TIME TO STARTUP? A SU

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WINTER2014
2014
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2014
TIME TO
STARTUP?
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TIME TO STARTUP?
STARTUPS
04 HIT THE ACCELERATOR
SECURITY
10 CYBER WAR
HEALTH
12 TECHNOLOGY IN HEALTHCARE
...THE REST
14 COMPUTER ARTS
EDITORIAL TEAM
Henry Tucker Editor-in-Chief
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STARTUPS
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HIT
THE
ACCELERATOR
One of the ways in which companies can grow is to join an accelerator. Toby Kress runs the London
Accelerator. He spoke to Henry Tucker MBCS about it.
04
ITNOW December 2014
Accelerator London is the London Met
University’s business incubator space. It’s
a real-world ecosystem of startup
companies, growing businesses that
connects to the university.
We have about 30 startups, mostly in
the technology space, anywhere from a
team of founders up to about 30 people.
Around that we run student enterprise
programmes so that the next generation
of founders and young entrepreneurs can
come and connect with the founders in
the building, get the skills, knowledge and
confidence, so that when they graduate
they can start their own businesses.
What services do you provide, why do
companies come to you instead of going
out on their own?
There are lots of options now for startup
companies, technology companies, growing
companies, especially in London and in
TechCity where Accelerator is based. They
range from different verticals, so you have
accelerators and incubators that help one
particular industry, that could be healthcare or finance and then there are different
accelerators that help companies at different stages of growth. We specialise in
helping companies that are post-revenue
or seed round funding, growing to a round
A of investment. Usually when they join us
they are a small team and when they leave
us they are 10-20 people and they have
raised over £1 million.
What those companies get when they
join the Accelerator is a fantastic office
space right in the heart of TechCity, but
more than that they get a community. We
select the companies that come into the
accelerator very carefully to be part of this
ecosystem.
That peer-to-peer support is incredibly
valuable when you are a growing company
because you are not going through this
alone and you’re not going through unique
experiences. There are companies that
could be six months or a year ahead of
you, that can be really valuable in the
decisions and mistakes they’ve made
and feeding that back into the young
companies that come into the accelerator.
So that’s part of the value we provide.
We also have mentorship and
December 2014 ITNOW
05
STARTUPS
Image: iStock/520196589
We never really get people who turn us
down because it does add value, but it is
completely optional for them.
connections to industry and finance, so it is
a general support package for companies
to take some of that admin and strain off
them and allow them to focus on growing
their business, which is what they are
great at.
How do you judge the companies that
come to you?
There are three main areas that we look at
when we get applicants. One is the market
for their idea, there has to be demand for
one-on-one, and we actually introduce
them to some of the startups in the
building too because we believe it’s that
relationship that’s really important too. The
ones that we think have potential, we bring
them in and help them grow from one to
two years.
So what sort of services do the mentors
provide?
Mentors provide a whole range of support
and advice for the companies in here and
TechCity and London is now the third largest
tech hub in the world after New York and
San Francisco.
what they are looking to supply. Second is
the idea and the industry space that they
are in and third it’s the team.
We get lots and many of them don’t
make the interview stage. Those that we
believe in, we get them in for an interview,
06
ITNOW December 2014
we have a range of mentors. Half of the
mentors are founders themselves,
people who have been through this process themselves and they can feed back
some of that learning. We have mentorship
that happens in the building, we have the
startup companies that are in here who
will mentor the students from London Met
University that come in here and then we
have outside mentors who have had
successful exits from companies who can
come back and feed in their knowledge to
the companies in the space.
Now that can take a couple of forms, our
group of mentors can come in and have
an area of expertise that you can tap into
as and when you need it, or you can start
a one-on-one relationship with a mentor
and have someone to go back to, a kind
of sounding board, as you progress your
company.
Is it compulsory or is it voluntary?
It is completely voluntary for the
companies who are in here, but we do select
companies that do want to engage with us.
There is no point coming to a business
incubator if you just want to be on your own
and grow the business yourself, it’s very
much about connecting with the community
and connecting with the support structure.
What is it about the silicon roundabout
area that has made it such a hub for the
UK’s entrepreneurial tech space?
