Innovate UK

Workforce Foresighting Hub Episode 5 – Satellite Applications Catapult Case Study

In episode 5, we welcome Kathie Bowden from the Satellite Applications Catapult, and Bethan McAulay of Astroscale, to discuss their experience of workforce foresighting.

After recently completing a workforce foresighting report for the UK space sector, the knowledgeable pair go into detail on the challenges facing the sector and the actions needed to prepare the workforce to adapt to future skills requirements.

They also talk about their experience of the Workforce Foresighting Hub process and how they have benefitted from participating in a foresighting cycle.

Click here to download the transcript.

Workforce Foresighting Hub - Episode 4: Coaches Corner

The Workforce Foresighting Hub coaches are at the heart of the WF Hub programme. They work closely with all participants to ensure everything runs smoothly and offer advice and guidance throughout the workshops. So, who better to get on the podcast to discuss the WF Hub process with?

For this episode, WF Hub coaches Satchin Semage, Jack Lockhart and Samantha Yair discuss their background in skills and share the insights they have learned from the workshops.

Download the transcript

Read more about the series and listen to previous episodes

Workforce Foresighting Hub - Episode 3: Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult – a WFH Case Study

Our third episode sees us speak to Andrew Esson, Future Skills Lead at Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult.

ORE Catapult were part of one of the first Workforce Foresighting Hub cycles, where they looked into preparing the workforce for future challenges in the offshore floating wind sector. In this episode, we hear about ORE Catapult’s experience in the programme, how they benefitted from it and what they learned along the way.

Read the transcript: https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Workforce-Foresighting-Hub-episode-3-transcript.pdf 

Series page: https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/news/workforce-foresighting-hub-podcast-series/

You can also watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/muMKi0Ig3AM 

 

Silent Designers Episode 8 - Recorded Live

Explore the transformative power of design as you listen to the Silent Designers’ podcast finale, recorded live. Our panel of Catapult’s Design network experts will share firsthand insights on leveraging multidisciplinary design for innovation in your business. Engage directly with industry leaders and gain practical strategies to integrate design thinking into your projects.

Why watch?

• Learn actionable strategies to embed design thinking into your innovation projects.
• Gain firsthand knowledge from industry leaders, empowering you to redefine the scope and impact of design in your business.

Who is featured?

Our hosts, Steve Welch and Katherine Wildman, are excited to welcome our speakers:

• Pete Broadbent, Connected Design Team Lead at Connected Places Catapult
• Rob Maslin, Design Lead at Satellite Applications Catapult
• Teresa Miquel, Senior Insights and Analytics Manager at Digital Catapult

Find all episodes at https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/news/silent-designers-podcast-series/ .

You can also watch this episode as a video on YouTube.

Workforce Foresighting Hub - Episode 2: Introducing the Workforce Foresighting Hub

The second episode looks at how the Workforce Foresighting Hub programme and the wider Skills Value Chain approach can address the UK skills challenge.

We’re joined by WF Hub coaches Steve Picker and John Lanham who explain what the programme consists of and how it works, as well as how we can use insights and data to inform how we prepare for the future.

Download the episode transcript.

Workforce Foresighting Hub - Episode 1: What is the skills challenge?

In the first episode of the series, we are joined by Workforce Foresighting Hub Lead Consultants John Lanham and Paul Shakspeare to delve into the UK skills challenge.

John has worked in the higher education and skills sector for over 30 years and has been part of the work to develop the Workforce Foresighting Hub for the last five years.

Paul is an engineer who spent most of his career working on how we train and educate people in various fields, which is how he initially met John. They now work together as consultants to help deliver the ambitions of the Workforce Foresighting Hub programme.

The pair examine what exactly the skills challenge is, why it is important and how it impacts the UK.  As well as this, they discuss what has been done to address this challenge so far and what can be done to ensure UK organisations have a skilled workforce ready to adapt to new capabilities aligned with emerging technology and innovation.

Click here to download the episode transcript.

KTN Age Innovators - Episode 4: Activating Our Ageing Population

Innovate UK’s Knowledge Transfer Manager, Karen Wilkinson, introduces listeners to leading researchers and innovators whose work has the potential to support us as we age.  

