Anaeko CEO Denis Murphy laced up his running shoes and undertook a gruelling mega-marathon to raise vital funds for The Children’s Cancer Unit Charity in mid august. 

Denis was inspired to complete the Seven Sisters 27k Mountain Marathon in Donegal by his son Zach, who is currently undergoing treatment at the Haematology and Oncology Unit at the Royal. Clocking a time of eight hours and twenty minutes, Denis raised over £26,000 for the Charity which supports the Unit, just in time to mark Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

Every year, between 60 -70 children are diagnosed with cancer in Northern Ireland. Each of these children will visit the Children’s Cancer Unit at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children as it is the only place where children with cancer and blood disorders can receive specialist treatment. The Children Cancer Unit Charity supports the work of the medical  teams that care for these vulnerable young patients, as well as their families. 

When he’s not running or completing mountainous challenges, Denis is Chairman and Chief Executive of Cloud Analytics firm, Anaeko, which appointed The Children Cancer Unit Charity as their Charity of the Year. The aim of the Seven Sisters 26k Mountain marathon was to kickstart the company’s fundraising efforts for the year ahead. 

Speaking about the fundraising, Denis said: 

“The Seven Sisters was tough, but it really was a simple feat compared to the challenges children living with cancer face every day. The strength and determination of my son and all the other children at the Unit motivated me to keep going. Every step was worth it, knowing it was going towards such an amazing cause. 

“Like all families in our situation, we never expected a childhood cancer diagnosis in our home. Since then, I have witnessed first-hand the incredible work the medical team and staff at the Unit do to help children and families during the most difficult period in our lives. I wanted to give something back, so I wish to thank everyone for their support and I look forward to more successful fundraising activities throughout the year with my team at Anaeko.” 

Felix Mooney, Chairman at The Children’s Cancer Unit Charity added: 

“Our mission is to provide the necessary support to ensure children living with cancer in Northern Ireland receive the best possible care. We do this through additional provision of staff, purchasing essential equipment, and funding research and training at the Children’s Cancer Unit, as well as supporting families directly.  

“This Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, we wanted to remind people that childhood cancer affects the whole family. Denis’ fundraising efforts highlight the lengths family members go to to support their loved ones and those in similar situations to them. We commend Denis for his incredible achievement and for kickstarting Anaeko’s fundraising initiatives. Without corporate partners like Anaeko, we wouldn’t be able to carry out our vital work. We are truly grateful and look forward to continuing this successful relationship.” 

To find out more about the work of the Charity visit: www.childrenscancerunit.com. 

The nominees for ‘Big Data Innovation’ at this years Digital Leaders 100 awards have been announced, Anaeko are proud to sponsor a category that seeks to highlight tremendous innovation in the technical industry. Organisations are increasingly defined by their data and how they use it. This award is for a digital product or service that in the last year has had a measurable impact and delivered real outcomes in the field of big data.

The DL100 list is created by public vote and celebrates the teams and individuals who are working hard behind the scenes to secure the UK’s Digital Transformation. Digital leaders have been asking the public to help find these digital pioneers from across the UK and from the public, private and non-profit sectors, every year since 2013. While the selection process is led by industry professionals, the final result in each category is decided by public vote, so it is super important that you vote for your selected pioneer in ‘Big Data Innovation’ and the other 10 categories this year.

Digital Leaders is an initiative that has created a shared professional space for senior leadership from different sectors promoting effective, long-term digital transformation. Our community of 100,000 senior leaders are involved in leveraging technology to promote economic growth, increase social well-being and narrow social gaps across the UK.

We believe that Anaeko is a perfect fit, not only to sponsor the ‘Big Data Innovation’ category but to also be a part of this event as we are a Data Analytics and Digital Services Specialist, who deliver intelligent multi-cloud analytics for mature organisations in regulated industries.

From our Belfast headquarters we have delivered over 400 data management and analytics projects since 2004. We design data fabrics across millions of assets, build platforms that analyse exabytes of data, operate applications that engage millions of users, and transfer products that process billions of records. And we can’t wait to see what each nominee has to showcase in this innovative category.

Big Data Innovation 2021 Nominees

Apple Health

Milton Keynes University Hospital was 1 of only 2 healthcare providers in the UK, and 1 or 5 outside the US, to enable access to patient data, via Apple Health (iPhone) to their Electronic Health Records (EPR) data.

COVID-19 Grants Tracker

At 360Giving, we help funders publish open data about their grants, and empower people to use this data to improve charitable giving. Our COVID-19 Grants Tracker pulls and visualises data published by funders about COVID-19 related grants – almost £1.5bn of it, and counting.

