Cornwall Opportunities
www.hertzian.co.uk
Interview with We met with Chris, the Chief Exec. and Co-Founder of Hertzian, a global AI company based in Cornwall, to talk about the AI sector in Cornwall and pathways into it: What would you say to someone of any age thinking about going into the AI industry or changing careers into one that includes AI? (Chris) It’s not a bad decision, there’s plenty of scope for jobs and opportunities, but I would say there’ll be a lot of learning to do. AI in relative terms is a brand new field, but ultimately anyone that’s going into the space of AI will be pioneering new technology and skillsets, so you’ll need plenty of ambition and energy to learn because it’s a whole new frontier. If you had the choice now, would you go down the university path again or would you do an AI apprenticeship? (Chris) I have to be very careful what I say here because it’s not one-size-fits-all. I wouldn’t change going to university, but if I had to pick one, I would pick an apprenticeship. I had to go to university to end up where I am today, with a business. That’s not to say I wouldn’t recommend going to do an apprenticeship though, they’re a very effective way for people to get industry relevant skills, and job experience. The future is only ever going to be more technical, more digital, more AI. And whilst AI apprenticeships don’t really exist yet, digital apprenticeships do. And we teach some AI components on the apprenticeships at Truro College. So, taking a digital apprenticeship is never going to be a bad thing for people. Even if it’s not necessarily completely AI, it’ll provide those foundations to then go on and learn about AI. (Chris) Exactly, digital and AI in the future will be in every domain, much like computers or the internet today. But that’s not to say you need to become an expert in AI. Not everyone that drives is a car mechanic! Yet people still know how to drive a car. Using AI and building AI are two very different things. Who doesn’t use an Alexa or Siri, that’s AI!
What comments do you have about AI and its inclusivity of women? (Chris) Inclusivity for women and AI starts with inclusivity for women and technology. The first thing to say is that there is a really amazing career history of women in digital and women in technology having huge impacts and making significant contributions. People might say that it’s male-dominated because men are better at it, and it’s simply not true. There aren’t enough women taking an interest in programming, but I think it’s because they don’t feel it’s necessarily their discipline, or right for them, which isn’t necessarily the case. One of my best programmers was a woman, and now she works for Goldman Sachs. So, promoting stories like Margaret Hamilton at NASA is a really good way to show young women that there are these fantastic role models in this sector which they can aspire to follow. It’s really important that we consciously make an effort to include women, especially when you’re talking about AI as well. AI might be having a negative impact on people’s lives because it’s making biases, and so you need diversity to bring a different perspective that can pick up on those biases. Even in recruitment, just language in job proposals and AI systems producing job adverts with male dominating language, will take a woman working in AI to identify that it’s sexist, and needs to be changed.
The other sector spotlight for this magazine is on care, do you have any comments on merging AI and care together? (Chris) Yes, loads! We work with the NHS and one of the examples from us is hospitals giving us patient and staff survey data, and obviously when you’re in a hospital and you’ve got thousands and thousands of questionnaires, you can’t read them all and figure out what’s right or wrong in the hospital. So, the NHS responsibly gives us those questionnaires, we analyse all of them using AI technology, and then we give the hospital a report telling them what things are good or bad. Some of these items can include patients complaining so it gives the hospital a really easy road map to say, ok, these are the things that are not working well. In that respect, analysing the patient and staff survey data has a direct impact on improving the quality of care for patients.
I should add that, just because the NHS might know what the issues are, it isn’t always an easy thing to fix. They do their best, with what they have!
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