCIENCES

to a physician. “I think we’ve learned so HIV remains one of the world’s most much over the pandemic, that it’s not one or pressing health issues. A cure remains the the other, but really the benefit is that sweet holy grail – and Gilead, like many others, is spot in the middle,” she says. “Having tools dedicated to that pursuit – but prevention to help bridge the gap of being able to has started to turn the tide. Cases are get to a physician is terrific, but there falling, and there is hope for the future. are times when you do need to “Our goal – our ultimate goal – is to not have that physical interaction work on HIV anymore,” says Baeten. with the physician.

“Our intention is to With Boston “You can actually work as hard as we can Consulting Group, communicate with a to do what we can to healthcare provider we had a really good help end the epidemic. via text; you can We at Gilead are one partnership and communicate in a part of that, but it is a a great understanding way that you’re not global endeavour and putting yourself out we all have to do our from the beginning. there if you don’t want We were both working part. But we have the to. But, at the same solutions on hand and together to ensure that time, you can get the the innovations that we could galvanise help that you need in are coming, and the order to prevent HIV. commitment and the a community, and I think that’s terrific.” energy and the vision. get the insights out of While PrEP Hub is We as a world have this community” helping people in the that. I am optimistic.

US, Gilead remains Every single day it Cristina Carlis drives me forward.” committed to reducing HIV globally, with huge resources “We still have work to do, but poured into some of the world’s worst-afwe have come a long way since 1987, when fected countries. It has helped bridge the Gilead was started,” says Carlis. “And I do technology divide in lower-income countries, see Gilead being a core contributor to help while also remaining mindful that simply end the epidemic for everybody everyhanding over a phone or tablet to someone where: with our medicines, with our access in certain communities could signal that they programmes, and with our concern for the are a participant in an HIV trial. communities where we work and live.”

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SOCIAL GOOD

DRIVING EQUITY THROUGH DATA

Rachael Weiss Riley and Erin Stein of Two Sigma’s Data Clinic tell Tech For Good about the company’s mission of delivering cuttingedge data science solutions to those who need them most

AUTHOR: Stuart Hodge

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DRIVING EQUITY THROUGH DATA

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wo Sigma’s Data Clinic was born seven years ago to help organisations dedicated to social and environmental causes understand and use data better as, in the great quest to do so, the poorest people and groups in society are often left forgotten.

This is something we have been aware of for a while. In their 2007 paper, ‘The Democratization of Data: Bridging the Gap for Community Groups’, David S. Sawicki and William J. Craig noted: “Community groups from low-income neighbourhoods have the most to gain from full access to data, yet the least capability to achieve that access or

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make use of the data once they have it.”

With that manner of challenges in mind, back in 2014, a couple of Two Sigma employees won a company innovation contest with their idea to set up Data Clinic, an employee-driven volunteer data-for-good initiative that provides pro-bono data science and engineering support to mission-driven organisations, including non-profits and government agencies, on a project basis.

Their work is spread across a wide spectrum: anything from helping public school teachers understand how to increase access to funding, to building anomaly-detection models for a water

DRIVING EQUITY THROUGH DATA

utility to help flag water leaks, and even researching the rural-urban divide in local jail rates.

All worthwhile and useful causes, but in executing all of those projects effectively there needs to be an understanding which stretches beyond just comprehension of the data and the numbers. In Data Clinic methodology, for each partnership, there has to be a holistic understanding of the people and organisations involved in order to deliver insights and solutions that are of genuine value.

Erin Stein, Head of Operations at Data Clinic, says: “The importance and role of data has only grown exponentially over the years and it’s really turned into a power dynamic of those who can incorporate data insights into their work versus those who can’t.

“That isn’t to say that we should move fully to a data-inspired or data-informed world because lived experience is just as vital in the social impact space, where Data Clinic operates. But being able to marry the two and have a rich understanding of the work you’re doing and the people you’re trying to affect really leads to expanded impact and benefits for your organisation and those same people.”

According to Rachael Weiss Riley, Director of Data Clinic, a key component in its success has been the fact it

A lot of the datafor-good efforts out there are more like consulting outfits.

I think what really differentiates Data Clinic from a lot of other types of models is that with us, it is always a 100% true collaboration” Rachael Weiss Riley

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began in an organic fashion from the bottom-up rather than as some corporate brainchild born in a boardroom.

“A lot of the data-for-good efforts out there are more like consulting outfits, where there’s a challenge and folks go behind closed doors and build some sort of a solution and present that back to the stakeholders,” she says.

“I think what really differentiates Data Clinic from a lot of other types of models is that with us, it is always a 100% true collaboration. By pairing partners on the

Rather than thinking of corporate data philanthropy and pro-bono initiatives, what we’re really moving towards is corporate social opportunity” Rachael Weiss Riley

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ground who are doing this hard work day-in and day-out and who know the history and the context of the issues that they’re facing, alongside our fresh technical perspective looking to use data and tech in a scientific way, together we set the stage for innovation and solutions that are ultimately impactful.”

“Simple” and “intuitive” are the watchwords for Data Clinic in terms of the solutions it provides. That doesn’t mean the team wouldn’t use creative means to get there, but there is a danger of companies

DRIVING EQUITY THROUGH DATA

DETECTING OIL & GAS WELL VIOLATIONS An example of where Data Clinic managed to instigate organisational change through its efforts is with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

EDF is an environmental advocacy group that was investigating more efficient resource management of oil and gas wells. They hoped to identify the likelihood of future oil and gas well violations so that they could support government agencies in distributing resources to specific locations more likely to experience a problem.

The project was executed using all open data, accessible through a stateopen data portal. Data Clinic was able to provide EDF with guidance on which oil and gas wells might experience a future violation and evidence in hand to go out and to advocate for a data-driven approach to resource management. The partnership signalled a cultural shift where senior management at EDF recognised the need to invest in such things as data analysis and an effort to collect better data, essentially kickstarting a data strategy within the organisation.

being caught up in a mindset of looking for “pop data science” according to Weiss Riley.

