We are delighted to announce that Ted Dunning from MapR will be visiting Edinburgh next week and would be thrilled to speak to some friends of The Data Lab (max 20).

Ted will speak about -

"Putting Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence in Production"

Based on my experience working with a large number of teams who have had big data systems in production for years, I will describe the patterns and practices of highly successful DataOps teams that get things right. This will include some technical patterns and some social patterns with an emphasis on actionable advice for building systems that matter.

Tickets are free but we encourage you to RSVP as capacity is limited.

Cyber security has become one of the biggest business risks to all companies, large and small, with the constant threat of disruption caused by cyber crime, both targeted and random. Whilst technology companies have systems and policies in place they are often seen as a juicy target for malicious attacks, and keeping on top of this is a constant challenge.

Scotland has one of the most well connected and vibrant cyber security expert communities in the world. So we’re delighted to have specialists from two of these businesses share their insights into how to keep on top of the challenges.

David Stubley, CEO of 7 Elements and Graham Watson, Founder & CEO of Advanced Engagement will explore cyber attacks targeting Scottish businesses and provide you with mitigating strategies and tangible techniques to permanently reduce the risk to your organisation.

Everyone is welcome and no coding experience is necessary!

Sessions registration open for 7-17 years old.

You are also welcome to bring your own projects or ideas, just drop a message about it at edinburgh.cc.uk@coderdojo.com

Sessions registration open for 7-17 years old.Bring own laptop or use one of the available there, make sure to select the right kind of ticket to work out allowance!

Laptop must be have a text editor such as Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac), access to wifi and a web browser such as Chrome.

The energy and health worlds are both becoming more digital. As smarter technologies and smart meters get rolled out, what opportunities are there to improve the lives of households and communities, especially in more rural areas?

Join us to discuss this topic with leading voices, and to hear from a range of fascinating projects that are at the forefront of trying new ways of joining up health, housing and energy.

Confirmed speakers include:

Elaine Mead. Chief Executive, NHS Highland (Chair)

Iagan MacNeil. Head of Policy, Smart Energy GB

Graeme Hamilton, Innovation Officer, Albyn Housing Association and Professor Susan Craw, Robert Gordon University

Mark Grindle. Senior Lecturer in Digital Health, UHI

Carl Chalmers. Mersey Care NHS smart meter dementia study, Liverpool John Moores University

Linda Webb. Smart Meters and Independent Living project (SMILE), University of Edinburgh

Dr Vicki Hazley. Senior Innovation Manager, Highlands and Islands Enterprise

The Edinburgh Futures Institute and The Usher Institute invite you to explore the innovation landscape for mobility and active healthcare to help us all find opportunities to increase knowledge exchange between research, policy and industry.

Mobility and active healthcare, part of the ‘Exploring the innovation landscape for health and technology’ series, is seen as a core component of how we approach preventative care and personal wellbeing in the future. This includes how we track, provide infrastructure and map how these are connected, created and provided as services.

Exploring ideas such as community bike initiatives, like the new scheme in Edinburgh, to personal tracking of mobility needs and an understanding of the barriers to adoption (like poor air quality or lack of green space). This can be extended to accessibility of health services, where those with health conditions or disabilities have different mobility needs. In addition, how that accessibility is managed and provided is a collaborative problem across health services.

The half day workshop will be facilitated by The International Futures Forum who will use their 3 Horizon methodology to help bring together the different perspectives and needs of research, policy and industry professionals and define what the innovation landscape for mobility and active healthcare is currently and will be in the future.

Lunch is included.

The panel will explore how important is it for companies to develop a culture which promotes growth through data and encourages the development of new and existing talent within their organisations. The debate will place data skills in a wider context and consider how important they are in enabling companies in Scotland to embrace the data opportunity:

• Why is data key to Scotland’s future economic growth and how do we ensure broad adoption and data innovation across all sectors?
• What needs to be done to address the digital skills gap to develop a diverse and globally competitive talent pool, and research infrastructure that contributes more to the Scottish economy?
• What are the key data challenges that are facing businesses on the ground and how can these be overcome?

