Skip to content or footer

Background

Sustainable Thinking Scotland (STS) Community Interest Company is a social enterprise, based in Bo’ness, created to address a wide range of social and environmental issues. They operate a variety of projects that focus on topics such as food growing, community wellbeing and wood and green waste recycling. 

STS currently produce biochar from wood waste. Biochar is a highly porous form of carbon obtained from baking wood within an oxygen-depleted environment and has the potential to draw and lock in nutrients and toxins from its environment. Until recently, the biochar STS produced was used in an agricultural setting, utilising its production as a means of carbon abatement and as a soil amendment within their food growing projects. STS wanted to research and create a biochar optimised for excess nutrient removal from water, helping to tackle harmful algae blooms and the nutrient pollution which causes them.

Challenge

The water remediation techniques STS proposed involving biochar had not been adequately researched, regulated or utilised within the EU, UK and Scottish markets.  STS wanted to engage with academic expertise to advance their production of biochar whilst also ensuring effective regulatory standards were put in place governing its manufacturing and subsequent use.

Solution

The company was referred to Interface through their engagement in Firstport’s LaunchMe accelerator, which is aimed at supporting Scotland’s highest potential social enterprises.  After Interface put out a call to the relevant universities in Scotland, STS decided to work collaboratively with both the University of the Highlands & Islands (UHI) and the University of Strathclyde to test biochar production from wood waste and investigate its potential use in nutrient removal. 

A Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher was used to fund the project with UHI, whilst an initial consultancy project with the University of Strathclyde looked at in depth testing of Biochar including thermochemical changes.

The results from this research should help inform SEPA’s (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) decision making on how to license and regulate biochar’s use in water.
 

Benefits

The new/enhanced product to be developed is a biochar which has qualities which allow it to draw in and bind to excess nutrients within water; adsorbing and removing them, resulting in improved water quality. This will provide a new solution to the growing problem of blue-green algae blooms in freshwater and also act to recover phosphorus and nitrogen from water. The biochar will act to stop nutrient pollution at source, preventing algal blooms and eutrophication, whilst creating a recoverable nutrient loaded carbon biochar that can be re-used on land. This would not only act to maintain/provide carbon within soil but would also provide a slow release (nitrogen/phosphorous rich) fertiliser. UHI’s ERI (Environmental Research Institute) already has significant current interests in this area, not least as partners in a €10M+ EU NW Europe Project (Phos4You) which demonstrates phosphate recovery and re-use innovations within Europe.

Benefits to company:

Benefits to academic partners

Benefits to Scottish Government

Despite the rise in recurring algal blooms in water bodies across the UK, biochar field-based water remediation remains absent from the £1.3 billion UK water treatment market.  Biochar technology development will help create a range of safe, low cost, low impact environmental remediation services which are more financially accessible, encouraging landowners and custodians to invest in their greenspaces, offering a comprehensive/easily accessible solution to long term problems; leading to climate action and contributing to Scotland’s net zero targets.

Next Steps

STS have continued to make strides in developing their “Biochar” product and to understand the markets in which they can operate to position themselves as a sustainable social enterprise.   

This initial project has opened the door to further collaboration and research and Interface have assisted STS to embark on other successful collaborations most notably with Adam Smith Business School at University of Glasgow where they have engaged with a range of student programmes from undergraduate to MBA. Projects include:  

Other projects relating to environmental and sustainability issues are under discussion and Sean Kerr STS Director generously gives time to undergraduate and MSc programmes, student placements, and makes himself available for speaking and networking opportunities.  The relationship continues to deepen and in 2022 Dr Nick Quinn, Lecturer in Entrepreneurship in the Business School, joined STS as a Non Executive Director.  

Sustainable Thinking Scotland’s determination and hard work is paying off as they won Innovation of the Year Award at the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards 2023. 

Background

Established in Inverness in 2004 by Carole MacKintosh, Highland Counselling Services Ltd, trading as Scottish Counselling Services, has grown from a small local service provider into a market leading organisation covering the Scottish mainland and islands with adults, children and young people as their client groups.  Scottish Counselling Services provides a confidential counselling service to both the private and public sector for a wide range of life-affecting issues.

Challenge

Looking to the future sustainability of the business, the lack of suitable software that could handle the varying requirements of the business had reached a critical point. Although Scottish Counselling Services had undertaken their own research, they had been unable to identify a software package that could meet the needs of their individual team members.  Scottish Counselling Services (SCS) wanted to work in collaboration with an academic with Computing Science expertise to develop a system which would more accurately meet their needs.
 