For Data Clinic, more important than providing a zany solution that can be written up in an academic journal, is providing the one which is best suited to a partner’s needs and ensuring that there is a concrete understanding of the science and methodology behind it.

Data Clinic envisions the evolution of the partnership in a more circular and iterative way, where they first work extensively with clients to properly understand their needs, their goals and how they wish to get there. The next step is to then provide their insight, expertise and talent to guide partners to a solution that solves the challenge at hand and furthers the work of the organisation. The final element is ensuring they extract as many learnings and takeaways as possible that they can then bring forward into future projects.

By working in an open framework and striving to open up data, methodologies, and solutions as much as possible, Data Clinic believes it can play a part in facilitating learning-sharing between organisations, which will, in turn, increase the quality of future data projects. Equitable access to knowledge and resources is just one way Data Clinic considers equity within their work.

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approach, and what that means,” Weiss Riley says. “So, part of the partnership is also about thinking through ‘What is the solution? Is it equitable for different populations?’

“Then, you have to ask questions along the way to unravel potential

We take great care to ensure that our non-profit partners understand the potentials and limitations of the project inside and out before the collaboration ends” Erin Stein

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SUPPORTING SCHOOLS The Robin Hood Foundation seeks to lift New Yorkers out of poverty with its Learning & Tech Fund, which works with New York City schools to provide innovative technology programming. Over the years, they’ve built up some basic criteria of what a good partner school might look like, focusing primarily on high-minority, high-poverty populations in the New York City area. Generally, school proficiency rates would be the key factors in the decision-making but the Learning & Tech Fund wanted to find an alternative approach, as their strict criteria was limiting the number of potential partners.

The Data Clinic team came in and looked at not just the performance data, but all the other open data available through the schools, including student and parent surveys. The team then built a model to present school performance in a different light, essentially showing if a school was over or underperforming its peers. By providing the Learning & Tech Fund with the tools to think about performance in a new way, Data Clinic was able to increase their pool of potential partners by 44%.”

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biases and challenges embedded in the data, the methodology that you’re using, and then ultimately, the solution and the communication of that solution to stakeholders. Those are things we continually try to ask questions about, while also trying to deliver a solution that’s going to be as parsimonious as possible.”

It’s the deeply thought-out approach and value they place on communication

at every stage of the process that really makes what Data Clinic does different from its competitors.

“We take great care to ensure that our non-profit partners understand the potentials and limitations of the project inside and out before the collaboration ends,” Stein says. “I think part of what does set us apart is the extremely rich and deep data science expertise that Two Sigma has that we are confident ISSUE 15

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in pairing with our core team’s social science background to address these challenges responsibly.

“A lot of the data and tech for good efforts that are out there are focused a bit more on helping build up data management or databases or visualisations.

Actually digging into the research is not quite as common just yet, because it can be tricky or intimidating to do.

“Given our expertise and our experience, we are confident in engaging in social science research and passing on the learnings to organisations where other initiatives like ours might not yet be ready to do that.”

Interestingly, employing such a unique modus operandi has led to an evolution in how the team perceives the space itself.

While Data Clinic started off considering itself part of the “corporate data philanthropy” sector, the team quickly realised that “philanthropy” was a misnomer implying a one-way trajectory of benefits.

“Rather than thinking of corporate data philanthropy and pro bono initiatives, what we’re really moving towards is corporate social opportunity,” Weiss Riley says.

“There is this recognition that doing good is not just a reason to get social accolades or a pat on the back or to look good – but it’s actually delivering shared value.

“I’m really heartened by the growing number of different types of models and cross-sector partnerships. The

resources that organisations are throwing behind these sorts of efforts are also increasing as they recognize that it is not only good for society but that this is a benefit to their employees and their bottom line.

“I think that initiatives like ours can only be sustainable and scaled when they are carefully aligned with business values and business goals. There’s been a switch in that thinking for us and I’m excited to see that the world of corporate social opportunity is also moving in that direction. I think that it’s going to lead to a lot more impactful solutions that are sustainable and further collaborations across the landscape.”

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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: Should video games be banned?

AUTHOR: Beatriz Valero de Urquía

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VIDEO GAMES

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he internet has brought about many new forms of entertainment, with video games becoming the most popular one. According to a DFC Intelligence report, 40% of the world’s population plays video games. In terms of revenue, the video game industry is already larger than Hollywood.

Many experts stress the potential benefits of video games as tools that enhance children’s development as well as help maintain cognitive abilities later in life. Games like Tetris and Minecraft are said to improve problem-solving skills, and a 2013 study found that playing video games increases the brain’s grey matter, which improves memory, spatial orientation, information organisation and fine motor skills. As a result, video games could have therapeutic uses for people who suffer from schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or dementia.

Even doctors benefit from video games. A study by the Beth Israel medical centre found that surgeons who played video games daily made 37% fewer errors, were 27% faster, and scored 42% better overall than surgeons who had never played a 38

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GOOD? video game at all. From doctors to patients, video games seem to be beneficial for all.

What the expert says: “ Games are enjoyed safely and responsibly every day by more than two billion people of all ages across the world.

The ­educational, therapeutic and ­recreational value of games is wellfounded and widely recognised” Dr Jo Twist, CEO of the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment

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s the global gamer population continues to grow, so do the concerns about the long-term impact of video games on people’s health.

Over the last few years, governments and public organisations have been taking measures to regulate the use of video games and raise awareness about their potential dangers. In 2019, the World Health Organisation recognised “gaming addiction” as a behavioural disorder and, last month, a Chinese state media outlet labelled video games as “spiritual opium”, shortly before the country’s government passed a law that limited children’s video game usage time to three hours a week.