DAERA Information Hub

The DAERA Information Hub has been transformational, enabling the department to discover, view, and analyse data; supporting informed and effective policy-making decisions within Food and Farming, the Environment, Fisheries, Forestry, Animal and Plant Health in Northern Ireland.

Digital Energy Platform

In 2020 – 2021 the Oil and Gas Authority launched 2 high-impact digital products to significantly enhance public services. These were a new geospatial lease application product and a completely re-redesigned National Data Repository – both designed to help the Energy Transition.

HACT/OSCRE UK Housing Data Standards

The UK Housing Data Standards have been developed for the sector by the sector. They enable social housing organisations to make better use of big data, creating data-led organisations confident in the quality and veracity of the data they are using.

High Streets Data Service

A new data service to give ongoing access to the best local insights on London’s High Streets at lower cost through collective purchasing of data and analysis, using a Partnership model to promote collaboration, build local capacity and promote data driven decisions.

Howbusyistoon.com

A smart collaborative project led by Newcastle City Council, creating a user focussed website showing real time data analytics & visuals on footfall, car parking & safety information to help residents make confident, informed decisions about safely returning to the city centre.

Pawprint

Pawprint is an employee engagement tool that harnesses the energy employees already have to fight climate change and channels it towards their organisation’s climate targets. The Pawprint Carbon Calculator expands on Small World Consulting’s industry-based carbon calculations.

Power BI Sentinel

Purple Frog created Power BI Sentinel to enable organisations to apply Governance, Auditing and Disaster Recovery to their big data reporting systems in one cloud-based solution. The only product of its kind, Sentinel is a gamechanger product for organisations across the globe.

The Scottish National Notification Service

A national, digital co-management service that delivers Covid-19 test results to Scottish citizens and then supports those with positive results to contact trace themselves.

How to Vote

The public vote will determine the top 3 finalists from each category who will go forward to the next round of judging. The ultimate winner will be announced at the Digital Leaders 100 awards ceremony in November. Good luck to all the nominees, and remember to vote by following the link below.

VOTE

Invent is an annual competition organised by Catalyst with headline partner Bank of Ireland, that recognises and rewards local innovations and proof of concept ideas that have the greatest commercial potential.

Invent is an opportunity to gain high profile exposure, to validate your idea, to unlock a quality network of influencers and to win a share of the £47,000 prize fund. If you have come up with an innovative product or solution that you are passionate about then this is the competition for you.

WHY APPLY FOR INVENT? 

By applying for Invent you will: 

• Market validate your idea
• Unlock a quality network of influencers
• Fuel your growth
• Get support with your pitch
• Gain high profile exposure and recognition
• Be in with a chance of winning a share of the £47,000 prize fund

There are a variety of categories within the awards, offering the chance to a wide variety of budding entrepreneurs to showcase their businesses and innovative ideas.

INVENT CATEGORIES 

Your innovation must fit into one of the following five categories:

• Greentech – Products, solutions and tech that enable a sustainable future.
• Health and Wellbeing – Improving the quality of life through pushing the boundaries in life sciences, med tech and health promotion.
• Product – A physical product designed and fabricated to offer the consumer or business a novel innovative solution.
• Business Software – Computer software products or solutions used to satisfy the needs of an organisation rather than individual users.
• Consumer Software – Consumer software is a class of commercial software that is sold directly to end-users as opposed to businesses.

Anaeko will be sponsoring the Business Software category and supporting the next wave of entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland. Our COO David Kerr will be acting as the lead judge within the category. 

David has been with Anaeko since 2014 and has almost 20 years experience in building and leading Software Services, Support and SaaS organisations. Prior to Anaeko, David held a variety of Global Customer Support and Professional Services Management roles at Openwave Limited, a leading innovator in Mobile Internet and Broadband Communications technology. David holds a BSc in Computer Science from Queens University, Belfast.

MEET THIS YEARS #INVENT2021 FINALISTS!

10 companies have made it through the semi-finals and to the next final stage of the competition.

With Emtech Europe 2021 having come to a close, we thought we would have a look at our own top 5 highlights from the two-day event. EmTech Europe unites leaders in academia, business and government to share ground-breaking research-to-market advances and explore the latest breakthroughs in transformative technologies. Europe’s most brilliant minds converge to discuss cutting-edge, solutions-focused technology across three episodes — An Intelligent Future, A Healthy Future and A Sustainable Future. 

With a variety of common interests and many new and exciting developments both here in Belfast and across the globe, we wanted to give a few notable mentions to some very important topics.