TechCity is an interesting geographical space,
it has an interesting history. Shoreditch
has been the home of creativity and the
arts scene for decades it’s got that vitality
about the area.
That brings good bars, good restaurants,
good nightlife, a good social scene. It is
also right on the doorstep of the city, so it
has access to finance, that kind of connection
between industry and creativity and over
the last five to 10 years it has just been
incredible to see that kind of technology
sector bloom in this area for those reasons
because of the natural resources here.
As that has grown organically, obviously
initiatives like TechCity have come in and
put an umbrella over it and shone a light on
it internationally, which means London is
now attracting the best talents and the most
investment from around the world.
TechCity and London is now the third
largest tech hub in the world after New York
and San Francisco. It’s actually the fastest
growing and we are really excited to be right
in the middle of it and feel that the location
is another added bonus to the company.
The TechCity initiative is a government led
one, do you think that it’s a good idea? Do
you think there should be any government
intervention in things like this?
I think it is important to say that this was
happening anyway. It isn’t a government
driven exercise, it is an organic group of
organisations who have come together
and seen a power in being in that one
space, going to the same bars, bumping
into people and there is a real value in that
for organisations.
I think what something like TechCity
has done is to amplify that. It has added
value in terms of showing that message
internationally and help to bring in more
talent from overseas. The government
has had good initiatives, things like the
The Startup view - Quinn Koike CEO and co-founder EthicalBox
What services have you made use of?
We have tapped into lots of things,
mistakes people have made who are
slightly further down the line.
For example to do with SCIS
investment, which is key for startups,
getting your application in early is such
a great piece of advice that I got from
someone in here who has made that
mistake.
You also get to mentor people who
aren’t as far along as you and it is
said that teaching is the best form of
learning. It’s mainly the community
that hands out pieces of advice during
that conversation and a lot of it is
really helpful.
How have you benefitted from being
in the accelerator?
The accelerator works in two ways.
Firstly it’s to develop your idea, to see
if it can be validated and if it can and
you start making sales, you then move
on to the second stage.
This is development and that really
is for as long as you want to be here.
The accelerator subsidises your rent,
you can stay here as long as you like
and hopefully get big enough that the
space here isn’t enough.
implement them and they were some
of the best ideas that we had for the
company.
Get out there, even if it’s only on
a small scale, on the street doing
guerrilla campaigns seeing if people
want what you are doing, validating it
and then building networks.
We are raising our second funding
round and that is purely through
networks, from in the building and
people we have met through the
building.
What advice would you give to other
startups?
You’ve got to get out there and just do
it. We sat on ideas before and we didn’t
Watch the full interview online at:
www.bcs.org/video
December 2014 ITNOW
07
STARTUPS
The Startup view - James Critchley CEO Cloud IQ
How have you found it starting a
company in the UK?
I’ve built and run technology companies
in the past and the thing about this
location is the skills that are available
to you.
We have people from all over
Europe and the world, London and the
guys in TechCity have done really well
turning it into a magnet for talent. We
have been able to attract really good
talent to a startup, which can be quite
a challenge.
There is a skills shortage, so getting
someone to work for a startup, instead
of taking a £100,000 salary, is quite a
tough decision.
I would say, for the business that we
are in, what we are doing, London and
TechCity is perfect.
Do you make use of the mentors?
Yes we did in the early stages and there
were a lot more of us going to them
and asking them how to find things.
Now we are a couple of years in we
are less dependent on that, we are still
entrepreneurship visa allowing more
people into the country who want to
make this their life. Also changes to the
tax system to make it easier for people
to invest in startups. We all know it is an
incredibly risky area, but lots of people
are interested and that makes it very
exciting. Initiatives like SCIS and EIS, what
the government has done is to take away
some of that risk and allowed a whole
new level of angel investor and individual
investors to come in and that has helped
investment at that early seed stage.
Is there more that the government could
do?
I don’t think it should be government led.
I think what the government is doing with
TechCity is good. Such as going out and
getting feedback from organisations and
feeding that back into No.10 and if they
can make changes to policies that allow it
to take away red tape and allow startups
to do what they do, I think that is how
government could come in a play a role.
08
ITNOW December 2014
working with lots of other businesses
in the building, such as a trademarks
and patents attorney who we work
closely with and quite a few marketing
teams.
