Dennis Dokter with Nexus Leeds

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

company, nexus, dennis, leads, industrial, work, leeds, part, university, smart, products, good, instance, smart cities, listen, restaurant, trust, great, talk, reston

00:00

Scott. Welcome to the Industrial Talk Podcast with Scott. MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go all right

00:22

once again. Welcome to Industrial Talk. The leader in industrial again, it's industrial media, yeah, I'm gonna say that. And we have the number one industrial related podcast in the universe that celebrates industry professionals all around the world. Because you're bold and brave, you dare greatly, you innovate, you collaborate, you solve problems, and that means you continuously make the world a better place. That's why we celebrate you on Industrial Talk, and we are broadcasting on site. OMG, the q1 meeting, and is here in Reston, Virginia, and it is a collection of people that are much smarter than me, which is not saying much, but it is heads, and they're much smarter than me, and they're solving major problems that you just take from you don't even know that they're solving the problems you just take it for granted, that's what. But we're here to celebrate them too. In the hot seat, we have a gentleman by the name of Dennis Dokter. University of Leeds is a is the business? Well, the education. And we're going to be talking about Smart Cities specifically leads in the program that's going on there. Let's get cracking. How you doing?

01:29

I'm all right. Thank you. You

01:30

having a good, good meeting? Yeah,

01:32

it's been going very well. Thank you. Yeah, really enjoying it. Really nice seeing everybody again.

01:38

It is a, it's a collegial group. You know, they definitely, it is a special, special group.

01:47

Yeah, it's really, it's a really great community to be a part

01:52

of. I get to be part of the just sort of the outskirts of me. Like it, but I have friends, and then everybody's just but what always gets me, and what's always fascinated me is how much passion there exists about what they are doing. It is a labor of love and and I just always get a I just get all giggly about the whole thing. All right, before we get into the topic, which I'm very bullish on, give us a little just background on who Dennis is

02:21

now, of course. So basically, I work for Nexus, which is the innovation hub of the University of Leeds, and I lead on their smart cities cluster, and I'm the manager for data and insights. So I'm

02:35

writing all this down because it's chock full of good stuff. So you know that I've spoken to David, David Mackie, look for his conversation out there on Industrial Talk. That's a plug right there. You won't be disappointed. He's he's never really any he has a lot of words. Yes, he does well in speaking,

02:57

yeah. But the good thing is, there's also a lot of content there. So that makes it

03:01

meaty. It's meaty, all right, one of the things that we were talking about is making a smart city. Give us just what is a smart city?

03:10

Yeah, that's a very good question. And obviously the one that you get asked the first time when you when you say you're leading on it. So I try to go away from the norm, where they say it's kind of the pure focus on digitization of products and services, making sure it's there, we try to keep it back at basics, and say it's an improvement of the quality of life in urban areas, and not just for us, but for basically, an iterative process that only gets better as we go into the future, where you listen to The people. So in a sense, I don't believe there is an actual thing such as a smart city, Smarter Cities, yes, but it's more of an end goal you'd like to get to,

03:51

but an end goal, an end goal that the the community is listened to. Exactly, how do you, how do you with that, said, with that, and now that that example, that definition, how do you create that loop, like I'm Scott, If I lived in Leeds, do I was just, how do you listen to me?

04:10

Well, because with Nexus, we try to work with innovative companies, and the whole idea is to help them innovate and link them in with the university. So a big part of that is helping them understand, well, what is your user base? Who are the people that are going to use your products? What is the value proposition that they look for and then bring you into contact with them? So that could be policy makers, that could be specific users. We try to use those connections that we have and the academics that we work with to try and support you with that. So it could be that if you're looking to develop a new B to B service, is to make sure that we put into contact with the right ecosystem to listen to them

04:47

so a smarter city. Why is that? Why is that important? What benefits does that bring me? Let's say I'm a. I'm a citizen of Leeds and now music leads is because that is, that's, that's really your case, in a sense, case study of a smarter city. What does that? How does that impact me? Give me, give me a reason why I should be in support of that. Well,

05:16

I always say that the important part is it becomes more democratic the way we do things, not necessarily in terms of the democratic, traditional democratic processes, but making sure that the things we do people can give input on, and we can use that to grow and learn, so that we want to use Nexus and White Rose Park as test beds and living labs. And the whole idea is for people to engage with new technologies, look at them, scrutinize them, and then use that as a base forward. Can

05:46

Can you share with us some of the things that are taking place within that nexus that that fit that role of saying, Okay, we have this relationship with this particular company. They're developing x, and the reason they're developing X is because of this. Why?

06:00

Oh gosh. So we've, we've got a we've got a lot. So pick one.

06:06

There's more than one.

06:07

Yeah, we've got, we've got 136 at the moment. That's great. So yeah, and they're all equally innovative. I think there's, there's companies working on, helping with carbon accounting, so to make sure that we have a more accurate way of gathering scope one, two, and specifically scope three, carbon emission details as a company, we'll be working with a lot Earth chain and try to help them collaboratively. Look, look at how can we capture that data more effectively and more realistically? Instead of just filling in, yeah, pencil,

06:40

whip it. You can just like, yeah, they're done

06:44

exactly. We've got companies looking at air quality, measuring and looking at what vertical air quality means. So looking at a difference between, is there a difference in air quality at sitting level versus standing level? And what might that mean, or are they even more, more narrow differences doesn't mean that because I'm taller, I get better quality air than somebody who's shorter. And how influences? How does that influence our behavior?