Solution

Interface was able to successfully match SCS with Dr Bruce Scharlau of the University of Aberdeen’s School of Computing Science.  Dr Scharlau had founded ‘The Software Factory’, an initiative created specifically for industry to realise their ambitions through work with the University to deliver software solutions.

Scottish Counselling Services worked with Dr Scharlau to develop a new system which would enable business growth whilst taking account of secure data storage of records, and efficient work-flow processes. No such system previously existed, so the project output was instrumental in enabling the business to move forward, refining its service offering, thereby securing future sustainability.

The project was funded by a Scottish Funding Council (SFC) Standard Innovation Voucher.

Benefits

The new online system moved the staff from working with paper forms, a telephone, and managing staff and appointments via a spreadsheet to an online prototype, saving a day per week in admin work. This was all set up within the web application with encrypted records and minimal risks to privacy. The system has proven invaluable to the company.

We are now using our software and I am really enjoying having a focused system that we are all connected to. I am constantly delighted with the feedback from our team and how easy they all seem to be finding it. It has been such a good project for us all.  Carole MacKintosh, Managing Director

Follow-On Activity

After such a successful initial collaboration, Scottish Counselling Services and the University of Aberdeen continued their collaboration with work to further develop and advance the software in preparation for commercialisation; enabling it to be offered under a subscription service that could be offered to other counselling providers, introducing a new income stream for the organisation.  This application will also enable SCS to improve efficiencies within the business, and thus spend more time on business development, generating additional income in a cost-efficient manner.

This work was part funded by an SFC Advanced Innovation Voucher.

This has been an amazing and challenging project but one that I am really proud to have been a part of.  I feel excited about future developments and opportunities that I know will evolve because of what has been produced.  Carole MacKintosh, Managing Director

Building on the previous collaborations, an internship was then created to consolidate the ‘lite offering’ of a Session On Demand platform designed to aid secondary and primary schools in Scotland in offering counselling to all of their pupils.  This project used the same student from the University of Aberdeen who was involved in the initial collaboration and was funded by an SFC Student Placement Innovation Voucher.

My experience of the project has been extremely positive.  The prospect of being part of a team developing a web application from the beginning felt daunting, however the team were supportive and patient throughout.  I felt out of my comfort zone many times as I was working in an area that I had no previous experience in, however, we managed to work out what was needed by organically processing and checking out what worked, what didn’t work and what need amending.  It came together from actively listening to each other but mostly from the expertise and guidance of the development team.  This was an experience I enjoyed and feel that what we have achieved will have a positive impact on our service users and organisations.

The additional commercial benefits include being able to demonstrate our innovation and credibility as an organisation to potential clients.  This I feel has opened many doors and also created many more opportunities.  It has also helped expand my own thinking on how to create additional opportunities.  Carole MacKintosh, Managing Director

Additional activity

Scottish Counselling Services also worked with both the University of Edinburgh Business School and the University of Strathclyde on various student-based projects to aid in the growth and development of their business.

Background

Loch Electronics innovate, engineer, design and bring to market consumer electronics products focused on reducing global carbon footprint in households and offices.

Conventional dishwashers are incompatible with the most common household sizes in the UK; they are too big. Loch Electronics has been developing a concept dishwasher design, suitable for small households. In their design, the water spray system was modified to take less space and increase water flow directed at the dishes. As a result, the design is anticipated to offer increased process efficiency, reduced operational time and energy usage.

Challenge

To prove their concept, the company was looking to collaborate with an academic partner with expertise in fluid dynamics. 

Solution

Referred by Business Gateway, Interface was able to successfully match Loch Electronics to the academic team at Robert Gordon University (RGU).  The team has considerable expertise in fluid dynamics and thermo-fluids, with years of experience working on a wide variety of collaborative research studies on the performance evaluation of complex flow handling systems; leading to optimal designs and enhanced operational efficiencies.

Funded by a Scottish Funding Council (SFC) Standard Innovation Voucher, the project involved detailed investigation into the performance characteristics of the dishwasher.

