How 5G Will Change Our Lives Forever, and What it Means for Your Business (Two Part Event)

BRE Group – Alison Nicholl, Head of Constructing Excellence

Alison has a background in knowledge transfer, driving innovation and change into the construction sector both in the UK and overseas. Alison is currently Head of Constructing Excellence, where she works with its members and wider movement to drive positive change in the built environment. Alison has a passion for transforming the construction sector into a more innovative, inclusive and sustainable industry.

WM5G – Dave Kinshott, Digital and Mobile Connectivity Consultant

Dave is an infrastructure Acceleration Consultant at WM5G. Dave has over 20 years of telecoms experience, previously working with Nokia and Orange.

Dave leads and manages a number of key projects that require his in-depth specialist knowledge and experience.

WM5G – Andy Welch, Technical Director

Andy Welch is technical director at WM5G, being associated with the programme since the award to WMCA.

Andy has a background working for CxOs in the telecoms industry for twenty years from startups to FTSE 100 companies in the UK and across Europe. This has included strategy and architecture leadership roles, interim management and consulting assignments most recently specialising in organisation startup and large programme mobilisation.

WM5G – Rhys Enfield, Director of Infrastructure Acceleration

An expert in mobile network deployment, previously working for both Operators and vendors in the telco sector since the mid 90’s. Rhys is WM5G’s Director of Infrastructure Acceleration and has the primary role of accelerating 5G across the region by removing barriers, improving processes and facilitating relationships between the mobile operators and the local councils. A key focus for Rhys and the team is to always act as an ‘honest broker’, fostering a more collaborative and cooperative approach between both the operators and the councils, working to ensure citizens of the West Midlands are the first to benefit from the socioeconomic improvements that 5G will bring.

WM5G – Clare McKee, Business and Stakeholder Engagement Manager

Clare brings SMEs, innovators and innovation together. Facilitating the 5G 5PRING accelerator programme where large enterprises set challenges for innovators to crack using 5G to make lasting change to industry. And stakeholder management of several sector focused SME digital adoption programmes, including transport, infrastructure and healthcare.

Clare helps SMEs explore the art of the possible. Finding workable solutions to chronic problems. Clare has previously managed Government funded SME business support programmes, helping over 1000 SMEs.

Clarke Telecom – Nigel Newton, Managing Director

Nigel trained as a Quantity Surveyor in general construction and worked his way up to be Managing Director. In 1996, he moved into the telecoms network rollout sector and in 2001 set up his own business which later merged into Clarke Telecom. Nigel is passionate about training “We want our people to be the best they can be and so our investment in their training and development is really important to us. During the past 12 months our people have participated in an average of 8.25 training days per person against a UK average of 4.7 days.”

WM5G – Kevin Hegerty, Network Lead

A disciplined and versatile technical project manager, with considerable management expertise working in UK government and mobile telecommunication sectors.  Expert knowledge of 3GPP 4G/LTE and 5G/NR technologies.

Recently project managed the delivery of a £14M public/private funded project for UK’s first Commercial 5G/IoT Application Accelerator as part of DCMS UCC Testbed and Trials Programme.

Wolverhampton Council – Heather Clark, Head of External Funding and Digital Projects / Digital Co-ordinator Strategy

Heather is the Wolverhampton City’s Digital Co-ordinator supporting the rollout of future proofed digital infrastructure including full fibre broadband and 5G.  The role includes liaising across council departments to remove barriers and introduce new systems and procedures and standardising agreements to facilitate the rollout adopting best practice from elsewhere.  The role also includes ensuring residents and businesses benefit through combatting the digital divide and addressing digital skills of residents and businesses.  Heather has over 20 years’ experience in local government in a range of economic development and regeneration roles and is an experienced bid writer.  She has postgraduate qualifications in Urban Regeneration and Economics.

Gateley Hamer – Jonathan Stott, Managing Director

Jonathan has significant expertise dealing with all matters relating to land assembly, compulsory purchase and compensation. He is a RICS accredited expert witness and is a leading authority in the provision of strategic advice to scheme promoters throughout the promotion and implementation of compulsory purchase powers and the negotiation of compensation claims.

He also acts for commercial property owners and developers, advising them on how to respond to the threat of compulsory purchase and how to protect and maximise their compensation entitlement.

He has many years’ experience dealing with compulsory purchase matters and has given evidence to public inquiries, hearings and select committees. He is Chair of the Compulsory Purchase Association and has provided input to the RICS Professional Statement for Surveyors advising in relation to compulsory purchase and compensation.