Excessive video game usage has often been linked to ill effects on health. A study from the Journal of Health Psychology shows that gaming disorders are connected to greater levels of loneliness, anxiety, depression, sleeping problems and social problems. Moreover, a 2015 Pew study found that 40% of US citizens believe that people who play violent video games are more likely to be violent themselves. As we have yet to see the

BAD?

long-term effects of video games on health, many experts believe in regulation as a preventative measure.

What the expert says: “ Certainly the use of video games can reach a level where the term addiction is not inappropriate. The problems develop when it becomes the focus of your life and you prioritise it above anything, getting into conflict with people around you, perhaps deceiving yourself and them as to the extent of it”

Dr Richard Graham, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the Nightingale Hospital

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EMBRACING VERTIGO

EMBRACING

VERTIGO

Food chains are increasingly fragile, with fruit and vegetables often not making it from grower to plate. Could vertical farming be the answer? We speak to Intelligent Growth Solutions to get both sides of the story AUTHOR: Helena Pozniak ISSUE 15

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n an unassuming Scottish warehouse, hundreds of thousands of plants are enjoying a blue sunset.

Tomorrow they’ll experience a blue sunrise as the next day of their perfect summer continues, and on for 365 days a year.

A light “wind” may remove some moisture from the air so crops don’t drown - this is weather in a box, calibrated with care, without a clod of earth 42

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in sight. For some 20 days plants grown from seed will be nurtured, fed and watered and lit with a perfect cocktail of nutrients, given just the right hue from thousands of LEDs to photosynthesise until they’re perfect for supermarket shelves and the finest restaurants.

Here at Invergowrie, to the west of Dundee, is the cutting edge of vertical farming - where plant scientists, engineers and soil and crop experts are

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putting heads together to develop the cleanest and most efficient methods of growing crops. This includes the technology to avoid wasting a drop of water or a ray of light - which is tuned and optimised for photosynthesis. About half a million plants are grown at any one time in towers stacked with trays of precision grown plants, shielded from the pests of the outside world.

“You can grow as many crops in a 12-metre tower in a year as you can in a hectare of land in the summer,” says Andrew Lloyd, Chief Operating Officer at Scottish agritech business Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS). “We need to change the way we grow and consume food - we simply don’t have enough land, water or soil to carry on as we have.”

IGS opened its Crop Research Centre at the James Hutton Institute in 2018 to develop vertical farming technology.

Each of IGS’s internet-connected units uses up to 50% less power and 80% less labour than greenhouse growing and 96% less water than traditional agriculture. Each tower has a footprint of just 42 square metres and reach from six to 12 metres.

Vertical farming - a way of growing plants in a giant multi-storey potting shed, requiring less space and no pesticides - is a small piece of the puzzle of how the planet will feed nearly 10 billion people by the middle of this century.

You can grow as many crops in a 12-metre tower in a year as you can in a hectare of land in the summer. We need to change the way we grow and consume food - we simply don’t have enough land, water or soil to carry on as we have” Andrew Lloyd

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A HISTORY OF VERTICAL FARMS Growing plants stacked vertically rather than side by side has a long history.

The fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon of the ancient world have captured historic imaginations, but today’s vertical farms bear little resemblance to the romantic beginnings of hydroponics. The vertically layered rice terraces of East Asia were early incarnations of space-saving farming.

Back in 1915, Gilbert Ellis Bailey, a geology professor at the university of Southern California, published his thoughts in his book Vertical Farming, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that another US professor, Dickson Despomnier, took it seriously as he sought ways to bring food production closer to consumers and cut farming’s food miles.

In 2010 he published The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century suggesting that stacked crops nurtured with artificial light could curb farming’s carbon footprint.

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It allows growers precise, connected control over the environment, the weather, humidity and temperature, meaning they could grow locally, even in supermarket distribution centres, all year round.

By 2025, analysts estimate vertical farming will grow by 21%. Brexit and the pandemic have made us more aware of the fragility of food chains. A hotter world means it’s more urgent than ever to cut emissions from food miles, even in the middle of cities, where 70% of the population will live by 2050. Plants on tap could slash logistics and times from field to fork, and cut waste. Much fresh food travels more than a thousand miles or never makes it to the plate due to harsh weather, pests or disease - an estimated third of all food is wasted, with most wastage among fruit and vegetables.

Because plants grown this way don’t need to be washed, this doubles their shelf life. In 2019, UK online supermarket Ocado spent £17 million on vertical farming, investing in Scunthorpe-based Jones Food Company, Europe’s largest vertical farm, with the ultimate aim of delivering food within an hour of picking. Jones boasts the equivalent of 26 tennis courts of growing space and 12km of LED lights.

As future cities swell and space is tight, local vertical farms make perfect sense: a ready supply of just-in-time

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fresh produce. A handful of German supermarkets are already selling ‘locally’ grown greens within onsite vertical farms. Disused warehouses and industrial buildings could eventually house growing towers, and Lloyd expects they will spring up in supermarket distribution centres as early as next year. Highly urban Singapore already uses vertical farms to grow its greens.

Plants are fed hydroponically, with nutrient-laden water delivered straight to their roots. Some vertical farms now use a nutrient packed mist, which means not a drop is wasted in closed loop systems There is interest in IGS’s technology around the world: in North America,

where efficient indoor farming makes economic sense; the Middle East, where arable land and water are in short supply; in East Asia with its densely populated cities. Coriander, spinach, kale and other brassicas and soft fruits make up some of the 150 plants under IGS’s artificial lights, and the company plans to showcase its farming technology at the UN climate conference COP26 in Glasgow this November. Chillis, baby beets and early stage tomatoes are some crops under investigation, and a major trial in seed potatoes is underway. Leafy greens are simplest to grow in towers - if plants need pollinating, some indoor growers release bees to do the job, while IGS ISSUE 15

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might send short bursts of air to create a pollen cloud or deploy brushes. Automatic feedback systems enabled by intelligent sensors could boost plant yields and remove the need for human inspection.