Agenda:

11:30am: Arrivals and refreshments

12:00pm: Panel discussion and Q&A sessions

1:30pm: Networking

2:00pm: Close

Data visualization is an important topic with many different perspectives, skills, applications, audiences, and challenges involved. The ever-swelling torrent and of data has only added to the realisation that extracting and communicating the meanings buried in large and complex bodies of information is an increasingly critical skill set. This group has been set up to create a community around sharing insights and experiences as well as to discuss projects and challenges across field boundaries and launch new initiatives in the area.

At this our inaugural meeting we will have a number of short invited talks to set the stage with some different perspectives on data visualization. Then, we will have an open mic for those wishing to make general announcements, comments, or introductions. Eventually, we plan for an open discussion on what this community around data visualisation in Edinburgh (and the wider area) wants to be and which topics we want to discuss in forthcoming meetings.

Following this first meeting, we're planning for monthly informal gatherings that involve more talks, projects, announcements, workshops, discussions, etc on potential topics such as data literacy and teaching, data comics and storytelling, physical data visualization, visualization in the humanities, visualization in augmented and virtual reality, network visualization, visualization in the biologies, explainable AI, visualization guidelines, tools for data visualization, and whatever you want to contribute.

The University of Edinburgh will be hosting AIMday Fintech on Wednesday 28 November 2018. We look forward to welcoming companies and organisations to discuss your challenges related to financial technologies and innovation in financial services with academics from across the University.

Academic Industry Meeting day, or AIMday™, is based on workshops whereby company questions are submitted around a central theme which are then discussed with academics from across the University disciplines.

Each question submitted by a company is tackled by a multi-disciplinary group of academics with the aim of finding a pathway to a solution.

One question, one hour, a group of academic experts.

The Digital Health and Social Care Conference on 28 November at the University of Strathclyde, Technology and Innovation Centre anchors Scotland's Digital Health & Social Care Week 26-30 November 2018. The Chair for this year's conference will be Dr. Margaret Whoriskey, Head of Technology Enabled Care and Digital Healthcare Innovation, Scottish Government.

The conference programme is a collaboration between the Technology Enabled Care and Digital Healthcare Innovation, eHealth Scottish Government teams, NHS 24 (SCTT), Local Government Digital Office, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT and the Alliance.

At the Engage Conference this year we’ll be exploring new futures for university public engagement; celebrating the NCCPE’s 10 year anniversary; and taking stock of the lessons learned. Weaving in stories from people who have been working to embed public engagement in their practice and institutions – and with provocation from outside the sector - Engage 2018 will help set the foundations for the road ahead.

Our call for contributions is now open. If you're interested apply by 18th June.

Where do you look when sourcing the next generation of talent?

ScotlandIS could give you a few options.

Come along and hear from the staff at ePlacement Scotland, CodeClan, University of the West of Scotland and University of Glasgow to understand how they can help you and your business access the very best of Scotland’s up and coming talent pipeline.

Agenda:

11.30 – 12.00 Registration

12.00 – 12.05 Welcome by ScotlandIS

12.05 – 12.20 ePlacement Scotland

12.20 – 12.35 University of the West of Scotland

12.35 – 12.50 CodeClan

12.50 – 13.05 University of Glasgow

13.05 – 13.10 Close by ScotlandIS

13.10 – 14.00 Exhibitions and networking

We're back! With the usually great talks, networking and free pizza and beer!

This month, Todd Harding and Dr. Teodora Oniga from FindMyPast will be speaking about the work they have been doing with Machine Learning, their talk is titled "Deep Learning for Extracting Meaning from Free-Text Inputs".

The Edinburgh Futures Institute and The Usher Institute invite you to explore the innovation landscape for IoT and Health that provides opportunities for new collaborative knowledge exchange between research, policy and industry.