Brought to you by the Healthy Ageing Challenge Community of Practice, hosted by Innovate UK, this series spotlights the pioneering innovations being developed to shape the future of our longevity and explores the inspiration behind the work that’s currently taking place.  

Episode 4: Activating Our Ageing Population 

How can technology and innovation support us as we age? And how on earth might they make someone’s kitchen bigger? In this episode of The Age Innovators, host Julia Glenn, Design Innovation Lead from the Innovate UK Healthy Ageing Challenge, talks to John Hymus, MD of Innerva - the healthy ageing, therapy, and rehabilitation solution, to explore these questions and more. 

Bringing intelligent technology into the care market Innerva is a UK-based designer and manufacturer of power-assisted exercise and wellbeing equipment, which provides a ‘helping hand’ in a low impact, full-body workout circuit for exercisers who demand to work smart and effectively.  

Innerva users include the over 65s and people living with disabilities, those with poor mobility, people with long-term health conditions and those in need of rehabilitation therapies.  

Join Julia and John as they discuss how Innerva's exercise equipment works, the benefits of isokinetic strength training in rehabilitation, and the company's mission to promote healthy and active aging. John will walk you through the practical aspects, providing insights into how Innerva aims to help people improve their daily movement. 

Learn how digitising exercise equipment is enabling data capture and gamification, the importance of co-design and testing the user experience in live environments, and why the Innerva team is continually iterating to produce equipment that’s both engaging and effective.  

John also reveals the five elements of healthy ageing, the research methodologies encouraging a community of people to exercise together, and the power of social wellbeing to combat loneliness and drive behaviour change. Oh, and he reveals the secret to the expanding kitchen too. 

Click here to download the episode transcript.

KTN Age Innovators - Episode 3: The Medicine of Cricket

Episode 3 — The Medicine of Cricket 

Can sport break down the barriers around ethnicity, age, and gender? In this, the third episode of Age Innovators, host Helen Crampin, Innovation and Technology Lead from the Innovate UK Healthy Ageing Challenge, talks to Alosh K Jose, co-founder and CEO of Newcastle-based Cricketqube, to explore this question and more.  

Cricketqube is an evidence- and data-backed Community Interest Company. The company’s aim is to make cricket accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds. Founders Anish John— a former international indoor cricketer who has represented India at the senior level—and former schools cricketer, Alosh K Jose, identified that the older South Asian members of their local community in Newcastle lacked access to accessible—and affordable–activities that could maintain and increase their health and fitness.  

“When there is a financial crisis, paying for physical activity is one of the first things to be cut. The South Asian community in the UK, especially Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, have the lowest median income across any ethnic group in the UK, so paying for activities is out of the question.” - Alosh K Jose, co-founder and CEO of Cricketqube 

With their understanding of the different cultural nuances, religious sentiments, and connections within the wider South Asian community, Cricketqube has tailored an innovative programme that’s successfully encouraging their target audience to participate in games of cricket as a way to stay fit and well. 

 “I wanted to democratise access to cricket and make sure anyone who wants to can play, whether they’ve got access to a club or don’t have the hundreds of pounds you need to buy the kit.” - Alosh K Jose, co-founder and CEO of Cricketqube 

• Discover how Alosh and Anish’s approach has managed to change people’s perceptions and behaviours within the South Asian community.  
• Listen to how they’ve nurtured a growing community space where people of all ages and from all religions and subcultures are sharing skills, sharing food, and making new friends and connections.  
• And learn how evidence and data from the project and its resulting collaborations are driving new and similar projects—including the development of an app—to ensure exercise and activity is accessible and available to minority communities across the UK. 

Click here to download the episode transcript.

Age Innovators - Episode 2: Supporting Healthy Ageing At Work

In this episode of ‘Age Innovators’, Innovate UK’s Knowledge Transfer Manager, Karen Wilkinson, introduces listeners to leading researchers and innovators whose work has the potential to support us as we age.  