The primary outcome of this project was the hydrodynamic characterisation of the concept dishwasher design. This involved detailed investigation into the performance characteristics of the dishwasher. A systematic parametric investigation was carried out to achieve this. This scientific research will enable the company to develop and market these dishwashers with enhanced knowledge of its working; allowing prototypes to be built for real world testing and analysis, leading to further developments.

Benefits

The innovative water spray system will result in a compact dishwasher design, ideally suited for small households. In this concept dishwasher design, the water spray system was modified to take less space and increase water flow directed at the dishes. This innovation results in enhanced process efficiency, reduced operational time and energy usage, higher power and cost savings, and lower carbon footprint of the device. It is therefore a very saleable product, easy to store and maintain, and with a low cost to manufacture and ship.

Follow-on Activity

After successful completion of the initial collaborative project, both Loch Electronics and RGU wanted to collaborate further on the capsule dishwasher, specifically on the integration of UV lights, to enhance its capabilities through the inclusion of sanitisation and disinfection functions for protection against COVID-19. 

Laboratory tests carried out by an American working group on COVID-19 show that the virus can remain infectious for up to 2-3 days on stainless steel and plastics.  UVC (Ultraviolet type C) lights have long been used for sanitation and disinfection purposes and a recent study in the American Journal of Infection Control found that UVC light exposure completely inactivated the virus in 9 minutes.

A SFC Advanced Innovation Voucher was awarded to create prototypes and carry out testing to prove the theory in practice.

Benefits

With precise control of the amount of exposure to the UVC lights, many different items made of different materials could be disinfected of any bacteria and viruses, limiting the spread of COVID-19. As dishwashers are used in 49% of the households across the UK, and 45% of households across Europe, the impact of this UVC integrated dishwasher would be substantial in helping to stop the spread of COVID-19 and any future viruses as well. As the dishwasher will be compact, it will be ideal for use in small households, nursing homes, hospitals etc.

As well as disinfecting cooking utensils, eating utensils and medical tools, it could also disinfect through UV light, items that would get damaged with water, like face masks, phones, keys, wallets, letters, etc.

Background

Creative Carbon Scotland (CCS) believes that arts and culture organisations have an essential role in achieving transformational change to a sustainable future.  Their vision is of a Scotland where this role is recognised, developed, and utilised by both the cultural world and others interested in sustainability.

Creative Carbon Scotland provide training and support for arts organisations to reduce their carbon footprint and help nearly 120 key organisations in mandatory carbon reporting to Creative Scotland. Their culture/SHIFT programme builds connections and collaborations between arts and sustainability practitioners to apply their different skills, practices and working methods to address challenging and complex climate change-related issues. 

Challenge

It is widely recognised that artists across all artforms can offer new insights and alternative perspectives to bring about change in wider society. Creative Carbon Scotland are among several organisations who have worked on projects with embedded artists to address environmental sustainability and climate change. The artists have worked over extended periods, using cultural approaches to address these complex issues within organisations in the private, public and third sectors. Creative Carbon Scotland were keen to promote this type of collaboration, and the development of a library of case studies was a key step in the process of disseminating this approach. It aims to enable new users to discover a range of new ways of working with artists to address sustainability challenges.

The organisation recognised that for the case study library to deliver maximum impact, the evidence from a very wide and diverse range of ’embedded artist’ projects needed to be presented in a unique and engaging way.  Consequently, they sought to collaborate with an academic team to co-design an innovative categorisation and tagging framework to enable rapid and effective searching within the Library.

Solution

Funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher, Creative Carbon Scotland collaborated with Gray’s School of Art at Robert Gordon University to prototype the Library of Creative Sustainability hosted on the CCS website: a new digital resource showcasing best practice examples of collaborations between sustainability partners and artists seeking to make the world a better place. The framework was co-designed with end users to ensure that it met the needs of managers and decision makers within the sustainability and regeneration sectors.

Benefits

The Library of Creative Sustainability has allowed Creative Carbon Scotland to support advocacy and engagement with sustainability leaders in private, public and third sector organisations; presenting an opportunity for artists, designers, and other creative practitioners to share their skills, knowledge, and perspectives to not only address environmental sustainability, but also change the way we interact in society – thus re-imagining culture and embedding sustainability within it.

The prototyping of the Library web page benefitted Creative Carbon Scotland by further positioning it as a vital partner for leaders in the private, public and third sectors at the intersection of arts and culture with sustainability. The research work provided CCS with further examples on which to base new work and the resource itself will help introduce and persuade new partners to take up these opportunities.