That part of it, for me, was really
beneficial early on when we were five
people trying to figure it out.
This place is intended for startups
because it’s incredibly hard starting
up, you need a support infrastructure
around you and it’s great doing it with
people who are in the same sort of
phase as you. It’s lousy doing it from
home, it’s horrible doing it when you
are wasting money on vast bills with
rent and IT infrastructure and things
like that.
The incubator is best used for
getting people up and running so we
are at a natural point where we are
standing on our own two feet.
of them you can avoid. I think if you can
get into somewhere like the incubator,
that’s a good place to start making
some mistakes. You will be around a
bunch of people who will be doing the
same.
When you set up your own business
then you are bloody minded and so
you are unlikely to take advice and you
believe in something and you test it out.
You will probably still make the
same mistakes, the difference will be
that when you are at home working in
your kitchen and you realised the
mistake you’ve made you have no
support network around you.
Compare that to being in a building
like this, where there is a network
of events every week and you get to
know everyone around you. It’s a sense
that you’re not on your own so much,
plus there is support and mentoring.
What advice would you give to other
startups?
I know that I have made a lot of
mistakes and I don’t know how many
Watch the full interview online at:
www.bcs.org/video
What are your thoughts about the UK as a
whole in terms of innovation and
entrepreneurship?
There are obviously hubs outside of London.
Places like Cambridge have amazing
technology and history, they have the
university and the skills and knowledge
there to make that work. They pop up all
over the country and that’s to be
encouraged for the whole nation.
I think what makes places like London,
New York, San Francisco, Berlin and a few
other places in the world special, is that
scalability. When you start to go beyond
what’s possible in smaller cities it starts
getting really exciting. London is only
getting to that level now where we can
create billion dollar companies and we
have had two $2 billion valuations in the
last year and before that, that didn’t really
exist in London.
It is hard to get to that scale in smaller
cities, even if they start outside they will
often move to London or San Francisco.
exciting scalable companies are based
around technology innovations.
What we do here, we are not limited to
technology companies, especially within
our student programme. I mentioned
that Accelerator London is London Met
University’s business accelerator and we
have a whole range of student enterprise
and entrepreneur programmes for
people coming through London Met and
when they graduate starting their own
businesses.
Many of those will come from the CAS,
the school of architecture and design,
so they will be designers, makers and
people who will have a business anything
from one person being self-employed or
a sole trader, up to an agency with a new
creative take on a scalable business. We
give them that early level support across
that whole range. Once they enter the main
accelerator programme having that peer
network where people are going through
a similar journey is valuable, which is
why we get companies together that have
something in common. Often that is with a
use of technology to scale their businesses.
Where do you see the accelerator going
next?
The industry is changing so quickly that it’s
hard to tell. There has been a big shift in
terms of the support structure for startups
in the last few years, terms like incubator
and accelerator are now common language. They are continually being adapted,
a traditional accelerator programme is
12-14 weeks of support and then you are
pushed out the other end.
That’s where someone like us steps in
and helps those companies. We’ve seen
a gap in terms of support after that seed
round. There is a lot of support at that
bottom layer, but that next step is just as
tricky. We step in and see our role in the
ecosystem.
www.bcs.org
The Startup view - Tom Jeffs CTO Lucidica
Certainly the more areas of innovation that
we have the better, but there are always
going to be clusters and they will be
around the major cities.
Most of your startups are technology
based, is that for a particular reason or is
it because technology is booming at the
moment?
There are lots of reasons why people are
starting companies at the moment, that
trend is on an upward curve. One of them
is around technology making it easier to
scale and cheaper and faster to start a
company. It takes a lot of the risk out of
you as an entrepreneur to do this.
There isn’t really a downside, besides
you spending two years of your life on an
idea that doesn’t work. Even if you do that,
the experience that you’ve been through,
the people that you’ve met and the skills
that you have gained will put you in a
better position than you were before. That
is only really possible using technology as
your base, so that is why so many of these
How have you used the accelerator?
With the accelerator staff you get to
bounce ideas off them. When you are
in the accelerator space, one of the
best things about the community is the
community.
It’s not just serviced offices, you
have access to other business owners
within the centre, but also the centre
staff themselves so you can formulate
ideas when you wouldn’t normally
without a large management team.
