Scaling NQM's domestic IoT and smart-city delivery with six new Solent-region engineering jobs
Growth funding that built NQM's permanent engineering team for domestic IoT and smart-city delivery.
The Challenge
By 2015 NquiringMinds had proven its IoT and smart-city data platform in trials — including a sophisticated home heating management system running on commercially available in-home hardware with local and remote analytic control — and had won a two-year, three-council deployment of its Open Data Publishing Platform and Internet of Things Hub (Hampshire, Liverpool and Cambridge). The constraint on growth was no longer technology but people: the company had until then delivered through contractors and needed a permanent, local engineering team to industrialise its domestic IoT and smart-city delivery.
The Solution
Under the Bridging the Gap programme, NQM scaled from a contractor model to a permanent in-house team, creating six full-time roles in the Solent region — data scientists, an embedded communications engineer, a JavaScript developer and an office manager — recruited from Q2 2015 through Q1 2016 to deliver the councils’ platform work and continue the connected-home/IoT product line.
Outcomes
The recorded outcome is the growth itself: six additional jobs created (two already in post at full application), a permanent local engineering capability, and delivery capacity for the Open City Data Platform contract and subsequent programmes.
Features
2 × Data Scientist (plus a Senior Data Scientist already hired at application), Embedded Communications Engineer, JavaScript Developer, Office Manager.
Growth underpinned by the in-trial home heating management system (domestic IoT) and the UbiApps IoT management framework.
Delivery capacity for the Open Data Publishing Platform / IoT Hub contract to Hampshire, Liverpool and Cambridge councils.
Benefits
Six additional skilled jobs created in the Solent region by Q1 2016; transition from contractor delivery to a permanent local engineering team.
Domestic-IoT and data-science capability that fed into NQM's later smart-city and health/care programmes.
Indirect local employment via sensor installation work (installation and electrical engineers engaged by councils/facilities managers).
Volt features used
Related Sectors
Healthcare
The healthcare sector comprises a wide array of services, from hospitals and clinics to medical device manufacturing and pharmaceuticals. It is a vital sector that touches everyone's lives.
Public Sector
The public sector spans central and local government, councils and public services. Data-driven decision making helps these organisations plan services, allocate resources and improve outcomes for the communities they serve.