WM5G – Chris Deakin, Project Manager (Transport)

Chris Deakin project manages a number of WM5G transport projects. Companies worked at include: Jaguar Land Rover, Greenroad Telematics, LloydsTSB Autolease,  Arval Fleet Leasing

Experience & Skilled in Vehicle and Rail Connectivity, Connected Vehicle Programme Management

Working with partners – including mobile network operators, broadcasters, public transport operators, and the automotive sector – WM5G are looking for ways to implement 5G with the aim of:

• Making transport more efficient and reliable
• Improving access to work, study and leisure

Enhancing the experience of travellers by improving services and products across the transport system

WM5G – Judith Ferrarin, Infrastructure Acceleration Lead Project Manager

Judith Ferrarin manages the Barrier Busting Infrastructure Acceleration team within WM5G

An expert in mobile networks acquisition and deployment, Judith holds a key role in promoting the acceleration of 5G across the West Midlands region by facilitating engagement and collaboration between local authorities and Mobile Network Operators.

With specialist knowledge and extensive telecommunication experience, Judith provides mobile telecommunication expertise, guidance and education with regards to all aspects of acquisition and build processes plus Town & Country planning.

Judith has been within telecommunications since graduating from a BT apprentice scheme and has worked within the areas of external civils implementation and the mobile telecoms environment.

Judith is working for WM5G Barrier Busting / Infrastructure Acceleration Lead Project Manager.

Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport – Tony Sceales, Head of Programme Development

Tony Sceales is Head of Programme Development on the DCMS 5G Testbeds and Trials Programme.

The £200m Programme has been central to the funding and development of a wide range of 5G testbeds, creating momentum and accelerating deployment of 5G networks across the UK. 

Tony has spent over 25 years in the telecoms and technology industries, working on major projects at global firms including BT, IBM, Telstra, KPN, Swisscom, Prudential and China Gas, as well as with growth start-up innovators. 

He is an Ambassador and former Executive Committee member of the TM Forum, and collaborated in producing some of the key thinking around partnership business models and B2B2X trading.

His role at DCMS is to drive engagement with key players across industry sectors to encourage successful 5G investment and adoption in the UK.

IoT Foundry – Neil Carter, Chief Technical Officer

Neil has 30 years’ experience working in SME’s and Start-ups architecting and building scalable systems providing actionable insight from transactional data. In the last few years, he has been responsible for leading the design and build of end-to-end IoT solutions in the Industrial and connected worker markets using the latest communications protocols in most parts of the world. These include a solution delivering wearable connected worker IoT solution to high-risk industries such as oil and gas and construction and are deployed in a range of industries for many Public listed companies including Sisk,  British Petroleum , Abu Dhabi Ports,  and Volvo Trucks in Brazil

Built Environment Networking – Fahmida Nisa, Host & Event Manager

Nisa is a research, marketing and content specialist at Built Environment Networking. She will be hosting a number of the sessions throughout the day, running the day’s proceedings and managing the interaction between our virtual delegates and the speakers.

BAM Nuttall – Colin Evison, Head of Innovation

Colin Evison, Head of Innovation at BAM Nuttall, was instrumental in setting up the BAM led consortium that was successful in Round 2 of the DCMS 5G Create competition.

In collaboration with BRE and AttoCore the 5G-AMC² (Accelerate Maximise Create for Construction) project has designed and deployed two private 5G networks at BAM Nuttall’s Scotland base in Kilsyth and at a construction project in Shetland.

The team have identified five exemplar themes which seek to take advantage of the 5G network capability and aim to improve productivity in the construction sector.

Galliford Try – Andy Duggins, Operations Director

Andy heads up Galliford Try’s dedicated Telecoms business as well as the GT Security team. He has been responsible for the successful delivery of several wireless network deployment programmes for over 20 years, with over 25,000 individual sites installed. This experience and knowledge of the telecoms industry has enabled Andy to implement approved products and develop the most cost effective, sustainable and compliant delivery solutions for telecoms projects and frameworks for GT’s clients including Cornerstone, Telefonica, BT and Vodafone.

With a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and as a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), Andy’s construction knowledge and experience has resulted in long-established collaborative relationships, which engender a genuine sense of partnership, providing a forum for innovation in design and project management, and creating operational efficiencies through continuous improvement and learning from experience. Andy and his team are always looking for new and innovative solutions, which is why GT participated in the 5G Accelerator workshops.