What advice would you give to other
startups?
Get external guidance in the form of a
decent mentor. Out of all of the things
that I wish I had done earlier in
business is to get a decent mentor.
They need to be someone who can
listen to you talk about your problems
because it can help you consolidate
your thoughts and help solve problems
you probably knew how to deal with,
but you never really stood back and
had a look at the overall picture. If
you can find a mentor who is strong
enough to call you out on various
things then that’s even better.
The other thing would be to find a
space like the accelerator. Find a space
where there is a community, where
there are other entrepreneurs, maybe
not even in the same sector as you.
Entrepreneurs have lots of the same
issues: staff, sales, marketing, finance
so you are able to bounce ideas off
each other and learn from other
people’s mistakes. Why would you
want to make the same mistake that
someone else has made many times
before when you can just ask them?
How do you see the UK as a place for
startups?
I think it’s great, the government and
the UK as a whole has really good
balance of supporting entrepreneurs
and supporting the workforce as a
whole.
I went to a startup bootcamp in
Copenhagen and talked to some of
the entrepreneurs there and they said
other countries are not as encouraging
to entrepreneurs as the UK with things
like the entrepreneurs’ relief and the
investment schemes that are available.
I think this has led to the huge
growth of businesses, certainly within
silicon roundabout and TechCity. I think
we also get much better workforce
protection than say the US, I think the
free labour market is essential for
small businesses unlike some of the
laws on the continent.
I’m encouraged, the UK government
can always do more in order to reduce
bureaucracy and make things easier
for small business. On an almost
monthly business I will curse about
some new initiative that has been
brought in, but generally I think that
the balance is pretty good and I think
London is a fantastic place to start and
run a business.
Watch the full interview online at:
www.bcs.org/video
December 2014 ITNOW
09
INFORMATION SECURITY
CYBERWARS
doi:10.1093/itnow/bwu100 ©2014 The British Computer Society
Image: iStock/93863702
Rob Pritchard MBCS says that
although there are have been some
new security challenges in the
past year, good asset management
means that companies can assess
the problems quickly and plan
accordingly.
In August 2014, as relations between
the West and Russia worsened over the
Ukrainian crisis, US bank JP Morgan Chase
called in the FBI, admitting it had suffered
a significant breach by hackers.
Media reporting, quoting unnamed
officials, quickly claimed the hack attack
originated in Russia, fuelling speculation
the breach was a response to sanctions.
At the beginning of October JP Morgan
Chase revealed the full extent of the
breach admitting that, whilst financial
records had not been accessed, personal
details of some 83 million customers had
potentially been compromised.
This comes on the back of a warning
at the end of September from the FBI to
US businesses ominously entitled ‘Threat
of cyberterrorism and hacktivist activity
in response to US military actions in the
Middle East’.
Against the possibility of Russian
state reprisals for sanctions, and ISIS
cyber warriors, can the modern business
possible be safe?
Attack of the PoS malware
It hasn’t been a good year for US businesses
and cyber security. In November 2013,
during a peak shopping period in the run
up to Thanksgiving, US retail giant Target
was compromised by cyber criminals, who
targeted point of sale terminals with
malicious software (malware).
In less than a month the criminals
successfully stole 40 million credit and
debit card details, alongside some 70
million records that included the name,
address, email and other personal
information on shoppers.
The fallout cost the Target CISO his job,
and the company itself an estimated $148
million by the end of the second quarter
10
ITNOW December 2014
of 2014, as well as a drop in share
price and a bruised reputation. Making
the situation worse was the fact
Target had invested in an intrusion
detection system, which had detected
and alerted on the suspicious activity.
However, due to internal process
failings the warnings were ignored.
A breach of this magnitude through
the use of point of sale malware
should have served as a wakeup call
for the retail sector.
In September 2014 US home
improvement retailer Home Depot
proved otherwise, when it admitted
to a breach by cyber criminals that
had stolen as many as 56 million
credit card details. The criminal
used a variant of the point of sale
malware that had been so successful
against Target. Revelations subsequent
to the breach notification show that
the management of Home Depot had
persistently ignored warnings of poor
security and that key elements of security
software that was deployed were disabled.