The academic partner at RGU benefitted by having their research utilised, specifically through the creation of a suite of user-focused case studies. Both parties will benefit from the development of the framework for categorisation and tagging, generating new ways of engaging users.

Additional Activity

Following the successful delivery of the partnership with RGU, CCS received further support from Dr. Siobhán Jordan, Director, Interface who matched the company with University of Strathclyde Department of Management Science.  Iain Phillips, a student at the Department collaborated with CCS to review the key outcomes of several years of mandatory carbon reporting and reduction across artists, designers and other creative practitioners funded by Creative Scotland.  CCS have a long-standing track record of undertaking research and are also collaborating with University of Stirling Management School.

Background

CogniHealth is an Edinburgh-based health-tech company that creates digital solutions for long-term conditions. With a current focus on dementia, their aim is to improve the quality of lives of families affected by dementia.

Their flagship solution, CogniCare, is a digital companion for dementia carers. The CogniCare app empowers carers with an array of resources and activities that cover all aspects of dementia care in one place. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to drive personalised dementia care support with the aim to reduce the affected family’s financial, physical and psychological burden.

This healthcare app also allows carers to monitor and track disease progression and gain comprehensive insights through the reports generated; enabling them to communicate better and more accurately with healthcare professionals.

Challenge

Pooja Jain, a neuroscientist and co-founder of CogniHealth, was referred by Business Gateway to Louise Arnold at Interface.  CogniHealth was seeking to strengthen the monitor-and-track functionality and add interactive features to the CogniCare app.  

While the resources available through CogniCare were successful in informing carers about dementia, delivering care and self-care, the way in which carers could document dementia symptoms through the app was tedious at times and not aligned to medical standards. This made it difficult to provide personalised care.

Solution

Louise and CogniHealth agreed that working with academic experts who understand how dementia is detected, and how it is monitored in its progression, would help CogniHealth develop a better understanding of the parameters healthcare professionals would find informative.  This would ensure they capture the right type of information, confirm its accuracy, and help deliver an effective personalised care treatment plan. After a project outline was scoped up and issued to various universities in Scotland, Louise was able to identify relevant expertise at the University of the Highlands & Islands (UHI).  UHI have unique expertise in the care of older adults and the dementia care sector with a deep understanding of the various aspects of care provision for people affected by dementia.

CogniHealth and UHI worked together to capture relevant clinical, cognitive, functional and behavioural parameters within CogniCare that could provide key information to both family carers and healthcare professionals. Family carers would be able to track the most relevant symptoms over time in an accurate and interactive manner.

The project was funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher.

Benefits  

Both parties have benefitted from the exchange of knowledge as well as the co-production of an enhanced product that will have a tangible impact on dementia care. 

Company – One of the significant outputs from this project was the development of a framework for practical day-to-day assessments and monitoring on symptom escalation by family carers of people living with dementia at home. This feature of the app could enhance carers’ competence and confidence in early identification of relevant symptoms; enabling professionals to provide early intervention to prevent unnecessary hospitalisation.  There are currently no tools that enable this kind of interaction with all those involved within the dementia care triad (the PwD, the carer and the professional).

CogniHealth aims to build partnerships with organisations across the UK, and this project provided a unique opportunity to develop such a partnership with the University of Highlands and Islands.

University – The project added value to two Dementia PhD students with learning opportunities around academic – industry partnership working and project management skills.  Outputs from this project included a virtual conference presentation at the Alzheimer’s Disease International Conference in December 2020 and the following publication in the Journal of Working with Older people:

Macaden, L., Muirhead, K., Melchiorre, G., Mantle, R., Ditta, G. and Giangreco, A., 2020. Relationship-centred CogniCare: an academic–digital–dementia care experts’ interface. Working with Older People.

Scottish Economy – The societal and economic costs of dementia are detrimental to society. The Scottish economy is not only impacted by the health and social care costs of dementia, but also the loss of a valuable workforce who may become full or part-time carers for a family member with dementia. Enabling the delivery of improved care, prevention and early intervention can reduce costs, while also keeping potential carers in the workforce for longer.