Indoor farming won’t replace fields of corn, which are too heavy to grow indoors, or provide the wheat, maize and rice to stave off world hunger, but the crops emerging are now competitively priced.

But the hype around their potential they’ve been around in earnest for more than a decade - hasn’t helped the sector, says Lloyd. “The industry needs to grow

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up - it’s been guilty of making some outrageous claims that are not backed by science or hard evidence,” he says.

“And that undermines the credibility of the industry as a whole.”

More optimistic claims are that indoor farms recycle 100% of their water. “But that can’t possibly be true,” says Lloyd, “Because healthy plants heading for sale will contain some of that water.” And water will be precious in a warming world.

While a kilo of lettuce grown in a field requires some 250 litres or 25 litres in a greenhouse, in a vertical farm this falls to just one litre.

EMBRACING VERTIGO

Any time you see white light in vertical farms, you know energy is being wasted these won’t replace agriculture, they’ll supplement it, and they must work harder not to waste energy”

Energy use is a thorny issue for vertical farms as LED lights typically use hefty amounts, and early incarnations have been wasteful. A nine-metre tower at IGS has some 124,000 LEDs and typically consumes 50kW. Ignoring construction and materials, towers can be carbon neutral if powered solely by renewable energy. But hooking them up directly to wind or solar plants is complex - farms need power even when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun isn’t shining. “It’s not an easy problem to solve but it’s an important one to solve,” says Lloyd.

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IGS has optimised lighting to use a minimum amount of energy. Light is tailored for individual crops and IGS produces a carefully calibrated ‘recipe’ of nutrients and lighting for each plant. Basil for instance, which accounts for 40% of the world’s herb production, likes blue, red and far-red parts of the spectrum. Plants need ultraviolet light to photosynthesise, a spell of infrared can boost leaves, while green light can help to increase yields but no more than is necessary.

“Any time you see white light in vertical farms, you know energy is being wasted,” says Lloyd. “These won’t replace agriculture, they’ll supplement it, and they must work harder not to waste energy.”

Nor should you see individuals wandering around among the plants, he says; indoor cultivation means crops can be grown completely free of any pesticides, whereas the more people on site, the greater the risk they’ll bring in disease and pests. Processes at IGS are highly automated and mechanised; so much so that a single operator can control tens of thousands of plants remotely. Each growing tower is protected by an entry system with an airlock.

Calculating the carbon footprint of food is notoriously complex. ‘Homegrown’ British strawberries, sold in supermarkets and laybys in the UK, may have started life as a baby plant in 48

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Spain, although they may have been pollinated by British bees. “That’s the dirty little secret of some British-grown strawberries,” says Lloyd. But bananas which ripen as they ship make more sense than frozen produce flown around the world. “A general truism is that if you grow food to the same quality in the field outdoors, then go right ahead - that’s the most environmentally sustainable method. But you may only be able to grow those in June or July,” says Lloyd. “And the alternative is to import them from South America or South Africa. Whereas in Scotland we can replicate summer all year round.”

And although daylight comes for free in greenhouses, plants still need supplementary lighting and heat year round, and this often comes in the form of old and inefficient fluorescent lighting. Greenhouse plants need more watering than their cousins in vertical farms where yields are up to three times that of glasshouses, says IGS. But will the public find the artifice of vertical farming unpalatable? That’s too early to say, says Lloyd. “Perhaps the only proxy we’ve got for this is organic,” he says. “It’s a question of what percentage of people will pay a premium for something which looks good, tastes great and is nutritious and genuinely additive free.”

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While produce from indoor farms have been awarded organic status in the US, vertically farmed produce - although free of pesticides, insecticides and fungicides - can’t be classified in the UK, because of the UK’s Soil Association’s requirement that plants must be grown in organic soil. Although far from diesel powered tractors, plants in vertical farms are grown in substrates such as rock wool or coconut husk. In the future, growers might fortify plants with minerals such as selenium or zinc, Lloyd suggests. “The background science and the ability of the IGS Growth Tower to include the mineral or element enrich-

ment in the nutrient IX is well proven.”

In its Future of Food report, the National Farmers Union acknowledged the contribution of vertical farms, but many consumers consider them ‘unnatural’. But nor are fields of cultivated single crops ‘natural’, say supporters.

Anyone yearning for dirt under their fingernails and the green sunny fields of traditional farming should be aware of the march of progress - with innovations such as robotic fruit pickers, autonomous crop care, precision agriculture and advances in biotechnology on the horizon. “Our technology helps enable a greener future,” says Lloyd.

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EXPERT INSIGHT:

Driving carbon reduction in housing Nathan Wrench, Head of Innovation for Sustainability at Cambridge Consultants, on the tech helping to make housing more sustainable

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f you knew your house was leaking energy, would you still buy it?

In the UK, domestic heating accounts for about 18% of the country’s total CO2 emissions, and the average new-build house misses thermal efficiency standards by between 200% and 300%. As a result, the fuel bills and the CO2 emissions associated with them are, on average, 2.6 times greater than expected.

Mind the Gap The sad fact is that there’s a significant gap between the designed thermal performance of a house and its built performance. Ventilation and high-performing components such as windows and doors are specified and need to be correctly installed. Construction mistakes such as cold bridges and 50

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NATHAN WRENCH

sub-standard materials all contribute to the shortfall. This thermal performance gap is a major problem.

Today, it may surprise you that a £250 washing machine might have a more rigorous end-of-line test than a £250,000 house!

A new building’s Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) – the standardised measure of insulation performance – is not determined directly but calculated on paper using a government-approved methodology (Standard Assessment Procedure – or SAP). There is no mandated verification test to compare the specified HTC to real-world performance.

Measuring the real-world thermal efficiency of a building is a time-consuming and expensive undertaking and is not routinely carried out. The gold standard method of measuring a building’s HTC is a co-heating test - the building is heated until it reaches a steady-state where, put simply, the energy input equals the energy output. This test typically requires between two to three weeks and, as a result, would not be appropriate for routine commercial applications at building sign-off.

