Tuesday 4th February saw The Future Economy Network run their first February seminar at their member’s central offices, TLT LLP. The business breakfast, titled Emerging Clean Technologies, was well attended by a diverse range of businesses as the sun rose over a stunning view of the city.
Katherine Piper, Director of The Future Economy Network welcomed attendees, highlighting the benefits of subscribing to the Network and also sharing exciting updates about The Future Economy Network’s Carbon Neutral Hub in Bristol, Future Leap. Katherine also briefly ran through the plans for The Festival of Sustainable Business, where you can check out the video here.
Juliet Mason from TLT LLP kicked off with a high level overview of emerging technologies. She looked at the definitions and capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), including the difference between standard AI nano intelligence and the much-hyped general intelligence (real understanding akin to humans). She went on to explain Internet of Things (IoT) and how they related to the changes to the electricity market. The concerns around the variable, less-predictable essence of renewable energy can be combatted by emerging technologies – there is more control with IoT. She then briefly looked at Blockchain, an electrical ledger recording transactions without intermediaries, and how its aim is to achieve and maintain the integrity in a distributed system. She explained the difference between a centralised and distributed system with a helpful infographic, showing why people are so interested in Blockchain as a way of cutting out the middleman whilst also maintaining integrity. Finally, she explained smart contracts, which are often used with Blockchain. Juliet emphasised that smart contracts are technically neither legal nor smart, but software that creates immediate, automated tractions. Opportunities surrounding this include a more decentralised system that can give communities greater control, local energy sources and peer-to-peer energy exchange; however, it has large practical barriers such as cost and set up commitments.
Next up, Connor Goddard from Pure Planet introduced his presentation by using the story of David and Goliath and Malcolm Gladwell’s analysis of the tale to discuss clean technologies. He highlighted there are many parallels between the story and climate change, using an infographic of warming stripes between 1850 and 2018 to emphasise the dramatic shift. Connor then looked at the main sectors and how they all require development of new technologies to reduce their environmental impacts. He focused on energy, transportation, farm, forests, and our collective impact. Connor wished to include in this write up a link to the paper by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, discussing the energy considerations those wishing to use and run ML models need to be aware of, particularly when using large-scale cloud services.
Finally, we welcomed Ruth Smith from Sustainable Results Lab. Ruth focused her presentation on AI and machine learning, and if they are “friend or foe” to businesses. Ruth explained natural language processing, such as “hey google”, that allows humans to communicate with machines. She talked about google BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), an open source development modelled on the human brain and described as the biggest leap forward in “search”. Ruth then discussed how technology is best used when it is finding the need of our customers, such as personalisation for better relevance and wider reach. She used House of Cards as a prime example, which used predictive analytics to transform its content and customer experiences. She argued that despite some critique, data can support creativity – especially with marketing. Ruth discussed some customer problems behind AI in relation to empathy and trust, and the importance of starting simply and growing slowly (not suffering from “analysis paralysis”). She concluded her presentation by asking the audience to think about their digital carbon footprint, and emphasized the importance of ensuring that technology reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions.
The seminar finished with some insightful and high level questions to the panel, topics ranging from algorithms to policymakers, environmental implications to energy distribution. There were 60 second pitches from Digital Detox, ADLIB, Cranfield University, Rin Hamburgh & Co, TBT Marketing and Ecomove. The event concluded with some valuable networking and finishing up the delicious selection of pastries, fruit and refreshments. A huge thank you to TLT LLP for hosting the event; without this support we would not be able to do these wonderful inspiring events.