Adolygiad Busnes De Cymru Vol 8 Issue 1 2021 Vol Big Data, Big Results How data can advance your enterprise Pandemic report: Tim O’Sullivan on NHS Wales’ fight against COVID-19 ShipShape VC’s Daniel Sawko wants your startup to harness the power of big data Welcoming a new Dean to UWTSD: meet pioneering Professor Wendy Dearing Swansea Business School Ysgol Fusnes Abertawe | SOUTH WALES BUSINESS REVIEW ADOLYGIAD BUSNES DE CYMRU | PRODUCTION TEAM Spring 2021 inside Volume 8 Issue 1 Editor: Kathryn Penaluna Editorial: Editorial Board: Sammy Jones Margaret Inman GET YOUR START IN ALL EYES ON CARDIGAN Big Data, 3 Editorial: 10 16 Nik White BIG DATA, BIG RESULTS DATA WITH A DATA APPRENTICESHIP POB LLYGAD AR ABERTEIFI Design & Print: 18 UWTSD TEL Department 4 The Big Big Results Interview: 12 In Conversation: 20 A TEN-MINUTE GUIDE TIM O'SULLIVAN STARTUP CHAMPION TO BIG DATA WITH DANIEL SAWKO NIK WHITEHEAD 6 FUTURE-PROOFING WITH HOZAH 14 USING DATA TO MANAGE 22 INTRODUCING PROFESSOR PEOPLE WELL WENDY DEARING 8 Review: LEARNING TABLEAU 2020 Kath Penaluna Editor Data drives so much of our world invisibly - and if you don’t know how to harness its power to inform, inspire and ignite your business, you can start to feel left behind. Luckily, there are a growing number of data pioneers in South Wales that are leading the way towards a better-informed, data-driven future. In this issue, we’re highlighting just a few homegrown talents using data to make South Wales a hotspot for innovation in investments, tourism and healthcare - to name just a few areas of expertise. As an insight into how data can empower businesses, look no further than our interview with Clive Davies, a champion of technology in a traditional market town (p.16). In a similar people-powered vein, we interviewed Daniel Sawko who told us about Ship Shape VC, a new tool that lets startups harness big data to land investors, using less money and time than ever before (p.12). Sarah Brooks of NHS Wales Informatics Service is also evangelical about the difference data can make to supporting a business’ people - see our interview with her on page 14. On a wider scale, we didn’t need to look far to find inspiration in Wendy Dearing, UWTSD’s new Dean of Institute Management and Health (p. 22), who is using data CONTACT US / thinking to advance the link between industry and academia in South Wales. And don’t CYSYLLTWCH Â NI miss our interview with NHS Wales’ Tim O’ Sullivan, who in our Big Interview tells us about data’s imperative role in the fight against Coronavirus in Wales. Looking ahead, the next generation of data-led trailblazers can be found talking to Hozah founder, Web/Gwefan: www.uwtsd.ac.uk/swbr Email/E-bost: [email protected] Naomi (p. 6), and Bryoni, a Digital Degree Apprentice (p. 10). Twitter: @SWBusReview Alternative formats ISSN 2049-5544 In our next issue we’ll be delving into the world of digital. If you are interested in If you require this document in an contributing, please do get in touch at [email protected]. Disclaimer: The articles in this publication represent Post: alternative format (e.g. Welsh, large print the views of the authors, not those of the University. The or text file for use with a text reader), University does not accept responsibility for the contents of Best wishes, please email [email protected] articles by individual authors. Please contact the editor if you Kathryn Penaluna have further queries. South Wales Business Review Kath Penaluna Ymwadiad: Mae’r erthyglau yn y cyhoeddiad hwn yn Adolygiad Busnes De Cymru Fformatau eraill cynrychioli barn yr awduron, nid rhai UWTSD. Nid yw’r Swansea Business School Os hoffech y ddogfen hon mewn fformat Brifysgol yn derbyn cyfrifoldeb am gynnwys erthyglau Ysgol Fusnes Abertawe awduron unigol. Cysylltwch â’r golygydd os oes gennych University of Wales Trinity Saint David arall (e.e. Cymraeg, print mawr neu ffeil gwestiynau pellach. Prifysgol Cymru Y Drindod Dewi Sant tesun i’w ddefnyddio gyda darllenydd © Prifysgol Cymru Y Drindod Dewi Sant / University High Street / Stryd Fawr tesun), anfonwch e-bost i: of Wales Trinity Saint David 2018. All rights reserved/ Swansea / Abertawe cedwir pob hawl. Registered Charity Number / Rhif Elusen [email protected] Gofrestredig 1149535 SA1 1NE 2 | Vol 8 Issue 1 2021 Vol 8 Issue 1 2021 | 3 | SOUTH WALES BUSINESS REVIEW ADOLYGIAD BUSNES DE CYMRU | The Big Interview: Dr Tim O’Sullivan SWBR’s Kathryn Penaluna talks What initially attracted you Since March we’ve also supported a to Dr Tim O’Sullivan, Head of to this role? succession of urgent COVID-19 projects Research and Academia at NHS and requirements - for example, helping Wales Informatics Service, about The opportunity to apply skills learned Public Health Wales with disease fighting the spread of COVID-19 elsewhere and do something useful, varied surveillance, health intelligence