Northumbrian Water’s Innovation Festival will be diving into the world of employment, to understand how technology can impact both job seekers and employees.
The festival, which is set to see thousands of innovators from all over the world taking part, will take place at Newcastle Racecourse between Monday 10 July and Thursday 13 July.
Attendees will be looking for new ideas and solutions to challenges faced by the water sector and beyond, through a series of sprints, hacks, and dashes – workshop-style sessions which follow a five-stage process.
This year there are two workshops under the theme of ‘People Power’, one ran by data analytics technology company Esri UK, and another by change management company Hable.
In partnership with experts from Esri, innovators will be exploring recruitment and new ways in which job seekers can easier find the right opportunities in the right locations, to help aid inclusive employment for organisations.
Their aim is to develop a prototype tool which will pull all existing published job data together in one place and put it on a map.
Meanwhile, experts at Hable will be focusing on what needs to be done to help employees get ready for the increased levels of technological development, as well as helping them to embrace some of the AI technology seen in this modern world, rather than view it as a threat.
Northumbrian Water’s Head of Innovation, Angela MacOscar, said:
“The whole premise of the Innovation Festival is to bring together people from a variety of backgrounds, sectors, environments and cultures because that’s where you get the most valuable thoughts and ideas.
“So holding a sprint which looks at ways in which organisations can do this easily when recruiting is a brilliant idea. Of course, new technology is par for the course when innovating too so it’s just as important that we consider the impact of technological development on employees as well.”