Mott MacDonald – Luke Strickland, Net Zero Advisory Lead

Luke is Mott MacDonald’s leader for Net Zero advisory services for Buildings and Cities and has been based in the Midlands for the last decade. Luke provides meaningful and creative consultancy advice in the built environment across a wide range of sectors, clients and decision makers especially through the business case, policy and planning process. A strategic thinker with a strong interest in low carbon and sustainability and an eye for the detail,  Luke has 20 years’ multi-disciplinary consultancy experience and is both a Chartered Environmentalist and Chartered Engineer. He is also an experienced writer and speaker on topics including Net Zero, climate resilience and city adaptation.

Built Environment Networking – Amanda Griffiths, Director

Amanda is one of the Co-Founder’s of Built Environment Networking – formed almost 10 years ago.

She’ll be hosting throughout the day, running the days proceedings and managing the interaction between our delegates and the speakers.

PLINX – Tommy Williams, Chief Acquisitions Officer

PLINX has developed a private 5G system for use on construction sites, their system provides flexible ultra-fast/low-latency networks and modems that connect construction businesses with their projects. PLINX help their clients to adopt digital technologies by radically increasing the speed of data from hard-to-reach locations. The system offers opportunities to improve safety, environmental productivity security and quality issues.

Tommy is an award winning product designer and engineer, developing leading-edge geospatial and communications technologies, he is the founder of PLINX, a construction technology business that improves safety, security, and quality of large construction infrastructure projects such as HS2.

Mafic – Will Woodhead, Chief Executive Officer and Founder

Will Woodhead is the CEO and Co-Founder of Mafic, a construction intelligence company which uses information from wearables to better understand how projects perform at a granular level to allow future projects to perform at a higher level. Mafic Safeguard is a wearable device which uses machine learning to understand the activity someone is performing from the movement of their head. 

Mafic has positioned itself at the forefront of data communications within industrial environments and so building it’s technical road map around 5G capabilities is fundamental to the company’s success.

Will is an Engineer by trade and spent the first 20 years of his career working overseas in shipyards in China, Japan and Korea. He has been part of the most complex offshore projects the oil and gas industry has seen and worked in cultures and environments alien to many. He studied Mandarin in Shanghai Jiao tong University and more recently worked for Samsung Heavy Industries where he wrestled with managing large workforces over large areas in sometimes harsh environments. It was here where the idea of Mafic came to Will and he brought his family back to the UK to start a new chapter in their lives and a new chapter in the construction industry.

Innovate UK – Sunny Claire, Senior Business Growth Specialist

Sunny helps ambitious SME businesses navigate the business support landscape. Helping businesses grow both in the UK and internationally.

Sunny is an advisor with The Enterprise Europe Network which plays a key role in the EU’s strategy to boost growth and jobs. Bringing together more than 600 business support organisations from over 60 countries, helping businesses seize the unparalleled business opportunities in the EU Single Market.

The Network has been referred to as ‘the biggest support network for enterprises in the world’.

WM5G – Lesley Holt, Accelerator & Communications Director

Lesley leads our three accelerators in the region and communications for West Midlands 5G (WM5G).  WM5G stakeholders represent a broad range of organisations in a variety of sectors and scenarios.  Lesley’s prior private and public sector experience, including with local and combined authorities, central government, and a wide range of private sector organisations, gives a breadth of knowledge across a variety of sectors and range of stakeholders.  Lesley’s background has covered account management, stakeholder engagement and communications, business development and business transformation.  Her key strengths have been in the development of successful relationships with colleagues and clients, establishing credibility and ensuring achievement of shared goals and key benefits – these attributes align well with the aims and ambitions of WM5G.

Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport – Tony Sceales, Head of Programme Development

Tony Sceales is Head of Programme Development on the DCMS 5G Testbeds and Trials Programme.

The £200m Programme has been central to the funding and development of a wide range of 5G testbeds, creating momentum and accelerating deployment of 5G networks across the UK. 

Tony has spent over 25 years in the telecoms and technology industries, working on major projects at global firms including BT, IBM, Telstra, KPN, Swisscom, Prudential and China Gas, as well as with growth start-up innovators. 

He is an Ambassador and former Executive Committee member of the TM Forum, and collaborated in producing some of the key thinking around partnership business models and B2B2X trading.

His role at DCMS is to drive engagement with key players across industry sectors to encourage successful 5G investment and adoption in the UK.

WM5G – Martin Thirlaway, Project Manager (Transport)

Martin has over 30 years’ experience delivering a wide variety of Transport and Automotive projects. Companies worked at include Aston Martin, Jaguar Land Rover, Porsche, British Gas, Vodafone, AT & T.

Recent projects have utilised the mobile network for communication i.e. emergency call systems, stolen vehicle and fleet tracking and driver behaviour.