Follow-On Activity

In April 2020, Louise connected CogniHealth to the University of Edinburgh Advanced Care Research Centre.  The project was funded via the Data-Driven Innovation Programme* to apply data-driven-innovation ideas in support of communities, services and businesses, in response to the COVID pandemic.  An award of £15k was made to the University of Edinburgh Medical School to build a ‘soothing’ feature within the CogniCare app. The new feature enables users to access and view soothing images. These images will be sourced from an existing database of 800 images that have been collected from the public and have previously been shown to help improve people’s mood and help fight mental health issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 lock down. Users will be able to personalise the images based on their preferences (e.g. themes, colours) and tell CogniCare how they feel and the impact the imagery has had to their mental health.

* The Data-Driven Innovation initiative aims to help organisations and all our citizens benefit from the data revolution.  Working together to deliver the 15-year programme are the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University, whose researchers will collaborate with industry on data partnerships in the public, private and third sectors. This is part of the Edinburgh & South-East Scotland City Regional Deal.

Background

SENSEcity Ltd. is a dynamic, high-tech start-up company looking to disrupt the traditional travel guidebook market. Pooja Katara, an architect, is the founder of the company and came up with the idea of an alternative guidebook as an artistically illustrated booklet with a complimentary mobile application during her Masters’ degree at The Glasgow School of Art. The output from her degree included a test of this guidebook.  

Challenge

SENSEcity Ltd. wanted to develop the test case into a working product, addressing the demand for an authentic tourism experience by offering a unique interactive guidebook that would work along with an augmented reality application delivered on a mobile phone. The intent was to bring the cultural heritage of the city to life through experiential tourism. Pooja was looking to collaborate with academics to develop a prototype which could also be a fully working product.

Although Pooja had studied at The Glasgow School of Art (GSA), she was not sure which university would have the capacity and capability to work with her, or how to contact the right people to take forward a collaborative project.

Solution

Pooja met Ruth Oliver, Interface’s Business Engagement Executive for Glasgow and Clyde Valley, at the RBS Accelerator in Glasgow, where the company is based. Ruth drew up a brief outlining the challenge, which was issued to universities throughout Scotland. Several responded to the brief and Pooja chose to collaborate with The Glasgow School of Art’s School of Simulation and Visualisation to use augmented reality to bring archive images and animations to life, and embed audio into the app.

The project was to focus on:

The collaborative project was part-funded funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher, administered by Interface.

Benefits

The development of this project alongside the expertise from GSA proved extremely beneficial to SENSEcity and led to their first commercial travel guidebook and mobile application.  The creation of high-quality 3D content improved the AR interactions that users will now get to experience. The re-written narrative, and access to local expert knowledge of the history professor, made the content richer and, with access to the professional sound recording studio at GSA, the company was able to create a high-quality audio guide along with sound effects; an important feature within the app.

Follow-On Activity

Interface provided additional support to the company through a collaborative project with digital marketing students at the University of Glasgow looking at how to promote the SENSEcity app.

In collaboration with West Coast Motors and The Glasgow School of Art (following on from the original project with GSA), SENSEcity received £7,500 from the £50k Collaboration Fund launched by the new Experience Glasgow tourism network, which will allow visitors onboard the Glasgow City Sightseeing bus tours to experience Glasgow in a hi-tech way.

Pooja has since become a Converge Challenge winner of the newly introduced Creative Challenge category for her new-age travel guide.

The company are currently looking at evolving their product to fit into the Covid and post-Covid world.

Background

Floco (formerly Lilypads Group Ltd) is a mission driven company that manufactures and sells reusable sanitary pads and provides menstrual health education. Founder and CEO of Floco, Alison Wood, strives to end period poverty and stigma by providing affordable reusable sanitary pads and education to communities around the world.  They currently work in Malaysia and Kenya, with preparations to start working in Cambodia and Nigeria.

There is a growing market opportunity for natural, sustainable, durable, and reusable sanitary products in the UK and current reusable sanitary pads are limited by several factors including leakage, lack of absorbency and the very high price point.

The company aim to develop a product suitable for the UK market, with the long-term aim that profit from this product can subsidise the cost of their international pads, ensuring they are affordable to all.

Challenge

During the product development phase, Floco trialled their product and learnt that the consumers found it more comfortable than their conventional sanitary pad. However, for these women the pad’s thickness was imperative; ideally the women could wear the pad all day and it be no thicker than standard disposable pads. With the current materials available on the market this looked unlikely and therefore the pad would need to be much thicker, limiting its attractiveness.

