our services
innovation, research & development
helping you innovate responsibly with confidence, creating trust, meeting user needs and managing risk.
We work with innovators to solve high-risk and complex problems, including net-zero, mental health, and diversity & inclusion.
This involves working with clients in a number of different ways and at various stages and levels, from initial idea through iterative development to operational delivery. We always bring an independent perspective where people, compliance, security and the environment are central to helping you innovate responsibly.
To help you innovate responsibly we prioritise creating and sustaining processes that enable quick iteration, support realistic planning, and foster a willingness to listen and learn. We can help you deeply research potential user needs, establish clear use cases, and explore the technical possibilities and limitations that shape how an innovation can be delivered.
We favour Agile delivery. Experience has taught us that every organisation has developed their own style of Agile to suit their team and how they operate – and that’s okay!
->> You can read more about our approach here and how we consider capacity building as part and parcel of what we do.
some of the ways we can help clients innovate responsibly
identifying and mitigating risks
Bringing a new idea, service or product to market is hard and often expensive. We work with clients at both early, middle and late stages to help them identify and mitigate risks. Our aim is not to say no, but to help you see a problem differently and help you improve your solution.
We have tried and tested methods for systematically assessing risks, that encompass data protection, security and confidentiality.
DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING AN open data strategY
As well as governments, non-profits, regulated and unregulated companies are looking to develop an open data strategy, often to increase their interoperability, innovate or comply with regulations. Beyond these reasons, open data can be a powerful tool for reducing costs, building trust and fostering collaboration.
Consuming open data published by others can supplement and strengthen your existing data, and could also enable you to innovate or create new services.
Beyond compliance, publishing relevant data openly can allow others to build on your data to create value for your customers that you don’t have the capacity or insights to build yourself.
There can be some hurdles to consuming or publishing open data well, including how to manage privacy, intellectual property, security and data quality. We can help you to:
- be a consumer of open data by understanding when and why to rely on what others provide, honouring their licensing terms, and avoiding incorrect assumptions about the data’s meaning or quality;
- be a publisher of open data by considering metadata, licensing, publishing pipelines, data triage and cleaning, and accepting feedback to improve.
reducing the environmental impact of your development
Taking environmental impact into account when building software not only helps the planet but can cut costs, increase the longevity of solutions, make websites or apps much quicker and improve operational efficiency.
Our development experience, from early work on portable, low-power systems through early mobile web sites to present-day distributed, serverless architectures, helps us develop energy-efficient systems that cost less to run while providing a faster user experience.
Achieving net-zero for many companies is a transformation process involving collaboration, digital as well as physical transformation, and reliable data to inform timely decision-making.
how we helped family mental wealth
Family Mental Wealth’s goal is to help families build their mental health and wellbeing, reducing the need for clinical interventions. They sought our help when working on the concept for a new app for families as they wished to ensure that compliance, data protection and privacy were built in from the start, and to make sure risks were identified and mitigated prior to any technical build.
We worked closely with the founders and CTO to understand the relevant issues, identify possible solutions, and adapt their plans and technical requirements accordingly. This included participating in a workshop with clinicians, researchers and families, as well as delivering tailored training and a running a Data Protection Impact Assessment.