1.  Power-to-X

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires the ability to create non-carbon fuel alternatives which are both clean and affordable and deliverable at scale. 30 years ago, Northern Irish entrepreneur David Surplus set up some of the first wind farms in the British Isles in order to tackle climate change. Since then, he has forged a bold path in the world of green-tech, culminating in his current company B9 Energy which is using ‘curtailed’ wind power to convert water, through electrolysis, into hyrodgen, oxygen and heat – with a valuable end use for each. B9 Energy’s first bespoke electrolysiser is now on site outside Belfast in a pilot program which could create a thousand green jobs and reduce reliance on carbon fuels.

2.  Sweden as a Biotech Hotspot – the Best is Yet to Come 

Sweden has a population of around 10 million people and regularly ranks Number One in the European Innovation League Table and its status as a biotech hotspot – with its very own Medicon Valley — has been burnished by Swedish involvement in the development of the Moderna and AstraZeneca Covid vaccines. Does the country and its capital, Stockholm, long a magnet for Nobel Prize-winning scientists, offer a template for life sciences enterprise which can be copied by other regions? And what are the societal and governmental building blocks which underpin the city’s deserved reputation as an entrepreneurial powerhouse? We heard from acclaimed scientist and Moderna co-founder Kenneth R. Chien — who hails from the global life sciences capital of Boston but is a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm — to get his take on this possible transferable model. 

3.  Invisible AI 

Increasingly, interacting with AI happens with no awareness., – be it Netflix tuning suggestions for bringing pleasure, or urban surveillance keeping populations safe (theoretically). In addition, technology is starting to disappear – either literally as sensors shrink to microscopic size, or cognitively as devices like Alexa speakers, Nest thermostats, Hue bulbs, etc become the background of a home. This is leading to an age of Ambient Computing. This session on day two, looked at the drivers and impacts of Invisible AI. Contributors to the discussion were Barbara Fusinska, Engineering Manager at Twitter UK and Leslie Nooteboom, Co-founder, of Humanising Autonomy. 

4.  Small is Beautiful 

One of the regions at the very cutting edge of technological change and the creation of smart cities is Andorra, a tiny country tucked between Spain and France. The 180-square-mile nation of 77,000 people has served as a ‘living lab’ for researchers for MIT Media Lab’s City Science Initiative to prototype, deploy and test urban innovation. This talk was led by Luis Alonso, Principal Investigator at Andorra Living Lab Project and Vanesa Arroyo, Project Co-ordinator and International Relations Manager, at Andorra Research and Innovation. Anaeko has an array of resources around smart cities on our website, if you wish to find out more. 

5.  Powering the Energy Transition 

The energy transition is a cornerstone of Net Zero strategies across the world. This transition will principally be enabled by technology, investment, data and behavioural change. In isolation these factors can have limited impact but when brought together, they can accelerate meaningful change. Energia Group see this as there core business strategy in order to achieve modern utility. Derek Scully, Head of Corporate Affairs joined this keynote to discuss how others could replicate Energia’s success.

We can’t wait to attend this event next year, in-person. To find out more about Emtech Europe and the incredicle work they do all year round, have a look HERE.

MIT Technology Review’s flagship conference ‘EmTech Europe’ will be hosted virtually from Belfast in 2021, bringing together Europe’s brightest and best technology leaders, researchers, and innovators for inspiration, insight, and connection. Anaeko will be present at the event on the NI Pavilion, providing  the opportunity for us to showcase the company’s capability and expertise in the field of digital technology.

Belfast-based events company, Aisling Events, have acquired the licence to host and run EmTech Europe for the next three years – beginning in July 2021, as a virtual conference. It is proposed the conference will be hosted again in Belfast physically in 2022 and 2023 at the ICC Waterfront. Belfast was recently named as one of the Top 10 Tech Cities of the future and it is against this backdrop that EmTech Europe will be hosted.

The EmTech series of events is one of the most inspirational and transformative resources for technologists and technology companies around the world. EmTech Europe will bring bold thinking and innovative ideas to life as it examines the technologies and forces influencing our digital world today – AI, Biomedicine, Cybersecurity, Fintech, Equality, Global-Scale technology – and explores how to make sense of these innovations and trends in light of the events of 2020.

Speakers at the conference will be trailblazers within the tech industry, spear-heading developments, and innovation in their respective fields. A series of insightful talks over two days will empower high level decision-makers with ideas and inspiration, foster new relationships and share best practice.

SPEAKER LINE-UP

Taking Forging a Brighter Future as its theme, EmTech Europe is aiming to unite the brightest minds in academia, business and government to share ground breaking research-to-market advances and explore the latest breakthroughs in transformative technologies. Thinking of attending the event? Check out our top ten reasons why you should attend EmTech  Europe 2021:

1. EmTech Europe will showcase emerging technologies that have the greatest potential for impact when it comes to creating a Sustainable, Intelligent, Healthy and Equitable Future at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has made the world we live in even more challenging.
   