data with data. and challenging. Work pressures are high, provision to Welsh Government, facilities but if you enjoy improving healthcare via the for more timely mortality recording and use of health informatics, Wales is a great reporting, and probably most positively, Tell us about your development of systems for managing and professional background. place to work. Everyone seems to know each other - or at least of each other - reporting on vaccine deployment. making rapid progress and working across My first exposure to IT came in the form organisational boundaries much easier. While working at the NHS, of punch-cards and FORTRAN 77. This The boundary between work and play is have you noticed any interesting eventually led to a move into medical also pleasantly blurred at times – everyone computing, including a brief stint at UCLA progressions in how the should have an element of creative fun in looking at ‘Expert Systems’ (now known as organisation uses data? their job. Artificial Intelligence). But my first day in the NHS, the morning after Chernobyl, made Historically, expectations of and a bigger impact. Employed at Brighton How has the onset of the investment in technology has outstripped recording and escalation rate, prescribing How much has Wales-wide It’s been interesting to compare the different Health Authority as a Research Analyst, I Coronavirus pandemic changed our understanding of how best to use data, daily Emergency Department data, organisational collaboration approaches taken by the home countries. was immediately redeployed to work on your responsibilities? information. Data has also tended to reside 111 calls data, Ambulance Incident For England and No 10, ‘next slide please’ mapping potential radioactive fallout and in organisational silos, with the most useful contributed to the country's data, symptom checker data, Modelling became a popular and sometimes teasing dealing with something called ‘the media’. Along with many colleagues, I’ve been clinical information locked away. Processes robust Coronavirus response? Scenarios data and COVID-19 reference meme, perfectly capturing the zeitgeist as At the time, I’d barely ever answered a working pretty much full time on COVID-19 for national data flows and the production and coding data – and vaccination data. scientific advisors and ministers took it turns telephone. It felt like chaos but expecting since the end of February, when I did some of official statistics have also remained It’s been a critical success factor. People Clients can access this via secure Data to bombard the public with PowerPoint the unexpected has always been part of crude but sobering worst-case scenario largely unchanged for decades and have have and are working silly hours, utilising Warehouse views or, for aggregate data, slides packed with data and visuals, the attraction. modelling, applying Welsh data to Wuhan tended to be dominated by the need to any resources of utility at their disposal to using the Datahub. not always of the highest clarity. Wales survival rates. A few of us also started to support performance and administration help deliver solutions at pace and across and Scotland seem to have taken a less pull together a ‘brain-dump’ of our services rather than clinical, citizen and broader organisational boundaries, united by a What is your role now? autocratic line. Ministers talk more in terms that might be critical along with new work population health requirements. Reflecting on this period, have you common sense of purpose and with of insights offered by specific figures and that might come our way if the pandemic learned anything new about how refreshingly clear, simple mandates and To help sort COVID-19, whilst trying encourage use of web-based resources. reached Wales. In late February, we shared But with the advance of Once for Wales data can be used? minimal red tape. I’ve never known a time to keep an eye on my day job which The public also ask some pretty good a possible work programme, which was shared clinical systems; development where we, Health Boards, Public Health, combines leading on research and being questions of the data! an academic liaison on behalf of NWIS soon enacted. of powerful Business Intelligence tools Sourcing information from local Welsh Government, Welsh Universities, that can help unlock data; investment in ‘unstructured’ data sources alongside the local authorities, the Army, and the private Information Services Directorate. My What’s next for you and team also manages and improves the We had two initial focuses: the first, a virtual programmes such as the Value Based centrally defined ‘structured’ datasets that sector have worked so well together. services we provide to Welsh Health COVID-19 Datastore based on our existing Healthcare initiative; the establishment we tend to rely on has been big for us.