The Internet of Things (IoT), part of the ‘Exploring the innovation landscape for health and technology’ series, offers an approach that can connect devices that can help monitor, inform and notify citizens, care-givers and policy providers with data to explore and identify issues before they are critical. IoT devices can provide a citizen centred approach through the public being more aware of tracking their own well-being. Furthermore, individualised insights through IoT devices can give more supporting evidence for care-givers.

The data and technology offer an opportunity to improve the quality and quantity of data. IoT can help create new ways to provide data driven policy by monitoring and testing new policies. This can both improve health infrastructures but also offer insights for self-guided health and better engagement in the health service.

The half day workshop will be facilitated by The International Futures Forum who will use their 3 Horizon methodology to help bring together the different perspectives and needs of research, policy and industry professionals and define what the innovation landscape for IoT and health is currently and will be in the future.

Lunch is included.

Talk 1 Alan Russell - “Visualising the ownership of Scottish football”

Alan Russell will share insights from his work on using data visualisations using Tableau to explore Scottish football clubs’ approach to supporter engagement and transparency, and to improve visibility of clubs’ ownership through the ‘SDS Index’. Alan will also share some earlier work done to improve supporters’ understanding of the history and ownership structure of the club he supports, Raith Rovers FC.

Talk 2 -Dr. Graham McGlashan
“The Value in Data and How to Protect It – Intellectual Property (IP) for Data Related Businesses”

Where is the value in a data related business? Is it in the data itself? Perhaps it is in the way the data is collected, analysed or used? Often these intangible assets are the result of a significant amount of skill, expertise, insight, experience, time and money. For many companies, these intangible assets can contribute a sizable amount to the value of a business.

The goal of the BrainIT Datathon is to host a fun event that invites data scientists and researchers with different backgrounds and levels of experience to bring fresh ideas and analysis approaches to data gathered from patients who have acquired a traumatic brain injury (typically from a fall or a road traffic accident). Hosted over two days at the Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, this event will enable you to:

• Explore interesting, real-life, clinical problems using a complex and challenging dataset

• Meet potential clinical collaborators

• Apply existing data science, machine learning, or knowledge discovery techniques/algorithms you may be working on and to evaluate their performance on a real-world dataset

• Network with fellow data analysts

The BrainIT Datathon is free to attend, and lunch/coffee breaks are provided.

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data is set to revolutionise medicine, including cancer detection. Momentum in the field is building with key players such as Google(1) and Microsoft(2) applying AI to big data in an attempt to improve cancer detection, and the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy pledge of £210 million for using big data and analytics to progress early diagnosis and precision medicine research.The healthcare market for AI is predicted to exceed £7.5 billion by 2024(3), and diagnostics is a major component. However, the potential for AI and big data to detect cancer earlier and benefit patients is far from the current reality, with little research translated into clinical practice to date.

Cancer Research UK is seeking to improve the translation of early detection research; we recognise that increased collaboration between academia and industry will help facilitate this. In partnership with the Innovate UK’s network partner, The Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), we are hosting an academia-industry networking event on ‘Early Detection of Cancer using Big Data and AI’. The aim of the meeting is to bring together academic (including clinicians) and commercial researchers to forge new collaborations in the area of big data and AI for cancer detection. We welcome researchers with expertise in this area, as well as researchers with large datasets looking for collaborations to mine them.

The event will be held in the lead up to Cancer Research UK’s new Early Detection Primer Award, which offers up to £100,000 seed funding for novel ideas and can include new collaborations, with little to no preliminary data required. The meeting will include presentations of other available funding opportunities (including <£2.5 million for early detection research), plenary talks and sessions involving pairing of academic and industry researchers based on complementarity, as well as plenty of opportunity for networking.

Engage Invest Exploit (EIE) is Scotland's premier technology investor showcase featuring data-driven tech companies seeking funding from seed to series A.

As a standalone event, it features the most innovative data driven tech companies emerging from Scotland, the UK and beyond.

At EIE you will...

-network with fellow investors and entrepreneur

-meet up to 50 pitching companies seeking investment

-hear from industry thought leader through our carefully selected keynotes

-experience the vibrant tech scene and ecosystem that is putting Scotland on the map for technology innovation