Home » Archives for March 2016

We’ve launched a new map – Top jobs across the UK

Our latest interactive visual maps the most popular employment for each of the 220000 statistical small areas* within the UK.

Put together by our senior research associate Oliver O’Brien, this map re-uses the “top result” technique utilised in all other CDRC Maps.

Explore it yourself – Top jobs across the UK.

For background information on the map, read Oliver O’Brien’s blog post. 

We’d be interested to hear your feedback, connect with us on twitter:@cdrc_uk or facebook.com/cdrcuk. Alternatively, email: info@cdrc.ac.uk.

* Known as Output Areas in Great Britain and Small Areas in Northern Ireland.

Samsung join panel for CDRC Sustainability Webinar


Wouter van Tol
Director of Sustainability and Citizenship
Samsung Electronics Europe.

We are pleased to announce that Wouter van Tol will be joining our panel of expert speakers for the CDRC Big Data and Sustainability webinar on Monday 25 April, 13.00 – 14.00.

Wouter van Tol is Director of Sustainability and Citizenship at Samsung Electronics Europe.  One of his responsibilities is to lead a programme to improve the digital skills of 400,000 young people across 28 European countries.  He is also closely involved in social and environmental impact in the supply chain.

Wouter has a PGCert in Sustainable Business from the University of Cambridge and an MA from University of Twente in his home country, the Netherlands.  He lives in York.

During the webinar, Wouter will be discussing Samsung’s SmartThings Hub which connects devices, enables sharing of content, but also enables real time monitoring of energy use from anywhere using a smartphone.

Wouter commented: “Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies that redefine the worlds of TV’s, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, cameras, digital appliances, printers, medical equipment, network systems, and semiconductor and LED solutions.

We are also leading in the Internet of Things space with the open platform SmartThings, our broad range of smart devices, and through proactive cross-industry collaboration.”

Samsung employ 319,000 people across 84 countries with annual sales of US $196 billion.  To discover more, and for the latest news, feature articles and press material, please visit the Samsung Newsroom at news.samsung.com

We look forward to working with Wouter and Samsung on this exciting project.  Register now to reserve your place.

 

How will the ‘internet of things’ help us to control sustainability impacts better?

By Wouter van Tol and Prof William Young

As a fully-connected world develops, smart technology will help reduce energy use and promote more sustainable lifestyles.

The “internet of things” (IoT) is the embedding of infrastructure, devices and buildings with sensors and electronics to communicate with each other and users. Through connected devices, big data gives us knowledge to better manage our health, resources, infrastructures and other efficiencies.

The interesting thing about IoT is that it is still very much in its infancy, but growing up at mind-boggling speed. We simply cannot imagine all the possibilities yet, just as we were unable to imagine many the possibilities of a mobile phone say 10 years ago.

Many leading companies are working hard to develop products that can be fully interconnected over the next few years. No doubt, some of the biggest benefits to consumers (and to society!) will be developed by 2020, even if they are hard to imagine right now.

From a sustainability point of view we are exploring a host of ideas at CDRC. What will the impact be of the “smart home” on energy use and cost, and how can smart homes enable elderly people to live independently for longer – and thereby save healthcare systems money? How can “smart cities” help to manage traffic flows better? How can IoT enable supply chains to become more transparent at a lower cost?

We can imagine consumers being better able to control their household’s energy use not only for heating and cooling but also in terms of use of appliances and devices. This can lead to households being smartly connected to the wider energy grids where appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers and electric cars use power when there is grid capacity.

This is where potentially larger emissions reduction could be achieved through reduce in energy wastage. Smart hub devices can connect devices, enable sharing of content, but also real-time monitoring of energy use from anywhere using a smartphone.

In addition, connecting the autonomous or self-drive car to city transport systems could help better management of traffic and make journeys more efficient. Of course the data collected by these sensors and electronics will help us to understand how consumers behave and create opportunities for nudges towards sustainable lifestyles.

This of course has to be balanced with the energy use of IoT sensors and electronics as well as the resource use and recycling of the equipment. Without this the benefits of IoT could be reduced.

A final important point is this. Will the world have enough people with the skills to grasp the sustainability opportunities hidden in all that data? Currently there are five million young people unemployed in Europe. Yet at the same time, there are more than 800,000 ICT vacancies. Why? Part of the reason is the digital skills gap; young people are currently leaving university without gaining the digital skills that employers are crying out for.

The CDRC is investing significant resources to develop data science capability in the UK, through training and education, but also through collaborative projects with companies such as Samsung, who are also investing in the digital skills of 6-24 year olds across 28 European countries.


 

Free big data webinar: Monday 25th April 13.00 BST – CDRC and Innovation Forum webinar on big data and sustainability.

With: William Young, professor of sustainability and business, University of Leeds; Chris Brown, senior director of sustainable business, Asda; Andy Peloe, concept manager, Callcredit; Wouter van Tol, director of sustainability and citizenship, Samsung.  Register now to reserve your place. 

Wouter van Tol is director of sustainability and citizenship at Samsung Electronics Europe. He leads a programme to improve the digital skills of 400,000 young people across 28 European countries and is closely involved in social and environmental impact in the supply chain.

Prof William Young is a co-investigator at the CDRC. He also leads the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, UK. 

Is this giant rat really 4-foot? CDRC explores.

CDRC researcher Oliver O’Brien channelled his research skills into exploring whether the image of a man holding aloft a giant rat was infact ‘giant’ after all.

Gas Engineer Tony Smith (pictured) claimed last week to have come across a large rat in Hackney, London and said at the time: “I’ve got a cat and a Jack Russell and it was bigger than both those…”.

Our researcher was not convinced; having done the maths he explained to The Guardian newspaper that in order for the rat to be 4-ft, the man in the picture would have to be 12-ft tall – which was highly unlikely.

The full article, including Oliver’s full explanation as to why this may be a case of image trickery, can be located in The Guardian.