In its Autumn Budget, the UK Government made a commitment to transform the business rates over the parliament into a fairer system that supports investment and is fit for the 21st century. Businesses have raised concerns that the business rates system disincentivises investment and is slow to respond to changing economic conditions. They have called for response.
Omnipy and whyqd (/wɪkɪd/) are independently-developed Python libraries offering general functionality for auditable and executable metadata mappings. In this project, we will integrate Omnipy and Whyqd to develop executable mappings that transform existing metadata from biodiversity projects, such as ERGA, to conform to the FGA-WG metadata model, kickstarting the process of FAIRifying genome annotation GFF3 files.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation developed a compact to support The Gambia's education development with a focus on ensuring the digital readiness of secondary schools. Ensuring appropriate support requires knowledge of what already exists, and what the limits are to digital readiness.
whyqd (/wɪkɪd/) is a curatorial toolkit intended to produce well-structured and predictable data for research analysis. It provides an intuitive method for schema-to-schema data transforms for research data reuse, and for restructuring ugly data to conform to a standardised metadata schema. It supports data managers and researchers looking to rapidly, and continuously, ensure schema interoperability for tabular data using a simple series of steps. Once complete, you can import wrangled data into more complex analytical systems or full-feature wrangling tools.
This project pilots the World Bank Global Data Regulation Toolkit, an integrated qualitative diagnostic tool that is designed to support a landscape analysis of a given country's existing data regulation framework and practices to enable effective and trustworthy use of data for economic development. The Toolkit is structured around key enablers and safeguards needed to support countries' transition to a data-driven and digital economy, and government and society, based on trust, equity, and value.
West London Alliance (WLA) Councils required a detailed evidence base at a time of changing policy and external drivers. Town centres and out-of-centre retail clusters have been changed over time by economic, social, technological and environmental trends influencing how and why we visit these places. WLA Councils want to respond to policy changes and create thriving and resilient urban centres.
The Mayor's Resilience Fund is the Mayor Sadiq Khan’s £1m innovation programme to support London’s businesses and community groups in their recovery from the coronavirus crisis, and to ensure they’re better prepared for future emergencies. The Activating High Streets Challenge aimed to create a data service that will aggregate multiple data sources related to vacant properties on high streets to enable the utilisation and occupation of empty spaces.
'Levelling up' was a political policy intended to reduce the imbalances, primarily economic, between areas and social groups across the United Kingdom. The 2020 Treasury spending review announced a £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund for interim capital investment in local infrastructure. Local authorities were ranked into three tiers by need, and invited to submit project bids by June 2021. The first round focused on transport projects, town centre and high street regeneration, and cultural investment.
As alternative air mobility systems emerge, deconflicting airspace becomes more challenging. The Connected Places Catapult commissioned research to discover what data sources exist, or need to exist, to support airspace design and decision-support, while ensuring compliance with regulatory, environmental, safety and social obligations? To what extent are these data and infrastructure – data structure and device architecture – interoperable through metadata standards and appropriate legislation, and how compatible are their licenses for commercial and regulatory accessibility?
Spatial econometric data are critical for analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on business distribution and investment, and for support for post-pandemic reconstruction. Millions of people are working from home for the first time. Workplaces are, according to Google Mobility Trends, seeing 54% fewer people. The UK government was grappling with both the need for quarantine, and with the economic impact of that quarantine. They needed spatial economic insight.
London is full of unused spaces that could be used for temporary housing, workspaces, parks, community gardens and retail, otherwise known as meanwhile uses, but are not. Leaving sites empty is costly, and in a city where land is at a premium, meanwhile use can improve the development process and offer affordable space for the next generation of entrepreneurs, artists and activists to emerge and experiment.
openLocal is a quarterly-updated commercial location database, aggregating open data on vacancies, rental valuations, rates & ratepayers, into an integrated time-series database of individual retail, industrial, office and leisure business units.
Following on from our work for the [Public Health Research Data Form](/portfolio/2013/11/insight-into-public-health-research-data-management/) into research data management, Whyt*hawk* collaborated with the WHO and Gates Foundation to research challenges for cross-border health data sharing, with the specific focus on pandemics and pandemic-preparedness.
National Statistics Offices (NSOs) have the potential to play a pivotal role in the implementation of open data initiatives. As producers and curators of data, the objective of making high quality data more accessible and usable is consistent with their guiding principles.
The Public Health Research Data Forum are a group of major international funders of public health research. They have committed to work together to increase the availability of data emerging from their funded research, in order to accelerate advances in public health.
Healthcare institutions are busy places. A 400-bed hospital can see hundreds of thousands of patients a year. Millions of blood tests will be taken, analysed and the results sent back for diagnosis and medical intervention. The chance of error is small, often only 2 in every 1,000 tests, but the consequences can be enormous. And, with so many tests being processed, even a small chance of error means that thousands take place in every hospital, every year.
The community benefit organisation (CBO) sector is by far the largest and most diverse in South Africa. It makes up 8% of GDP and is able to command the expenditure of R13 billion per year with a staff 650,000 employees and volunteers. Mining, the next biggest sector, is only 6% of the economy. Yet, despite this volume and capital, the CBO sector is relatively unknown in terms of their impact and alignment with community needs. There is very little that you can buy in the commercial sector (from hair-care products, to clothes, to specialised hydraulic equipment) that isn't somewhere rated in comparison to peer offerings and the needs of the consumer. CBOs are not.
In 2001 Gavin Chait was invited as one of the judges in a large-scale, traditional, business plan competition. During the awards ceremony, at which prizes worth R1million were awarded, a previous entrant (who had not won) was given the opportunity to present his experiences. He declared, 'It is impossible to make money unless you are already rich.' Gavin felt that, if this were true, then development in South Africa would be impossible. He approached Barrie Terreblanche of Big News, a newspaper aimed at supporting entrepreneurs, with an idea. Would it be possible to start a business with only R1,000?
Enablis aims to support and assist entrepreneurs in any business sector who are advancing information and communication technology (ICT) through innovation, new product development and applications, or opening up digital connectivity and opportunities. The Enablis Business Report ICT Entrepreneur Challenge offers 10 winning entrepreneurs a total of R5-million in possible financing by way of loan guarantees, R50,000 each in specialized, expert business assistance and advice, as well as a range of great business prizes including computers, printers and software.
Proudly South African launched their 'Homegrown Awards' in late 2004, a new initiative to celebrate the best Proudly South African companies and products and the people behind them. The annual awards programme. According to CEO Martin Feinsten, the award is intended to 'shine the spotlight on Proudly South African member companies who are making a real contribution to the promotion of South African innovation, employment, exports and consumer choice.'
South Africa's post-Apartheid economy was distorted with significant youth unemployment. Stimulating economic development required a combination of new financial models, scalable capacity-building, and new market development. Business Beat was one of South Africa's most successful economic initiatives.
With near 40% unemployment in the Western Cape, the local Government recognised the potential of tourism to play a significant role in job creation. They wish to undertake a comprehensive survey of towns and regions across the Western Cape, including of all socio-economic demographics, to assess what potential exists, and how the Government of the Western Cape may play a supportive role.