2. Be inspired by outstanding, innovative, world class speakers who will cover areas including Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Green-tech, Biomedicine, Energy, Global Climate, Economic Crisis, Health and Ethics and much more.
   
3. EmTech Europe will bring the best of the global tech world together, who with their bold thinking and innovative ideas will reimagine a world where tech transforms lives positively and serves the common good .
   
4. Major questions around Ethics and Equity will feature across the two days.
   
5. Ask the speakers questions to discover insights on the next wave of ground breaking innovations.
   
6. Connect and collaborate with people from around the Europe at a world class networking event.
   
7. Engage in stimulating conversations and gain new perspectives from across various disciplines. 
   
8. EmTech Europe will provide industry collaboration and career opportunities and advancements through networking sessions. 
   
9. Our live broadcast this year will help you be everywhere, you won’t miss a thing.
   
10. Hosted by a city renown globally for peacemaking, a city both inside and outside of the EU, Belfast is one of the top 10 Tech Cities of the future and it will no doubt add it’s own spin to the event.
    

Don’t miss out on your chance to Get tickets to EmTech Europe, 

Sign up for the event now: https://hubs.li/H0QXp590

Generation Innovation aims to inform, upskill and empower the young people of the current generation to thrive as the next leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs of the future. And Anaeko is proud to support this event founded by Catalyst by offering resources for their work experience programme 2021. 

The initiative energises the imaginations and aspirations of young people in Northern Ireland by increasing their knowledge of 21st-century skills and awareness of future careers in innovation. The ethos of the program believes that young people are central to unlocking Northern Ireland’s future as a globally renowned knowledge economy. That’s why we put them at the heart of our inspirational community of entrepreneurs, companies and education leaders.

The work experience programme is for ambitious 17–18-year-olds interested in up-skilling for the jobs of the future. Students receive Design Thinking training over the course of five days, learning how to work as part of a new team made up of students from across Northern Ireland. The new skills are then put to the test by solving a company challenge by developing a solution, before pitching it to the partner company and their fellow students.

The 2021 Programme will engage with 600 students in June for a fully virtual work experience programme, working with some of the most successful and dynamic companies in Northern Ireland including Anaeko.

So, what does a typical training week look like? This past week, the latest cohort of young people had to look at the challenge of ‘improving the school commute’. Below we wanted to show what a typical program looks like from start to finish, to give a real idea about what you can expect.

Generation Innovation 2021

Challenge Statement – Improving school commute 

Definition: Travelling to and from school poses a lot of issues, including the obvious like congestion and contributing to a build-up of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, it has also been found that long-term effects of dealing with a stressful commute can be significant, including depression, ongoing anxiety, and a dread of the commute cycle. 

Question: We at Anaeko develop systems to better improve both individuals’ wellbeing and the environment. Can you as a team come up with a solution that could reduce both the congestion and emissions associated with the commute to school? Additionally, on top of reducing both previously mentioned environmental issues, could this solution also improve the commute, so it is a safe and more pleasurable experience for both students’ and parents? 

This challenge was then put to Generation Innovation for review, and they were very happy with it; so much so that they asked us to get involved for week one and week three. Each of these weeks Varsha Modake and Dylan Wall from Anaeko were required to stick to the following agenda:

Tuesday: 11-12:10pm – Expert Interview 

Thursday: 10:20-11:25am – Testing 

Thursday: 12:50-1:30pm – Company Expo 

Friday: 10:50 -12pm – Virtual Visit 

Expert Interview – 1 hour with the students to help them get to grips with the challenge statement, ask questions and for you to share you company expertise with the students. This will be an opportunity to hear their initial thoughts and ideas for solutions to the challenge statements and for you to give feedback on these. 

Testing– 1 hour -This is when the young people will share their storyboard with you and you will give input and help shape the final prototype. 

Company Expo – An opportunity for networking and to meet the broad scope of young people on the programme. This will take place on the 4th Floor on Remo. There will be a table assigned to your company that you will join and wait for the young people to jump on and ask questions and find out more about your company. 

Virtual Visit– will last 1 hour and this is up to your company discretion how you shape this for your team(s). We would ask that the main requirement – the pitching of their final solution to the Senior Team and providing the teams with feedback – is kept in place and anything additional is built around that. With any additional time (this would be at your company discretion and within Covid guidelines) within the hour we would suggest that you could include a Q&A with Company reps (Varsha and Dylan).

To find out how to apply, and more about Catalyst,click HERE.