Making measurement manageable Veritherm identified an opportunity to offer an accessible service to measure the real-world thermal performance quickly and with minimal disruption. The com-

pany’s idea was a complete departure from the co-heating method; they surmised that it could be possible to accurately infer the thermal performance by measuring the rate at which the building cools overnight.

Veritherm worked with Cambridge Consultants to validate this theory. This included developing theoretical mathematical models and building a test house on which to test the models in a realistic environment. Having established the validity of the approach, the next phase was to design a complete system solution that included networked sensors, a cloud-based backend and an intuitive user interface.

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The system measures the internal and external temperatures of the building over a heating period, typically of four to five hours, and the same measurements continue over a cooling period of at least the same length. During both the heating and cooling phases the power consumption of the building is also measured. The entire test is carried out over a single night to avoid the necessity of estimating insolation.

The next stage was to deploy the complete system in an actual building and confirm the measurements taken by the Veritherm system matched the performance of the building as measured by a coheating test.

The outcome of these tests showed that, in all observed cases, Veritherm results differed only slightly to a good co-heating test, indicating that the platform is a valid method for verifying the thermal performance of UK houses.

This test offers a practical method for screening thermal performance at the sign-off of building work. It can verify that the materials specified by the building’s designer have been installed appropriately and that the overall thermal performance of the building is in line with its design specifications. Critically important, the test is performed in a single overnight automated process by a trained operator without specialised knowledge or in-depth technical 52

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expertise in the processing or interpretation of the data.

Bringing this novel service to market has created a new business for Veritherm. The solution offers an accessible tool to identify poor construction practices and thus help to reduce the gap between design performance and built performance. Armed with this knowledge, the building industry has the

NATHAN WRENCH

A £250 washing machine might have a more rigorous end-ofline test than a £250,000 house”

opportunity to positively impact the energy consumption of new built domestic housing.

Looking at this in the broader context of achieving the UK’s net-zero obligations, carving a chunk out of that 18% of the UK’s CO2 emissions is there for the taking. Ultimately, will it take pressure from both government and consumers to shake up the building

industry? Missing a performance target by 200% to 300% in any other product would be seen as a scandalous failure.

Verifying and, in fact, certifying the thermal performance of a building, has the potential to bring about improved construction practices, reduce energy bills for occupiers and reduce CO2 emissions helping the UK achieve its net-zero obligations – what’s not to like?

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LEADERSHIP

READY FOR

DISASTER Climate change has made natural disasters an increasingly regular global threat. Backup and recovery expert W. Curtis Preston breaks down how companies can protect their data and prepare resilient disaster recovery plans to be ready for the worst-case scenario

AUTHOR: Beatriz Valero de Urquía

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ust as with the emergency services, there is a section of the IT department people wish to never have to call up: backup and recovery.

As the Earth continues to warm up and extreme weather events such as the recent Ida hurricane become more and more frequent, so does the threat to companies’ data systems.

From extensive data losses to system outages, events such as floods and fires can greatly damage an organisations’ operations, making the need to develop disaster recovery plans more relevant than ever.

With over 30 years of experience in backup and recovery, W. Curtis Preston - well known in the industry as ‘Mr. 56

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Backup’ - speaks to Tech For Good about the best strategies to approach disaster recovery (DR) and the most important trends in the sector.

Meet Mr Backup Preston started his career in backup in 1993 at MBNA, at that time the second-largest credit card company in the United States. During the years he spent there, MBNA’s servers grew from 15 to 250, and from two operating systems to five. In those days, the $35bn company had a total of 300GB in the entire data centre. Although Preston’s career has specialised in backup and recovery, he admits this was not something he originally intended to do.

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“It was the job I could get,” he says.

“It’s a negative thing about our industry that one of the most important jobs in the data centre is often given to the most inexperienced person.

“It’s a really thankless job. It’s a job where no one remembers the millions of backups that you got right; they only remember the one restore you got wrong.

And you’re never given enough budget or enough infrastructure to get the job done, and so you give it to the junior person. And that’s exactly how I got my job; it was the job nobody else wanted.

And then, after a time, I definitely gained an affinity for the area.”

After leaving MBNA, Preston moved into consulting, wrote four books and founded two companies - The Storage Group and TruthinIT - specialising in backup and recovery system design, implementation and management. Since November 2017, he is the Chief Technical Evangelist of Druva, a data protection as a service company.

“I have a real passion for helping people protect their data, whether it’s their data centre data or the pictures on their iPhone,” Preston says. “It kills me when someone who is in my sphere of influence tells me that they’ve lost data, because there are so many easy services to protect your data, and it’s just a matter of you signing up for the right service and paying for that service.”

No one remembers the millions of backups that you got right; they only remember the one restore you got wrong” W. Curtis Preston

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In the 30 years that Preston has been working in the industry, he has witnessed a technological revolution that completely changed the way people use the internet and backup data. However, although technology is much more accessible now than ever before, Preston doesn’t think that people have got better at protecting their data.

“Oddly enough, I think we’ve gotten worse,” he says. “Thirty years ago, everything was a hard drive. There were no flash drives, and they [hard drives] failed all the time. And so, you had to be good at backup, because you would absolutely need it. Now, a person that just uses Microsoft 365 and accidentally deletes an email can get it back from the recycle bin. To a lot of younger people, restore is just a magic thing that happens.

“There are a lot better offerings to do backup and recovery today than there were when I started. My iPhone here has more storage than the data centre I worked at when I joined the IT industry. The problem is bigger, but the infrastructure is there and the services are there.”

Planning for disaster Although the extra effort of setting up a backup plan might seem inconvenient, these services prove to be absolutely vital in the case of a disaster, such as hurri58

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canes like Ida or ransomware attacks. By the time the servers are at risk, it’s too late to build a disaster recovery plan.