Brought to you by the Healthy Ageing Challenge Community of Practice, hosted by Innovate UK, this series spotlights the pioneering innovations being developed to shape the future of our longevity and explores the inspiration behind the work that’s currently taking place.  

Supporting Healthy Ageing at Work 

In today’s older workforce, the fact that one in three people is aged 50 or over poses myriad issues for our economy, social wellbeing, and our health and wellbeing. With around 20% of people in their fifties retiring before they choose to because of health issues, this episode of Age Innovators explores whether a deeper understanding and the provision of more practical and relevant support could help to change that statistic. 

Our host Elaine Douglas, Associate Professor in Ageing at the University of Stirling, talks to Wendy Loretto, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, and Dr Belinda Steffan, Senior Research Fellow both from the SHAW project at the University of Edinburgh Business School (UEBS) and to Mike Douglas, Director of Age Scotland. 

The SHAW project (Supporting Healthy Ageing at Work) at UEBS is exploring how we might extend healthy ageing in the workplace so that workers have a high quality of working life for longer. The project is inviting employers, employees, professional bodies, and other key stakeholders to come together with the aim of deepening our understanding of how best to support, enable, and empower people over 50 to remain in work. 

We hear how the project’s research into the impact of hidden health issues like the muscular skeletal impact of sedentary work, cognitive ageing and decline, and menopause is leading to the development of practical help, including:  

• The launch of a new research-based app with an AI chatbot interface that will give the over-50s a better understanding of their health and empower employees to ask for the support they need from their managers. 
• A co-designed diagnostic menopause support tool which aims to reduce the number of women leaving work due to challenging menopause symptoms and improve workplace culture around menopause awareness. 

“The first thing that comes to my mind when imagining the ideal future workplace for an older worker? More individualised support to support a range of both visible and hidden health factors—and a reduction in the tension around discussing heath issues and the removal of taboo and stigma as we increase awareness.” - Belinda Steffan, Senior Research Fellow at The University of Edinburgh Business School 

You’ll discover how the provision of a safe platform can be the key to unlocking powerful conversations in the workplace around sensitive or taboo issues. Learn how the ongoing research has already identified the important role line managers can play in supporting people’s health. And find out how a training course developed by Age Scotland is upskilling employers to have the conversations needed to create more inclusive and supportive workplace cultures. 

The team’s person-centric approach is breaking down barriers and beginning to transform older people’s experiences at work for the better, enabling people to better understand—and communicate—their health support needs.  

“We’re all different, and those differences become more apparent as we age. Whether that’s the state of our health, our life circumstances, and how and when we choose to retire. We all have a role to play in challenging the myth of the ideal worker who’s always in peak health and is always productive. When it comes to policy, we need to move the conversation forward so we can accept people as they are and empower them to ask for the help they need to feel supported at work.” - Wendy Loretto, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at The University of Edinburgh

Silent Designers Episode 7 - Yasmin Ali, RWE

Can design take us to unexpected places?  

In this, seventh episode of Silent Designers, this month’s guest, Yasmin Ali, explores the theme of Net Zero and Sustainable Technologies, discusses the unexpected ways in which hydrogen could decarbonise our world, and reveals the most effective deployments of hydrogen happening in industry today. 

Award-winning chartered engineer, Yasmin Ali, is a Hydrogen Project Development Manager at RWE—a leading supplier of renewables worldwide. She’s also the author of the book Power Up, which looks at global energy systems and the energy transition.

Join us as Yasmin explains the impact of design on her work and her interpretation of the word ‘design’ and what it means to her. 

“For many people, the word ‘design’ conjures up images of fashion or graphic design. I think of it more as a thinking process to come up with a way of solving a problem or achieving something that hasn’t been done before.”  - Yasmin Ali, Hydrogen Project Development Manager at RWE 

 Listen as Yasmin: 

• Explores the importance of habit change in the adoption of hydrogen as a renewable energy 
• Explains how she applies design thinking to enhance her working relationships and communications 
• Reveals why her love of the energy sector and of writing resulted in the publication of Power Up

“It’s interesting to see what happens when you think about design differently and incorporate design thinking to creative problem solving.” - Yasmin Ali, Hydrogen Project Development Manager at RWE