Technology has changed our minds — now it’s time for brands to catch up October 12, 2020 Let’s begin with the pretty bold claim: that digital technology has altered us forever. Over the past decade, an enormous amount of research and literature has been produced on the subject — from the American writer Nicholas Carr, to MIT professor of social psychology Sherry Turkle, to the eminent British neuroscientist Susan Greenfield. Each in [...]
How can businesses empower women in technology in a post Covid-19 world? October 5, 2020 Everyone has felt the wrath of Covid-19. The pandemic blindsided businesses earlier this year and has forced organisations to rapidly step into the unknown. But what have we learnt? And can we apply these learnings to tackle existing issues in technology, like diversity and inclusion? Research from McKinsey Global Institute estimates that women make up [...]
Open source should always have been the way for the Covid-19 contact tracing app September 17, 2020 The government should have gone with an open source contact tracing app from the beginning, argues Tom Bianchi. The long-awaited Covid-19 contact tracing app will launch in the UK next week, marking a “defining moment”, according to health secretary Matt Hancock, in our response to the virus. While this is encouraging, the app should have [...]
DEBATE: Is there a future for tech hubs post-Covid? September 3, 2020 Is there a future for tech hubs after Covid-19? Gavin Poole, chief executive of Here East, says YES. For centuries, the success of London’s business landscape has been steeped in the clusters of industry across the city. Companies and entrepreneurs exist side by side, driven by a shared mission and passion, and an exchange of [...]
Science and tech has proved a damp squib in the fight against Covid-19 September 2, 2020 Few of us alive today have lived through a year so tumultuous, historic, and (yes, that word again) unprecedented as 2020. We are seeing the biggest health pandemic since 1918’s Spanish Flu; the biggest threat to the world economy since 1929’s Great Crash; and the biggest civil unrest in the US since 1967 — all [...]
Serena Williams-backed health startup Quit Genius raises $11m in funding round March 18, 2020 A health tech startup backed by tennis champion Serena Williams has raised $11m (£9.4m) to help bolster its digital therapy services. San Francisco-based Quit Genius, which provides stop smoking services to NHS trusts in the UK, secured the cash injection in a series A funding round led by Octopus Ventures. The latest financing follows a [...]
The sleep conundrum: The UK’s other health crisis March 16, 2020 The UK population is facing a new sort of crisis — and no, this is not Covid-19, but the sleep conundrum. With two thirds of the UK working population struggling with poor sleep, research from Rand reveals that UK employers are losing up to £40bn and over 200,000 working days per year. While this is no [...]
Wellbeing is the new health and safety January 28, 2020 A new decade focuses minds on the future and new strategies to encourage companies and individuals to thrive. And if there’s one commitment that the City should make in the 2020s, it’s to treat the mental health of staff as seriously as their physical health and safety. Everything from the harnesses used by window cleaners [...]
Why meditation is the secret to being more productive in 2020 January 7, 2020 Everyone wants to be more productive. In fact, so eager have we become to get the most juice out of our work that we’ve spawned an entire productivity industry, filled by people promising to maximise our efficiency and get us more bang for our buck. But what we often find is that after only a [...]
The UK’s social care system is in crisis — but technology can help ease the burden November 26, 2019 Care of elderly people affects us all, whether a loved one requires these vital services, or we simply wish for everyone in society to be treated with dignity in old age. And so we should all care about the current crisis. Social care is one of the burning issues of our time. Social care has [...]