Previous Gaitherin Events
The Gaitherin is an ongoing networking event where Glasgow’s business-minded thinkers come together to share business challenges, their latest research ideas, and to find partners for collaborative research and development. Each event includes the chance for business people and academic researchers to get up to do short pitches to one another. There is no single technical focus; we believe that the best ideas come from hearing about something new.
The Catch
In November David McArthur from the University’s Urban Big Data Centre (http://ubdc.ac.uk/) joined us to talk about his collaboration with Travelai Ltd on the Catch! (https://www.gla.ac.uk/connect/businessandinnovation/collaboration/catch/) project, which with financial support from InnovateUK is using travel mode detection technology together with big data science to bring about change that makes journeys better. This is what David had to say after the event:
'The project, Citizens at the City’s Heart (CATCH!), is about how data crowdsourced from smartphones can be used to improve transportation planning. It is concerned with both the technical aspects of how to gather and process the data as well as the more traditional transport planning applications of such data.
I was unsure about how much the audience would be able to get out of a fairly short presentation about the work, but it turned out to be a very interesting and valuable experience for me (and hopefully for them). The entrepreneurs in attendance came from diverse backgrounds and were able to offer fresh insight into the research, as well as practical suggestions about how some of the problems we were experiencing could be solved. The entrepreneurial spirit was inspirational.
As well as getting feedback about the research project, it was also a good chance to meet new people, hear about their ideas, and discuss potential future collaboration. There was support on hand at The Gaitherin to explain what different funding mechanisms were available and how these could be accessed. This was valuable as it’s something I would have struggled to explain on my own. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience and I look forward to participating in future events'.
Rich Pictures
October’s Gaitherin saw everyone getting in touch with their creative side by participating in a ‘Rich Pictures’ taster session with Steve Love, from the School of Simulation & Visualisation at Glasgow School of Art - you can judge yourself from the pictures below how ‘rich’ you think our artistic efforts were!
The freedom and fun of drawing aside, the Rich Picture method is a valuable approach used to support co-design/co-creation of applications, products and services. It is a diagramming technique that is part of Soft Systems Methodology, and is used to help to capture stakeholders’ views non-confrontationally.
Rich Pictures are a really simple, but powerful tool for addressing complex problems with diverse stakeholders – be they clients, investors or research users. They can support process improvement especially in the kind of situation where it is difficult to build up a holistic understanding of what the problem actually is, let alone begin to identify ways of solving it.
Steve described the full ‘Rich Pictures’ approach, which includes a critique phase (a structured brainstorming session that focuses on existing problems related to the design task), a fantasy phase (where the participants envision a future free of the previously identified problems), and an implementation phase (where participants discuss the feasibility of the ‘fantasy’ vision and develop an action plan for implementation).
At the Gaitherin, we tried out a quick taster of the fantasy phase, where money, time and current technology do not exist as barriers. It was fascinating, in a room where architects, biomedical scientists, engineers and economists were thrown together, to see how the visual thinking that ‘Rich Pictures’ engenders came more or less naturally to people at the start of the session, and how the process of drawing gradually began to break down those barriers.
‘Rich Pictures’ is designed as a way of transcending people’s preconceived notions of existing technologies and processes and encouraging them to postulate future forms. Our taster Fantasy session taught us how hard it actually is to empty your mind of all of the constraints that we internalise as we tackle them in our day-to-day navigation of the real world. The process of shedding these constraints, through the power of the marker pen, was invigorating. And in the case of our Gaitherin participants, it was amazing to see how many times our collective imaginations conjured up a hologram of Princess Leia as the solution to our test challenge!
Even if you missed our Rich Pictures session, find the Gaitherin on MeetUp and join us next time for more mind-freeing activities and stimulating company.
Romance at Work
Early spring light bounces of a tower of teacups at 7:00 in the morning on the 16th of March. Every time our team at the University of Glasgow hosts one of The Gaitherin networking events panic sets in that due to the early hour no one will show up and it will just be three of us with a mountain of bacon rolls (not too bad a conclusion). But sure enough the clock hits 7:30am and a mix of academics and business leaders come streaming in to the atmospheric rooms of the Tontine Building.
Our March event hosted a keynote speech from Dr. Fiona Wilson on her research into romance in the workplace – which stirred a lively conversation and some laugh-inducing stories of office trysts. Our quick pitches included Dr. Jon Minton’s 3D printed models of populations, how the University of Glasgow can provide businesses with world-class interns, and Alison Gray from Skillfluance gave us the latest on skill development courses. The pitches wrapped up with Shaantanu Patil from Looper IT speaking on how games can help businesses in the circular economy, and Dr. Declan Diver shared how technology developed for astronomy is being put to work for food safety. The group was updated on how to be involved with Industry Day. As always, The Gaitherin came to a close with time to network and make connections between research and businesses.
The next time to network at The Gaitherin will be the 12th of May, we hope to see you there! The goal of The Gaitherin is to bring together businesses and academics to supercharge innovation and business in Glasgow with research…with a side of bacon rolls and tea of course!