At WM5G Martin manages 3 Transport use case projects;

Road Sensor Network – deploying over 300 road sensors throughout West Midlands to help monitor traffic, vehicle emissions, traveller behaviour, weather and air quality, resulting lower traffic congestion and improved air quality.

Capacity Manager – Development of real time simulated route planning for more effective traffic management by Regional Traffic Agencies in support of both planned and unplanned traffic incidents, making better use of Key Route Network capacity.

Occupancy – accurate passenger counting on public transport, enabling improved business efficiencies, passenger fraud detection, upto date passenger information, improving passenger experience.

Nachural – Ninder Johal, Managing Director

Ninder has been running a record label for over 25 years and is still the only British Asian label to have registered a No.5 in the UK mainstream charts and a further 9 number 1’s across the globe, including a number 7 in the US charts and is still a member of the premier bhangra band – achanak – who still tour today. The production company has now ventured into creative services including film and video production and event production.

Ninder’s event production company ( Nachural ) hosts 5 large corporate events a year.  Outside of his day job – Ninder is the Vice Chair of Sandwell College, Board member of the Black Country LEP,  Board Governor of the University of Wolverhampton, Elected member of the West Midlands CBI, NED at  Accord Housing, Trustee of Albion Foundation ( part of WBA ), Trustee of Victoria Academy ( set of primary schools ), Previously Chair of the Black Country Asian Business Association and Chair of Charity – Steps to Work. He is also a Board member of the West Midlands Growth Company and deputises at the West Midlands Combined Authority.

He was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of the West Midlands in Feb 2019 in recognition of his work for the region.

WM5G – Andy Welch, Technical Director

Andy Welch is technical director at WM5G, being associated with the programme since the award to WMCA.

Andy has a background working for CxOs in the telecoms industry for twenty years from startups to FTSE 100 companies in the UK and across Europe. This has included strategy and architecture leadership roles, interim management and consulting assignments most recently specialising in organisation startup and large programme mobilisation.

Black Country Consortium – Ravi Kumar, Digital Lead

Ravi Kumar is a skilled digital professional, based in the Midlands and currently working within economic regeneration, with a focus on: health, life Sciences, digital infrastructure, 5G, and other key sectors.  His work includes working closely with a range of stakeholders including Government departments, Health organisations, Universities and Colleges, Local Authorities, and businesses.

Outside of work Ravi is a life coach, and an active volunteer who has volunteered for a range of charities over the past 20 years.

Bikal – Raj Sandhu, Chief Executive Officer

As founder of the company, I started to bring video surveillance and machine vision tech to the UK and created Bikal as the brand in 2010. I have engaged with big tech and UK academia to find unique tech to the productise.

Bikal has created an eco-system for end to end product development and has adapted to future tech capabilities, such as 5G and AI.

Bikal is focused on solutions in this industry and provides expertise through our network of domain experts.

Bikal will test and trial this tech, through an “experiment & scale” model, which utilises open source software at the start, and then as the system grows Bikal’s partner network will develop a scaled solution.

Bikal current innovations that use 5G capability:

1. Social services – child protection visits and interviews. Social workers rely on a long process to monitor how a child’s care may cause safeguarding issues. With 5G we can deploy bodyworn cameras, alcohol monitors with 5G and use Artificial Intelligence in the cloud to automate alerts to social services.
2. Policing – using drones to follow vehicles of interest that have been detected to be used or part of a criminal enterprise. Our analytics can predict the movement of vehicles to automate the trajectory of the drone to follow the vehicle covertly. 5G networks ensure that high speed pursuits are possible.

Hello Lamp Post – Tiernan Mines, CEO & Co-Founder

Hello Lamp Post is a playful platform inviting people to strike up conversations with street furniture via their mobile phones. Using SMS, whatsapp or Facebook Messenger, people can bring to light the hidden stories of their cities and feedback to community decision makers.

In 2018 Tiernan set up Hello Lamp Post with his good friends Ben Barker and Sam Hill.

Tiernan is particularly interested in and dedicated to implementing tech for good that helps connect and empower society.

Drone Evolution – Toby Townrow, Co-Founder

More information to follow.

Osmium – Graham Hygate, Co-Founder

Physicist turned wind energy business developer. Grew up in Nottinghamshire; studied at Clare College, Cambridge; physics PhD; postdoc with Prof JF Nye (Bristol); mathematical modelling at National Physical Laboratory; business development/management at Logica, Oracle, Charteris and Detica; running Fine Energy with Pauline Hygate since 2010, Retrofitting connectivity in legacy industrial installations with Ulf Aberg (Osmium); string quartets (cello) and cross country running; loving Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest book.