07:10

But it goes beyond more than just the environment. The Carbon exactly like, Are there any things that are infrastructure related, like better infrastructure, whatever that sounds like.

07:23

So we've got companies looking because we've got a lot of companies in health, tech and green and finance. So there's companies looking at, how can we use image recognition to develop to look at, for instance, certain pathogens, or a company focusing on using image recognition with veterinary veterinary services. So how can we actually support the veterinarians on one end, but also the pet owners that we assure them and to help them get forward so that AI is the name is a really great company who's trying to help with a lot of mental stress that veterinarians are under and support them to help their decision making processes, and then also help customers get more reassured about conditions that they've had. You

08:07

want to know something funny about a vet? So there's this restaurant we go to. We like the restaurant. It's delicious, but right next door is this 24 hour emergency vet store, and so if you're waiting outside to go have a nice meal, and then you have a family coming in crying, it's not a good thing. It's not a good site, because that's stressful. We were sitting there as a family going, this is not good. I don't know if I want to have a pizza. So with that, how does, how does a company get involved? In the sense of, I want to be a part of Nexus. What's, what's that criteria look like? Well, they

08:45

can all reach out to us. Basically the main criteria you have, because we have both physical space, but also obviously people can become a member by, we call that a non resident membership, by your part of the community. But you don't necessarily need a lab or an office. And what we look at is basically one, do you want to innovate? And it can be a new company. It can be existing on company that decides, or we need to pivot into a different direction. That's one. And two is they want to collaborate with the university so they see the skills and talent that students have, and you want to engage with them, or they want to do a research project with the university, or some contract research, and that's what we try to help facilitate and basically catalyze that, that innovation they're looking at, and bring that into an up current.

09:28

Now, David indicated that you have you're going to be showcasing a smart city, smarter city leads. Can you tell us a little bit about where you were staying with that? Or, what does that mean, what are you going to showcase? Yes,

09:42

so the whole basis is around disks, which is the design and integration of Smart City solutions. And the idea behind that is that when you try to develop a new piece of technology, you want to test that, and you want to see that, not just in a controlled environment, but also in. Kind of more real life setting. So that's why we're partnering with white rose Park and Morley in Leeds, to give that, because it's a massive business park with a new, soon to open train station. College is there? Restaurant, nursery. There's a shopping center next door, which then brings in a lot of users that will be walking around that will use your products, either intentionally or unintentionally, they'll behave around that. So the whole idea is to start measuring that we'll have, we have different data sets already around air quality, around mobility, and we'll be able to see well, if you do this intervention. So let's say you put a new building here, or you put a certain vehicle there, how do people start behaving? And do they behave in a way that works or that doesn't.

10:45

Can you sort of elaborate on that? Like, of course, in my head, I'm thinking, There's a car, but, like, I What do you mean by that? I don't understand so,

10:56

so a good example, I think, is they're already running trials that I think, across the UK and across the US with these delivery robots, and people will walk around them, and initially they be very skeptical, or they'll have fun with it, topple them over, or whatever, or they'll change their behavior. And it's important to monitor that, because it's not just from a company's point of view, like, how does my product get treated? But for instance, if you're a policy maker and you see an increase in traffic incidents because people freak out because the robot and just ran across the run across the street, or they walk more on the on the road or sidewalk. What does it mean for the traffic situation, and how do we adapt to that? How do we make policy for that? How do we encourage it? Or how do we change the infrastructure that we have in the city in order to better facilitate that.

11:44

See, that's just, I didn't even think about that, but it's interesting now. Just FYI. So we go to a store. The store has a cleaning robot, and it beeps, beeps, beeps, and does its little beeping thing. And of course, I'm the one that gets in the way intentionally to see what happens with am I going to get run over by them? Yeah, I do that. Yes, because I want to see what happens. And

12:07

when does it normalize? When do you get to a point? Yes, you stop doing that, and it becomes part of Yes,

12:12

I and when, when does it begin?

12:16

I mean, it's still that's for us. Of them figure out you

12:21

seen any trends? Well, we've heard about

12:24

research where they tried the co op delivery robots, when, at first they were very much a novelty, and nowadays people just see them, and just it's become part of the daily, I think, traffic environment. So it's just normalized. It's just become a part of how, how we run things, and

12:44

it's just going to get more and more well,

12:46

that will be interesting to see, right? Because it happens in certain areas, but not area. Every area is the same. So if you've done you've basically got your proof of concept, and then you've implemented it into a real life setting, you see that it still works. And that gives you a more a battery assurance that when you scale it, it'll also get adopted more widely. But it gives you, I think, a sense of decent skepticism as well to look at, well, where didn't it work, and how can we improve it so that we when we take it to other places, where maybe there's also, if you go internationally, where there's other legislation, how do we adopt and that's also where the digital twin will kick

13:21

in. What do you what do you see from a from the future? Just what are you hoping to gain from this particular case? I can't you know where leads, what is, what's, what's success for you.