Disasters - natural or otherwise - are, by definition, unpredictable. However, as the Earth grows warmer and climate change continues to be a reality, the coming of extreme weather events is a guarantee.

Within these situations, backup and recovery plans could make a difference in the survival of any organisation.

Preston, who grew up amongst the Florida hurricanes, and has recently witnessed the California wildfires, is unequivocal about the importance of resilient disaster recovery plans.

“This is a problem as long as computing,” he says. “Whether it’s a hurricane or a fire, or a terrorist action that blows up a building, or a ransomware attack that takes out your entire infrastructure, the result of all of those is the same. And that is you no longer have access to the computing infrastructure that your company uses to do its business.”

To minimise the loss of data, money and time that result from these scenarios, companies should design disaster recovery plans that are tailored to their needs. The first thing that organisations need to do before creating one is a cost-benefit analysis, that looks at what would happen to the company if it lost its computing infrastructure.

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If your backup system doesn’t at least conform to the 3-2-1 rule, it’s just not backup”

The dependence of companies on their computer infrastructure varies greatly from sector to sector, and so do their recovery time objectives (RTO). The RTO is the metric used to establish how long the restore should take, and it affects how often the cloud is updated and how much data would get lost.

A Georgia-based paper mill company that Preston consulted for had an “extremely generous” RTO of two weeks because the cost of their computing infrastructure being down for two weeks was next to nothing. In contrast, a financial trading firm could lose millions of dollars if its systems went down for a couple of hours. Therefore, these types of companies would need a more specialised service, such as Druva, which supports an RTO of 15 to 20 minutes, with only one hour of data loss.

“You need to know the cost of

downtime for your company,” Preston says. “Without that, there’s literally no sense in having any of the rest of the meetings.

“What continues to happen to this day is that people do the math and they say: ‘Okay, we’ll lose a million dollars if we’re down for this amount of time.’ And then we say, ‘Well, we can solve this problem for a million bucks’. And the response is, ‘I don’t know if we have that kind of money.’ I can’t deal with that. That problem is old, that problem is still here and if, in the end, you don’t care enough about your company’s data, to protect it in a reasonable way, there’s nothing that I can do to address that.”

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The beautiful thing about being SaaS in the cloud is that the customer doesn’t ever need to worry about the infrastructure on the backend” that a company has online - and decide whether it is going to be backed up and how. The easiest way to do this is by following the 3-2-1 rule.

“If your backup system doesn’t at least conform to the 3-2-1 rule, it’s just not backup,” Preston says. “And what that means is that you have to have at least three versions of your data on two different media, one of which is stored somewhere else.”

It seems simple enough. However, Preston puts an emphasis on the importance of having copies on different platforms and warns about the dangers of relying on restore features. It is 60

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fundamental that one of the copies of the data is stored separately, and preferably within a third party service. “You don’t backup your MacBook on your MacBook,” he says.

After these decisions have been made, comes the innovative part: designing the recovery system. For Preston, the perfect way to do this is by using cloud services such as the one provided by Druva.

“It is pretty much universally agreed that DR is the killer application for the cloud,” he says. “Pre-cloud you could do DR for your company for, say, a million dollars and it would take you two to three days. Well, now we can do DR in the cloud for the same company and have it cost you $50,000, and it could be up in a matter of minutes. It’s literally like one or two orders of magnitude better than it used to be and less expensive.”

As a result of the transition to remote work, the use of software as a service (SaaS) systems significantly increased, as people were not able to use on-premise systems. Companies such as Druva were very COVID-19 friendly from a data management and data protection standpoint, as they were able to provide the same service on the cloud.

“The beautiful thing about being SaaS in the cloud is that the customer doesn’t ever need to worry about the infrastructure on the backend,” Preston says.

“During my career, 95% of the consulting

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that I did was to help customers redesign and re-architect their backend. They bought bigger servers, faster tape drives, faster disk drives, and all of those things in the backend to make their backup system perform better. None of that stuff applies to our customers.

“If you’re a Microsoft 365 customer, and you acquire another company that has 100,000 employees, you don’t need to call Microsoft, you just need to add 100,000 employees to your Microsoft 365 account. And that’s exactly the same with us. You don’t need to add storage, you don’t need to add computing power, you just need to configure the new things that we’re going to backup.”

Containing the future Although SaaS is the current wave that the backup world is riding, Preston has a clear view of what the next big wave will be: containers.

Containers allow users to divide up a machine so that it can run more than one application on the same kernel and hardware while maintaining isolation among the workloads. Using this technology, Google developed Kubernetes, an open-source platform that works by

joining a group of host machines into a cluster to manage containers.

“I do think Kubernetes and containers are what’s next on the backend,” he says. “If the vendors that you are working with aren’t already looking at that world, to me that’s an indication that they’re behind the times.”

The technology to protect companies’ data against the worst-case scenario exists, and it is only getting better.

However, these innovations are useless if business leaders refuse to see the need to protect their data. In Preston’s view, outsourcing these services is key to ensuring that DR receives the attention it deserves so that businesses can thrive even in the worst of disasters.

“People ask me ‘Why should I use a service to do data protection?’” he says.

“And my answer back to them is: ‘Why shouldn’t you?’ For so long DR has been at the back of the bus. The only reason I took that job 30 years ago was because it was the job I could get. No one wants this job, it’s a thankless, very difficult job. So don’t give it to anybody.

Give it to a company that is at the front of the bus and have them take care of it for you.”

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SAVING LIVES

ONE SCAN AT A TIME Without access to medical imaging technologies, conditions such as pregnancy can be life-threatening.

Margot Cooijmans, Director of Philips Foundation, shares how the organisation is providing medical training to members of underserved communities to build stronger and sustainable healthcare systems in Kenya and all around the world AUTHOR: Beatriz Valero de Urquía

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ONE SCAN AT A TIME

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ften, the worst deaths are those that could have easily been avoided.