The company were also keen to look at ways to make reusable pads more affordable and environmentally friendly.  They recognise that absorbent textiles are key to this development along with being able to ensure the current attributes of pads are maintained. 

Floco approached Interface in the hope of undertaking a feasibility study with a research team to establish initial options and the key design principles for absorbent textiles that would offer the following attributes:

Solution

Following a search of Interface’s academic partners, Dr Danmei Sun, Associate Professor of Textile Materials & Engineering at Heriot-Watt University was introduced to Floco and undertook the initial feasibility project funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher. The results identified two materials – a quick drying fabric that was soft and felt like underwear and an absorbent middle layer than holds the moisture so even when pressure is applied it does not leak. The constructed pad is discrete, easy to use and wash and fits the user needs perfectly.

Benefits

Floco tested the product and identified a manufacturer. The pad was launched to the market in July 2020 by Crowdfunder with sales in the UK subsidising Floco’s work internationally to ensure no one is limited by their period.

Follow-On Activity

Following this initial project Floco returned to Interface to undertake a consultancy project around Strategy and Business growth. Working with a student at the University of Stirling, Floco have explored: the potential of targeting the pads at a specific demographic, behavioural attitudes towards buying sustainable products, analysing the sustainability of the whole business, not just the product, and optimising supply chain opportunities.

To learn more about Floco, please visit their website.

Background

Hypervine Ltd is a Glasgow-based company that focuses on digitising infrastructure to enable construction, engineering and facilities management companies to improve transparency, compliance, consistency, health & safety, recording and reporting; leading to direct and indirect cost savings while improving compliance and quality.

The company is developing a powerful, custom-built single comprehensive, secure and unalterable blockchain platform for the construction, engineering and maintenance sectors with smart contract functionality and analytical tools for more accurate asset and infrastructure management.

Challenge

Following a series of industry scandals that highlighted the need for strong audit trails for building work undertaken, Hypervine was looking for an academic partner to  investigate the use of distributed ledger technologies to trace the completion of work in the construction sector and manage compliance events.

Solution

Ruth Oliver, Business Engagement Executive at Interface, successfully matched Paul Duddy, CEO and founder of Hypervine, with Professor Bill Buchanan and Liam Bell at Edinburgh Napier University’s School of Computing. The Blockpass Identity Lab at the University’s Merchiston campus uses cutting-edge blockchain research to drive innovation.

Ruth said: “Hypervine Ltd and Edinburgh Napier University’s (ENU) School of Computing were a natural fit:  Professor Bill Buchanan is one of the world’s leading lights in blockchain technology and, with researcher Liam Bell, offers a wealth of experience in supporting businesses and organisations in the practical application of this technology. 

Hypervine is helping construction companies build faster, safer, and more cost efficiently by digitising the industry. Exploring how to incorporate secure methods of recording data in complicated supply chains and transactions is a key element of this. Partnerships with academia can propel companies onto the next stage of their development, enabling them to enter new markets, win additional contracts, and grow their business.”

Professor Buchanan, Director of the Blockpass Identity Lab, said: “The nature of the construction industry is that there are many stakeholders involved and, making sure that each part of the process is working as it should, can be difficult. A blockchain solution will aim to integrate digital signing into the key parts of the process.”

Liam Bell, who was the lead blockchain researcher in the lab, said: “The application of blockchain into the construction industry – where strong levels of trust in the process are required – is a natural one.”

The collaboration was supported by the Scottish Funding Council’s Innovation Voucher scheme, which Interface administers.

Benefits

Company – As a result of this collaboration, and the ensuing product, Hypervine has experienced improvements in the supply chain, new and improved products, increased productivity, and job creation, as well as the safe-guarding of existing jobs.

Industry – This collaboration has resulted in an innovative product research that has significant potential to disrupt the construction sector and improve safety records both in the UK and internationally, where there have been a number of disasters caused by improper construction .  Avoidable errors are costing the UK construction industry £21bn per year.  Through blockchain and smart contract integration, the industry can save time and money making the it more efficient while freeing up finance.

Follow-On Activity

In February 2020, Hypervine announced its latest contract, working with the European Space Agency to develop services for the global mining community.

Mining companies have to constantly adapt to ever-changing economic, environmental and governmental policies making easily accessible, high quality and up-to-date data vital. Obtaining the right information with the highest degree of accountability often takes months. Numerous surveys have to be cross-checked and compared on paper alongside satellite-sourced data, by multiple teams in different locations. Through the implementation of Hypervine’s technology, data for mining teams and their subsidiaries is clearly recorded on an unalterable ledger, removing the risk of small changes being magnified down a chain, resulting in potentially catastrophic yet avoidable dangers and miscalculations. 