The online menace
2014 has also seen organisations having
to deal with the fallout from two significant
vulnerabilities in widely used pieces of
software.
Firstly came Heartbleed, a bug in
OpenSSL which enabled attackers to
iterate through the memory of the target
web server, with the aim of acquiring
sensitive information such as user
credentials, and in some cases even the
private key itself. It was estimated that
approximately 17 per cent of the web’s
secure servers (some half a million
machines) were vulnerable.
Although a patch was available from
operating systems. Initial patches
for the main Linux distributions
were quickly released, though
then subsequently discovered to
only have partially resolved the
problem.
The full impact of Shellshock
is still unravelling. Initial fears
of a wave of website invading
worms appear to have been
unfounded, but there is a steady
list of applications proving
vulnerable, and for which
mitigation is needed before
patches are released. The
number of embedded devices
which are vulnerable, including
potentially common devices
like home routers, remains an
unknown.
the time the vulnerability was made public,
the full exploitable potential of the issue
was debated for a number of days, until
security researchers proved acquiring
private keys from memory was possible.
At this point the race became not only to
patch affected systems, but to revoke and
recreate key pairs and certificates.
Notable incidents resulting from
Heartbleed included the suspension of the
Canada Revenue Agency website following
the compromise of some systems and
potential loss of data, and parenting
website Mumsnet, which was accessed by
hackers using credentials stolen via the
vulnerability.
Following on in the new trend of naming
vulnerabilities was Shellshock. This is a
vulnerability in the Bash shell, whereby
it was possible to execute arbitrary
commands when setting environment
variables.
This is a problem because this method
is used by a number of services, including
some web servers and VPN endpoints, to
pass parameters to the shell that have
been supplied by the client, meaning it is
possible for a malicious client to execute
commands on a target server.
As Heartbleed had done before it,
A new hope
Against the dark forces of insecurity, is
there any hope? Fortunately, yes. A lot can
be learnt from the mistakes of others, and
there are many useful takeaways from this
year’s incidents.
Good asset management, of both software
and hardware, ensures organisations can
quickly assess the risk to them from a new
vulnerability, and effectively plan mitigation.
Shellshock hit the mainstream media
with reports of the imminent demise of
the internet. Managing Shellshock was a
significant challenge - where Heartbleed
was a bug in a single piece of software,
and hence required a single patch, the
Shellshock vulnerability was present in a
range of Bash versions across a range of
Firstly, whilst the perpetrators, and their
motives, of the compromise of JP Morgan
Chase remain unknown the rhetoric around
possible state sponsorship in retaliation for
sanctions has cooled.
Reporting, though unconfirmed by
the bank, indicates the compromise was
initially achieved through a phishing
attack against a bank employee. Phishing
is extremely common and whilst it is
challenging to mitigate against completely,
education can hugely reduce an
organisation’s exposure.
The alarming sounding FBI briefing
was far less worrisome in content than
the title might imply. The threat from ISIS
and supporting groups online is currently
aspirational and, if it materialises, is likely
to consist of little more than attempted
denial of service attacks and website
defacements. Again, these are threats
organisations face every day, and have
established mitigations.
The Target and Home Depot breaches
shows that security is not just a ‘black
box’, which can be dealt with by dropping
in an expensive fix. Security monitoring is
pointless without trained staff using the
tools properly, and a plan for action when
an incident is detected.
Responding to revelations of new and
significant vulnerabilities will remain a
challenge for all organisations, however,
ensuring the basics of security are done
properly makes these events more
manageable.
Good asset management, of both
software and hardware ensures
organisations can quickly assess the risk
to them from a new vulnerability, and
effectively plan mitigation.
Finally, for those responsible for security
these tales of security woe provide ideal
case studies when making the case for
budget for security staff, tools and training.
Learning from the mistakes of others is
much more cost effective than learning
from our own mistakes.
www.bcs.org/security
December 2014 ITNOW
11
HEALTH INFORMATICS
four-fold increase over the last 20 years.’
Now, of course not all consultations can be
completed over the phone and will require
a physical examination to enable a doctor
to make a conclusive assessment. But
what if a doctor could take your vitals while
on a telephone consultation?