In the midst of a historic pandemic, two-thirds of the world’s population still lack access to basic medical imaging technology, leading to preventable and even fatal delays in diagnosis and treatment. Having the ability to perform a simple procedure such as an X-ray or an ultrasound that can help doctors diagnose cracked bones, lung infections, fetal abnormalities, or even cancer is considered a luxury in many parts of the world.

In many sub-Saharan countries, over 80% of the population is rural, meaning that they often live hundreds of miles away from the nearest hospital. This situation, added to the cost of healthcare and cultural concerns, makes it really difficult for people in many areas of the world to get access to medical imaging services, often considered non-emergency care.

“Poverty is the main reason why people do not seek a doctor,” Margot Cooijmans, Director of Philips Foundation, says. “But there are also other root causes such as the complete lack of doctors in a remote area and the scarcity of medical resources.”

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role that scans play in the early detection of medical conditions. As Director of the company’s foundation, Cooijmans’ goal is to make use of Philips’ technological expertise to drive corporate social responsibility activities and improve global access to healthcare in disadvantaged communities.

However, the foundation does not want to merely provide medical imaging machines. Instead, it strives to address the root causes of the problem - remoteness and lack of medical staff - to ensure that its impact is sustainable and long-lasting.

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We focus on sustainably changing healthcare systems to ensure that, when we pull away, they will still stand and it will continue to support the local communities” Margot Cooijmans “We focus on sustainably changing healthcare systems to ensure that, when we pull away, they will still stand and it will continue to support the local communities,” Cooijmans says.

“Telemedicine addresses the fact that skilled resources and medically trained staff are unavailable at many locations.

So what you can do is train non-medically educated people in local communities to read tests and to have conversations through technology with specialists. We provide that bridge so that even when a doctor is not available, the patient can still get the right referrals.”

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ONE SCAN AT A TIME

A remote hospital, for example, might have a CT scanner but not a trained radiologist that can read the CT scans.

This is the type of situation where Philips Foundation steps in to train members of the local community to read scans or to put the medical staff in contact with specialists that can provide remote consultations. By creating that bridge between specialised staff and people in need, the foundation is significantly increasing access to quality healthcare in a sustainable way.

There are many reasons why people need scans, but by far the most common one is during pregnancy. In these situations, having access to prenatal scans can very often make the difference between life and death, for both the mother and child.

Every day, more than 800 women around the world die from complications in pregnancy and childbirth, many of which could have been identified during a prenatal ultrasound. Half of these deaths happen in Africa. To reduce this terrifying statistic, the World Health Organization has declared that every pregnant person should have access to at least one ultrasound scan before the 24th week of pregnancy. This scan is vital to estimate gestational age, identify any fetal abnormalities, multiple pregnancies, or potential risks.

This is easier said than done. In addition to all the barriers that Cooijmans identifies when it comes to accessing medical imaging technology in underserved communities, pregnant people are often unaware of the need for this scan or refuse to allow an unknown person to perform it.

“We found out that awareness around potential risks in pregnancy is a huge problem,” Cooijmans says. “But if you detect at an early stage the risks that are occurring in some pregnancies, you can save the child and the mother by doing the necessary interventions. Global and maternal mortality rates are still quite high, and we see it as part of our mission to help reduce those numbers.”

To achieve this goal, Philips Foundation is targeting this issue one country at a time, and Kenya is on the list.

A study conducted in 2015 in Malindi, one of the largest sub-counties in Kenya’s Kilifi County, reported a maternal mortality rate of approximately 428 per 100,000 people. To reduce this number, Philips Foundation has partnered with Aga Khan University to train local midwives to use mobile ultrasound devices, so that they can provide those vital week-24 scans to pregnant women at affordable costs and reasonable distance.

Thanks to these scans, midwives can identify women with higher-risk pregnancies and ensure that they are prepared for childbirth.

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Global and maternal mortality rates are still quite high, and we see it as part of our mission to help reduce those numbers” Moreover, the project also involves local volunteers, who use Philips’ Mobile Obstetric Monitoring app to register pregnant women, conduct initial risk assessments and raise awareness about the importance of prenatal care. Experience has shown Cooijmans’ team that, when the need for these scans is expressed by people in the community whom these women know and trust, the fear of the technology decreases.

“We teach the community health workers, and the pregnant women about what the risks during pregnancy are, and what are the first signs of complications,” Cooijmans says. “This combined with technology in the healthcare facility really makes a difference. It can save lives, and we see that the number of stillbirths also decreases.”

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the lives of 200,000 people, not only directly affecting mothers and their unborn children but also indirectly impacting family members whose lives may depend in varied ways on having a positive outcome.

Philips Foundation wants to take this model to other places around the world where local pregnant women face similar challenges. However, Cooijmans stresses the importance of understanding the needs of each community and how accustomed they are to technology. While some areas already have a huge mobile phone presence, so local volunteers are already used to using mobile apps, other communities are less used to using smartphones, and they prefer to learn through picture books instead.

ONE SCAN AT A TIME

“You really need to understand what they are used to and what they need in terms of training,” Cooijmans says. “In Cameroon, for instance, we created with Philips design cards that help midwives have the conversation with pregnant women in very simple settings. They can discuss pregnancy risks and healthy living methods and, if complications arise, they can refer them to a healthcare system where digital technologies can help.”

So far, the project has shown incredibly positive results. It demonstrated that, by providing ultrasound services at local clinics as part of the antenatal care provision, women were 50% more likely

to undergo the procedure, compared to 10% when these services were only offered in hospitals.

Moreover, by pricing these scans at affordable prices and allowing women to do them close to their homes, Philips Foundation is also helping midwives earn a living and be able to continue providing these services once Cooijmans’ team has left.

“We cannot solve the world’s problems by constantly donating,” Cooijmans says.

