Blog - Oldfield Consultancy

Technological Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence.

September 1, 2021

Technological Entrepreneurship and Artificial Intelligence. By Miki Okilo More often than not, the greatest start up ideas do not make it to the commercialization stage and very few start ups are actually successful enough to lead industries. Now this is a rather strange problem considering the fact that technological gaps around the world are closing as a result of globalization and easier access to resources. A recent study showed that the greatest innovations are technologies that went beyond laboratory inventions to products that actually solved a need and were a right fit for the market. This has informed most entrepreneurs on the need to pay as much attention to market needs as they pay to their inventions. Market research and functional analysis of products could be more accurately carried out when Artificial Intelligence is applied. A strong area of application is in the process and management of large unstructured customer datasets. In the past when there was little or no progress in this field, market research for product fit could take up months or even years to complete. It often led to misleading assumptions about the market that turned out to be counterproductive. Currently, AI offers an opportunity to

Oldfield Consultancy working in Anthropomorphism and Philosophy of AI for MOD Cyber

August 26, 2021

By Marie Oldfield CStat, CSci, FIScT Oldfield Consultancy has won a bid with Sirius Analytics to provide expert input to the Ministry of Defence. Our Director, Marie Oldfield, is an academic and industry expert in themes such as Anthropomorphism, Ethics, Behaviour analysis and Philosophy and so has been personally asked to support the integration of new AI systems. Marie said: “It is an honour to be asked to personally support this extremely valuable undertaking and as a consultancy, we are very proud to be delivering on this theme.”

Analytical Modelling in the UK Government Published in AI and Ethics Special Collection

July 6, 2021

Read the published paper here In the last decade, the UK Government has attempted to implement improved processes and procedures in modelling and analysis in response to the Laidlaw report of 2012 and the Macpherson review of 2013. The Laidlaw report was commissioned after failings during the Intercity West Coast Rail (ICWC) Franchise procurement exercise by the Department for Transport (DfT) that led to a legal challenge of the analytical models used within the exercise. The Macpherson review looked into the quality assurance of Government analytical models in the context of the experience with the Intercity West Coast franchise competition. This paper examines what progress has been made in the 8 years since the Laidlaw report in model building and best practise in government and proposes several recommendations for ways forward. This paper also discusses the Lords Science and Technology Committees of June 2020 that analysed the failings in the modelling of COVID. Despite going on to influence policy, many of the same issues raised within the Laidlaw and Macpherson Reports were also present in the Lords Science and Technology Committee enquiry. We examine the technical and organisational challenges to progress in this area and make recommendations for a way forward.