TECHNOLOGY IN HEALTHCARE
doi:10.1093/itnow/bwu103 ©2014 The British Computer Society
Image: iStock/520245153
Gareth Baxendale FBCS, Head of Technology, Clinical Research Network, at the National Institute for Health
Research, discusses all things technology-related in the healthcare arena.
It seems an obvious statement that
technology in healthcare is a good thing,
and there are some genuinely amazing
innovations that have made a real
difference to people’s lives;. Consider the
improved quality of life an artificial
pacemaker can offer or the difference that
the simple hearing aid has made to
millions of lives.
I work for the NHS Clinical Research
Network, a part of the wider National
Institute for Health Research. For
me, technology, and its application in
healthcare, is one of the most important
and exciting areas of innovation with its
noble quest to improve our health and
save lives and, yes, perhaps make a profit
on the way for some.
The game of life
Innovation in healthcare technology often
comes from indirect and even unexpected
applications. Take, for example, the Xbox
Kinect, a brilliant piece of technology
12
ITNOW December 2014
allowing a game player to interact with a
game using body movements; no controller
or physical touch is involved.
Not long after its launch Microsoft
Research and surgical staff at St Thomas
Hospital in London began trialling its use in
surgical theatres as it allowed surgeons to
quickly view 3D images without any form of
contact, keeping the environment sterile.
It could be said that technology for gaming
is now being adopted in situations where life
and death are quite literally at play.
We have all heard about Google Glass
and this too has found its way into the
surgical theatre and trials are underway to
consider its use.
Recently a doctor in Madrid used Google
Glass to stream a live surgical procedure
to doctors located at 300 universities and
hospitals on five continents. A remarkable
‘use case’ for Google’s Glass, it must be
acknowledged.
So you would imagine that as we
progress into 2015 that we are seeing
cutting edge technology being rapidly
adopted across the healthcare spectrum.
Sadly though, we see areas where
technology appears to be ‘dragging its feet’
so to speak. The ‘telemedicine’ approach
and mobile monitoring of patient stats has
been on the go for many years, and where
we should be seeing this as a field of
mature technology that has reduced costs,
as well as re-admissions, it is really still in
its infancy with many projects still in the
early stages or simply stalled.
To be fair though, perhaps our own
personal and social views on the use of
technology in healthcare may be partly to
blame. It’s only in recent years that people
feel more at ease with a simple telephone
consultation with their doctor as opposed
to sitting endlessly in a waiting room
reading a crumpled edition of House and
Home magazine from 2009.
The NHS reported, in August, that:
‘around 12 per cent of GP consultations are
now done over the phone – representing a
Wearable health technology
So it’s at this point that we entertain
the latest buzz phrase ‘wearable tech’.
Wearable tech of course has the ‘look at
me! I have the latest gadget’ (obligatory pose
for selfie) tag, but it also has huge potential
in the healthcare space.
Monitoring of a person’s vitals in a
manner that is non-intrusive, and in a
way that is not just ‘cool’, but also ‘reliable’
can go a long way to drive innovation and
accelerate adoption.
Apple has just released IOS 8 with their
new in-built app called ‘Health’ and a new
developer kit called ‘HealthKit’. The new
app is not just another pedometer/calorie
counter. In fact as Apple states: ‘You can allow
the data from your blood pressure app to be
automatically shared with your doctor.’
Combined with Apple’s new watch
which has a built-in heart rate sensor we
could just start to see the beginning of
more interactive and detailed telephone
consultations with GPs.
The somewhat less glamourous bodyworn patch may not have the same kudos
as sporting the latest must-have Samsung
or Apple wearable, but they are still key
areas of innovation.
Many of these devices rely on a
smartphone to collate the data and there
will no doubt be many arguments over the
security concerns and how these will be
regulated in a healthcare setting.
These matters must be addressed
quickly though in order to maintain
people’s confidence and for wearable tech
not to be consigned to the annals of history
as simply a novelty item. It really is an
opportunity not to be missed.
Have you taken your medication?
As our population ages and lifespan
increases, healthcare becomes a
programme of continuous treatment and
monitoring, especially as we enter our
twilight years.