“So we find out what pregnant women are willing to pay for a scan and we try to establish sustainable models where midwives can earn an income with one of these mobile ultrasound devices.

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“We want to innovate not only in technology but also in the way healthcare is provided to these people. This starts at the community level but it should also be taken on to higher levels of care. So, if a risk is detected or there is a complication like a C-section, there should be a referral process to an expert. It’s through the healthcare referral chain that we try to establish these improvements in healthcare provision.”

However, midwives and pregnant women are not the only people in Kenya that Philips Foundation is supporting.

In the country, access to radiology experts and people who can read X-rays is rare. Despite having a population of 43 million people, Kenya has only 200 radiologists. The Massachusetts General Hospital, for example, has 126.

Cooijmans’ team is currently in talks with a local startup to take steps to address this dire need. Together, the organisations aim to set up a training and certification programme to increase the population’s access to all types of medical imaging devices. Moreover, Philips will also provide telemedicine solutions that can put those experts in contact with the people who need their services.

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ONE SCAN AT A TIME

However, the need for radiologists and experts in respiratory conditions grew exponentially with the advent of COVID-19. In March 2020, Philips Foundation reacted instantly to help people in underdeveloped countries fight the virus, equipping them with the necessary expertise and equipment.

“The occurrence of COVID has increased our disaster relief response,” Cooijmans says. “It was a sudden shock to the world. And, of course, Philips is in the respiratory business and COVID is exactly in the heart of that kind of expertise. So we were able to support with ventilators that help people breathe properly, provide oxygen, but also sometimes just supporting Red Cross organisations to set up a triage tent or a facility to manage more patients.”

From tested methods to new technologies, the foundation is providing all types of tools that can support communities that have been hit by the virus. In India, the foundation partnered with Prosus and the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies to provide more than 800 ventilators to public

hospitals in regions most impacted by COVID-19. Meanwhile, in South Africa, Cooijmans’ team is deploying an artificial intelligence software that can estimate the severity and progression of the virus based on routinely available chest X-rays.

“Deploying new and alternative technologies capable of detecting and monitoring COVID-19 could be an important part of alleviating resource limitations and reducing the spread of existing and new coronavirus strains,” Cooijmans says.

“But we’re also looking for models that we can expand and really scale, or that can be replicated in other geographies and also working with social entrepreneurs so that we can reach many more people and improve their access to quality healthcare.

And we don’t impose any technology, we always start with the needs of the local communities.”

The needs of those communities are simple but often prove hard to meet.

They want to be able to do the basic biological processes that all humans can do - such as breathing or giving birth - without it becoming a risk to their lives.

We want to innovate not only in technology but also in the way healthcare is provided”

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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: Emma Yang

Age: 17 Born: Hong Kong Achievements: This 12th-grader is the founder of Timeless, a mobile app that helps Alzheimer’s patients stay connected to their loved ones. Emma is a three-time Carnegie Hall performer, MIT-Solver and TEDx Speaker.

She was also recently named as one of the 100 Faces of Impact globally

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EMMA YANG

I

’m the founder of Timeless, which is a startup that seeks to empower Alzheimer’s patients using AI-based technology. Outside of that, I love history, I love languages and I really love foods, especially those that I grew up with.

I started coding when I was around six years old with a tool called Scratch, which was designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to teach kids about coding. But when I was around 10 or 11 years old, that’s when I learned how to create apps for iOS. I am really passionate about Computer Science, and especially the ability of technology to spread social good.

I was inspired to create Timeless by my experiences with my grandmother.

When I was growing up in Hong Kong, I spent a lot of time with her. And when I was around seven or eight years old, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and it made it a lot harder for us to communicate.

We think of technology as being something that touches so many parts of our lives. But a lot of people - especially the elderly - are still really underserved by technology.

My family was looking around for ways that we could help my grandmother and we really found no technological tools that were developed for Alzheimer’s patients. And so I really wanted to take everything that my family had been using to help her cope, and put that together into an app that could help her connect with us and keep her posted on what was going on in our lives.

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With Timeless, loved ones can send photos to the patient and a facial recognition technology will tag all the faces in those photos with their names. For example, if I send a picture of me, it will say, ‘This is Emma, your granddaughter.’ We also have other tools that remind the patient of events or show them picture phone books.

All these different things serve to empower Alzheimer’s patients and give them some control to stay up to date with things like weather and doctor’s appointments and stay in touch with family and friends.

My grandmother is definitely using Timeless. We send her photos all the time! And we’ve also gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback online.

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As an entrepreneur, there are so many roadblocks, especially when it comes to getting funding. That was even more challenging for me as a young person, a young girl, who is trying to persuade people that I am really serious about creating Timeless.

My age definitely made things a challenge at times. But I think it’s also one of the things that is unique about me as a founder.

It was really a vote of confidence to get these awards and to be able to take the funding and really push Timeless out. Because that funding was what allowed me to put Timeless on the App Store and take it to where it is today.

I think young people have this new optimism of what is possible, rather than what might not be possible. I think that was what has driven me to keep on persevering through all these challenges.

EMMA YANG

I participated in the White House Opportunity Project as part of Wolfram Research and it was my first time using Wolfram Language. I built a tool that visualises free summer lunch sites in the US. I have been part of their mentorship programme since I was 11 years old.

Today, I am a Teacher Assistant at their summer camps for high school students, and I recently ran their first middle school summer camp for girls.

Even though it seems it’s so hard to get started, especially with STEM, I would tell young girls to just get started

and to just persevere. It may seem daunting to learn something like programming for the first time. But, for me, it’s been a really rewarding experience.

I’m going to be starting in college this fall, and I’m hoping to study Computer Sciences and also delve into Maths and Economics and maybe Neuroscience. I hope to continue working on Timeless as well and potentially expand it to make it more accessible globally.

Learn more about Emma’s story and meet other incredible teenagers by listening to our new Teenage Tech Stories Podcast!

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