It was announced (9th November 2020) that Hypervine is to be one of the five new cutting-edge tech firms that will join HS2 Ltd’s Innovation Accelerator programme. HS2 Ltd is the company delivering Britain’s new high speed rail network.  Hypervine will receive commercial and technical support, plus rent-free working space, as they develop their technology to help deliver Europe’s largest infrastructure project.  

Hypervine founder & CEO Paul Duddy said: “Being accepted on to the HS2 Accelerator programme is a significant milestone for Hypervine and as one of Europe’s largest infrastructure projects is a perfect fit for Hypervine technology.“

*A blockchain is a growing list of records or blocks, secured using cryptography and resistant to modification; technology which can reduce the risk of problems like documents being lost or actions not followed up.

Background

Currently, there isn’t a simple way for a heating engineer to determine how dirty a heating system is. This leads to inefficiencies, breakdowns, unnecessary costs and disruption for occupants.

Thermafy Group Ltd. has developed ThermaFy, a digital platform that can determine how dirty a heating system is.  It is a leader in real-time thermal analysis; their software allowing the collection and interpretation of thermal data from a smartphone. The software highlights inefficiencies in a heating system and offers a treatment plan that improves efficiency, thus saving money for the customer as well as reducing carbon emissions.

Their current market is the domestic heating industry; working with boiler manufacturers, water treatment companies, installers, surveyors and energy companies.

Challenge

To ensure this software could be rolled out across the industry, it was vitally important that it was easy to use, saving engineers’ time.  No training modules currently exist that are designed specifically at educating heating engineers on how to use thermal cameras within the job and it is not possible to purchase off-the-shelf modules.

Developing new training modules would help standardise workplace skills, ensuring that engineers could adopt this software and develop new customer, IT and thermography / site based digital skills.

It was crucial that Thermafy Group Ltd. could provide their future customers with these new skills and extra knowledge to support the benefits of using their software.

Solution

Thermafy Group Ltd. had previously been referred to Fife College by the Fife Economic Partnership to use their specialist facilities in order to develop ThermaFy’s software.  It was during these tests that Fife College realised that the company needed more engagement with the end users, the engineers.  Together, they submitted an application to Interface for a Scottish Funding Council Workforce Innovation Voucher, which aims to support innovation by funding the development of a company’s workforce.

The expertise available within Fife College’s gas training centre and their specialist facilities, combined with the expertise of Thermafy Group Ltd. on these new processes and software, helped develop the specialist accredited modules that would enable the industry to adopt new improved working practises, increasing both their productivity and trust with their customers.  It is hoped that these training packages will give rise to a new breed of industry engineers with expertise and skills in the field of validating best practice supported by thermography skills.

Benefits

Company – Fife College assisted in helping and improving ThermaFY’s thermal imaging software, used by heating engineers and surveyors to assess buildings in a cost-effective and non-invasive manner. It is a great illustration of a company collaborating with the right academic expertise, in this case, Peter Jones, an academic with 30 years’ experience in the gas industry. With his input, the company quickly realised the importance of providing supplementary training material, allowing engineers to gain a better understanding of how to use the app and the thermal data obtained.

Academic – It is clear that the college has helped out ThermaFY significantly, but the benefits are mutual. The college has been able to engage in applied research and ThermaFY have equipped the lecturers with new knowledge from the concept. This knowledge has been disseminated to apprentices and students who have been able to improve their digital skills and given them the confidence to question existing practices within their organisations and the wider sector.

Follow-On Activity

In August 2020, Thermafy Group Ltd. had an Advanced Innovation Voucher to work with Robert Gordon University approved to develop the ThermaFy product in response to COVID-19. The existing ThermaFy product can already extract enough information from a thermal image to classify a subject as having an elevated temperature or not. The company wish to improve the accuracy of their product with respect to COVID-related fever by considering other reasons for elevated temperature (such as environmental, medical, physical factors). Robert Gordon University will provide expertise in data capture, machine learning and deep neural networks to support the product development. The product has already received significant interest with pilot installations of the first solutions being deployed in two hospitals for the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Trust – see how it’s working here.