I recall Dr Phil Hammond (writer and
broadcaster) saying that while doing a
home visit on an elderly lady he noticed
that she had put all her many prescribed
pills into a bowl on the sideboard, when
he asked her about it she said that she
‘couldn’t remember which ones to take and
when’ so it seems her solution was to have
a pick-n-mix approach.
It’s on this subject I was interested
to read that PA Consulting, as part of
their intelligent healthcare objective, has
announced a body-worn patch that will not
only monitor vitals, but also monitor if a
patient has taken their medication, alerting
their healthcare worker or doctor. It seems
even remembering to take our pills will
soon be a thing of the past!
Supporting innovation
Innovation of course requires funding and
often corporate heavyweights are happy to
put money into new initiatives to claim the
IP and patent the idea for profit. This is not
wrong in itself, as businesses must profit,
and without them some innovations would
not even see the light of day.
However a different approach to this
was presented at a seminar I attended
earlier this year, where we were told about
some interesting approaches to supporting
innovation.
The example given was that of Johnson
and Johnson who are taking a very direct
approach with their aptly named ‘J&J
Innovation Centres’.
Located in California, Boston, London
and Shanghai these centres allow a
‘partnership approach’ for those with
new and exciting ideas to share and be
supported by those with a background and
experience that can genuinely help drive
the idea forward.
A key principle behind this initiative
is to accelerate the time it takes for an
idea to become reality. The centres will
focus on innovations in pharmaceutical,
consumer products and medical devices
and diagnostics. It will be interesting to
see what new innovations come, hopefully
sooner rather than later.
Med-tech and clinical research
The Clinical Research Network (CRN)
supports many med-tech trials for new
innovations. Medical device companies
must provide evidence of clinical
effectiveness, generated by clinical
research in accordance with the NICE
medical technologies evaluation
programme (MTEP).
The role of the CRN is to make the
process of starting and delivering a clinical
trial in the NHS efficient with a focus on the
highest levels of performance and quality.
Med-tech research studies in our
portfolio are seeing significant increase
year-on-year, and the work we do
supporting all trials, not just med-tech,
contributes to quicker evaluation and
results. This reduces the time it takes to
move into the adoption stage, which means
that patients can benefit from new and
better treatments sooner.
Like a car with no fuel, innovation on
its own is really of no use if it does not
have the support and direction to quickly
and efficiently become a reality that will
ultimately benefit people.
We stand on the threshold of the so
called ‘internet of things’ which could usher
in major advances in healthcare innovation
with a proliferation of low-cost, always–on
devices designed to improve and manage
our health and wellbeing.
Let’s hope that these new innovations,
whatever they may be, will quickly move
from theoretical ideas to tangible outcomes
that will bring real benefits for us all.
www.bcs.org/health
December 2014 ITNOW
13
AUTO-CREATIVE ART
doi:10.1093/itnow/bwu107 ©2014 The British Computer Society
Gustav Metzger is an artist with a socially-engaged conscience who has become famous for his
concepts of auto-destructive and auto-creative art. Always cognisant of the latest technological
developments, he has had an association with the Computer Arts Society from the early days. At his
exhibition Lift Off! previously on view in Cambridge we learned his ‘processes of transformation […] offer
powerful metaphors for revolution and transcendence.’ (From the accompanying catalogue).
As a Polish Jew who fled Nuremberg with
the Kindertransport, arriving in the UK in
1939, perhaps this artist has a particular
awareness of the militaristic origins of
much digital technology and the potential
for abuse.
Throughout more than six decades
of artistic endeavour Metzger has made
pertinent observations on the societal
role of the artist through his writings,
exhibitions and conferences. In 1968 he
wrote, ‘[computers] are becoming the most
totalitarian tools ever used on society.’ He
called for artists not to bury their heads in
the sand.
During the early years of computer arts
activity in Britain, his position countered
those advocates of the utopian possibilities
of the coming digital age. The paper
‘Notes on the Crisis in Technological Art’
described his argument for what he called
‘the most critical topic in technological
art - the responsibility of the artist for his
material and to society’ by delivering a
plea for CAS to make a policy statement
14
ITNOW December 2014
on the role of computers in war and the
control of individual freedom.