13:37

So for me, it's well, one, one thing you hope to gain is trust, trust from industry, trust from policy makers, trust from society, that you become you use that quadruple helix where everybody can get involved, and you start understanding each other. And then the second thing, what I hope comes from that, is that economic growth piece, because innovation is at the core of education and of economic growth.

14:00

How? How? When you say innovation is at the core of economic growth, for for the listener out there, what do you mean by that? How does it do that?

14:10

So I've forgotten the name of the of the person who pitched it the first time, but it's every job in R and E and R and D needs X amount of jobs in the in the periphery. So by making sure you get your for instance, manufacturing locally, you can increase jobs by hiring people or hiring highly skilled people. They'll bring their families. They need education. They need access to stores, to restaurants, to Azure activities. So the whole economic economy starts building. So by promoting innovation and promoting these new processes, to start by supporting these growing businesses, and I think that's where the universities now are really focused on, and saying, Well, this is so important, not just from and we as a university need to play our role in that as well.

14:55

I would suspect, and you correct me if I'm wrong, but I would suspect. Fact that it's great that you have this, this case, to look at and, and, and the willingness of the community to be able to do that, that's great. But then there are a lot of larger communities out there. How do you incrementally, or how do you approach those? What do you say, Hey, these are the these are high priorities. This is not so high right now. This is how we're going to do that, how

15:27

part of that is very much dependent on public engagement. And it comes down again, to trust. You need to prove at first, that what you're doing is actually, you know, do people trust what you're doing? Do you actually listen to them? Are you just involving them in the situation? That's why we've got a really good public engagement team at the university. The university as well. As we want to make sure that when we listen to people, we actually do something with it, not just as a formality, but as a way of helping, for instance, in companies case, improve their products, because they want to make sure that they're going to sell it to their end user. If then it's not representative, then it can only go wrong. You invest a lot of money in a prototype or and a set of products you want to bring to market, and then there's nobody buying them, and it's a huge

16:07

issue. That's an interesting it's a huge issue. It's, yeah, I would imagine, because I would say that it's, it's great in this particular application, but to get to the point where it's, it's more ubiquitous. It is just I need to know. I need to know what is important and what's not right. That's all shiny objects over there. This is what's really meaningful. This will be transformative to my my community, and in a way so that that to me, you're absolutely right from the perspective of trust. So So, after you've done this with leads, where do you see it going next? What's, what's the next step?

16:48

Well, the whole, the whole intention, is to hopefully scale it more within the in the region, to really take that, that concept, and hope other people will start adopting that as well, because it almost becomes like random control groups, right? We know that people in Leeds will behave different. Differently from people in Reston, so you can try something in Leeds, but then you'd like to reenact it the same way in Reston and see how does that how does that happen? And how does it happen? For instance, in Melbourne or in Tokyo, do people do the same thing? Or is policy in the way? For instance, if we find a new way for creating a how do you say, an affordable way of retrofitting stuff to existing buildings, to make them more energy efficient, or to improve connectivity or to get rid of certain issues? Does legislation in other countries allow that? Or is it prohibited?

17:42

It's so massive. I mean, you bring up so many of these interesting points. I didn't again, I wasn't thinking in those terms. But you're absolutely right to try to deploy a solution that is acceptable in the leads world might not be applicable here in Reston or wherever else, then you have to be nimble enough to be able to make those adjustments Exactly. How do people get a hold of you there? If they want to say Dennis is speaking my lingo, how do they get a hold of

18:17

you? Yeah, they can feel free to go to the Nexus website. So Nexus leads to covid uk or reach out to me on LinkedIn at Dennis, Dokter, and they'll be able to find me there and just send me a

18:26

message. And I know what you're thinking, Dokter, no, it's D, O, K, T, E, R, that's the last name, first name, Dennis. You are absolutely wonderful. Thank

18:34

you very much.

18:36

All right, listeners, we're gonna have all the contact information for Dennis out there, so fear not, you'll be able to reach out to him. It's happening, whether you like it or not, and you need individuals that you can trust to be able to take you along on that journey. Dennis is one of those Sherpas right there. All right. Stay tuned. We will be right back.

18:52

You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.

19:02

All right, Dennis was his name, Dennis, D, O, K, T, E, R, Nexus leads was the organization and the event was OMG's, Q1, meeting. Excellent conversation. You if you want to interact with individuals who are really passionate about impacting the future in a positive way. You need to get engaged with OMG. They never disappoint. They have incredible individuals, incredible members, contributing a lot. It's an amazing event. All right. Industrial Talk is here for you. You want a podcast? Let's say you want to put together a podcast, you need to talk to me. If you have a podcast, you need to put it out on Industrial Talk. It's all there. We're here for you. We're here this. This platform is here to amplify the great work that is being done in industry. You need to be a part of it. If you have a you. Technology that you want to highlight. Put it out on Industrial Talk. All right, be bold, be brave. Dear greatly. Hang out with Dennis. Change the World smart cities. We're gonna have another great conversation shortly. You.