He was the first editor of PAGE,
CAS’s bulletin, published from April
1969 (and still going today.) The name
PAGE was chosen by Gustav as initially
there was only one page available for
printing (due to costs) and it was a pun
on the concept of paging (the use of disk
memory as a virtual store, which had
been introduced on the Ferranti Atlas
Computer). The position of Metzger as first
editor established from the beginning an
association of CAS with the avant-garde.
His manifestos (from 1959) contain
some of the first references in Britain
to the use of computers as possible
materials and techniques in art. In 1961 he
wrote ‘Auto-Destructive and Auto-Creative
art aim at the integration of art with the
advances of science and technology. The
immediate objective is the creation, with
the aid of computers, of works of art
whose movements are programmed and
include “self-regulation”.’ His plan for such
a work – the computer-controlled public
artwork Five Screens with Computer,
was never realised due to scale and cost,
however a drawing for it featured in the
Cybernetic Serendipity catalogue and a
model was exhibited in 1969 at the CAS
show Event One.
For Metzger creation and destruction
have a symbiotic relationship and are in
dialogue with one another: ‘At the centre
of auto-destructive art is auto-creative art.’
They share many of the same techniques
and materials. Auto-creative is perhaps
softer, the yin to auto- destructive’s yang.
At his Acid Action Painting event in 1961
on the South Bank, London, he attacked
a seven by 12 foot sheet of nylon with
an acid-filled spray gun; the resulting
almost instant corrosion being a visceral
demonstration of the power of his autodestructive concepts. A year later a lecture
on auto-destructive art at Ealing College of
Art influenced Pete Townshend of The Who
to invent auto-destructive pop. Metzger’s
Destruction in Art symposium of 1966
Catherine Mason is the author of A
Computer in the Art Room: the origins
of British computer arts 1950-80,
www.catherinemason.co.uk/
Credit: Gustav Metzger, Liquid Crystal
Environment, 1965, remade 2005, collection of
Tate, exhibition view. Image courtesy of Kettles
Yard, University of Cambridge. Photo: Paul Allitt.
Reproduced with permission.
More
on this month’s
COMPUTER
ARTS artist:
www.kettlesyard.co.uk/exhibitions/2014/
metzger/
For more information:
http://computer-arts-society.com/
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/
pages/Computer-ArtsSociety/303023289760986
drew famous artists including Yoko Ono
(who performed her seminal work Cut
Piece, where the audience is invited to cut
her clothing).
Auto-Creative works on show at Kettles
Yard included a variety of materials and
methods demonstrative of his long interest
in kinetic art, particularly movement and
random activity. Ink dispersing through
glycerine, the use of fibre-optic light to
draw water dripping onto a hot plate and,
in the image pictured here, liquid crystals
moving between physical states to create
endlessly shifting and unrepeatable
colours and patterns. His 1964 statement,
‘At a certain point the work takes over,
is in activity beyond the detailed control
of the artist, reaches a power, grace,
momentum, transcendence…’ is apt for
an installation which has both a hypnotic
visual and a psychedelic delivery.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s he
collaborated with physicists, biologists
and computer scientists and became an
active member of the British Society for
Social Responsibility in Science.
Metzger’s ideas had an impact on
those of his peers. Alan Sutcliffe said
that Metzger’s interests in ‘generative
procedures, self-regulation and
interaction became key concerns in the
early years of the CAS and remain so.’
The questions Metzger posed about
technological responsibility in the 1960s
seem pertinent, perhaps even more so,
today. Although we still may not have any
answers, art can remind us to keep asking
and challenging the status quo.
December 2014 ITNOW
15
LEFT OF THE INSIDE BACK COVER
Easy security
I had to reproduce the cartoon below from
September 1974 Computer Bulletin, writes
Brian Runciman MBCS.
It was called ‘Rushton on privacy’ which seems to be a reference to the
character (kind of a techno-Snoopy) rather
than the author of the strip.
If only privacy was as easy as this, eh?
Still, it does show that even in the relatively
early days of computing the issues being
faced were not dissimilar to those now...
Lasting change.
Starting now.
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Reproduced from the excellent xkcd.com
16
ITNOW December 2014
© BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, is the business name of The British Computer Society
(Registered charity no. 292786) 2014
BC809/LD/AD/0514
doi:10.1093/itnow/bwu111 ©2014 The British Computer Society
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