New member Futurehand – a solutions design company focused on the Research & Development of innovative technological solutions, oriented to public sector solutions for Data Management & Visualisation, Community Support Services and Smart Cities – introduce themselves to the CW community.
Find out more about Futurehand
How long has your company been in operation, and what was the inspiration for its founding?
Founded in 2005, Futurehand has always been a company focused on supporting people and organisations to ideate, build and deliver products and services that have some sort of socially redeeming value.
What is special about your company’s products / services?
Our diversified team is one of the pillars of the company's success being prepared to face the greatest market challenges, namely technological ones.
We are passionate individuals working together to support other businesses in their success.
We bring a variety of backgrounds including management consulting, software & app engineering, finance, digital marketing, data analytics and sales just to name a few.
What is your company currently working on?
We are currently working on several projects including:
- Futuremaps (live) - an easy to use data visualisation tool specifically designed for non-data analysts working on the public sector. Built as a co-create project with Oxfordshire County Council’s innovation team, iHub.
- DecarboNation (private alpha) - a global database of sustainable/net zero/carbon reduction projects for use by the public and private sectors to reduce the number of redundant and duplicate publicly funded projects. (Let us know if you have any information about sustainable projects you would like to addd to the database.)
- Better Social Media (private alpha) - a new microblogging platform for professional social networking users where all user accounts will be verified. (Before you ask, we started building 6 months before Musk decided to buy Twitter.)
- Smart Nation Alliance (planning) - smart cities are old hat; it’s time for Smart Nations. The SNA will be a non-profit organisation supporting smart city practitioners to work together, share information and support each other in building smart nations. It will also provide a non-political place for smart nations to work together to address common challenges around things like climate change, data management & security, public health, public safety, governance, etc. (Reach out if you would like to sponsor or support us is any way.)
Which among your recent announcements is your company most proud of?
In 2021, David Brown, Futurehand Founding Director, was named a Harwell Campus Pandemic Pioneer for his inspirational work ideating and selling mobile clinical bays that could be temporarily installed into city buses to deliver COVID testing and vaccines. Before the project was finished, there were five buses and two vans on the road that were estimated to have to date delivered over 300K COVID vaccines and various other clinical services.
How would you describe your company culture?
We believe that there's a better way to do business. One with room for everyone where we can be open, honest and supportive of each other while working together towards a common goal.
We are not a family, we are a team. We work in an autonomous environment where each person is an expert in their role and and brings complimentary skills to the team. We are confident in ourselves and each other to always deliver the best for our colleagues and our clients.
We are honest and believe that the only way to truly be successful is to build trust across all of our dealings - internally and externally. Trusting relationships are strong relationships and that's what will ensure we deliver results.
Who is your CEO and what is their background?
David Brown is the Founding Director and runs the company on a day-to-day basis.
David, a startup veteran since 1995, is a keen believer that the best way to become successful is to help others be successful.
A proven leader and innovator in disruptive technologies, David has spent his career as a player/coach helping scale several successful startups, including:
- ClearCommerce ($19M to eFunds, 2005)
- Touch Clarity ($51.5M to Omniture, 2007)
- Nedstat (€29M to comScore, 2010)
David’s focus has always been on using the strong customer management skills he learned in the travel industry to provide gold standard support for customers of tech businesses.
In 2013, Mr Brown founded his own company, Adavow, to fix the widespread problem of online ads being served to people who had recently bought a similar product, however the company was wound down in 2016 due to perceived complications from GDPR regulations. Since that time, David has dedicated his time to projects building innovative, data-driven decision-making tools for the Public Sector.
Aside from his daytime work, Mr Brown is active in several industry organisations where he regularly shares his expertise and experience.
- Tech London Advocates (TLA) — Mr Brown has been a Tech London Advocate since 2015. TLA is a private sector-led coalition of senior expert individuals from the tech sector and broader community who have committed to championing London’s potential as a world-class hub for tech and digital businesses and to support its start-ups in finding new investment, new talent and achieving high-growth. David’s interests include the Data Tech, Smart Cities and Women in Tech working groups.
- Cambridge Wireless (CW) — David has been a SIG Champion for the CW Smart & Intelligent Cities group since 2018. The Smart and Intelligent Cities SIG will address a broad range of issues such as city platforms, interoperability and the integration of a myriad of technology applications, as well as the need for standards, procurement and regulation. With an open and collaborative approach, it draws on participation from academia, government, industry, cities and the citizen to shine a spotlight on the opportunities and challenges in the UK and globally.
- AdTech Meetup London (ATML) — Since 2015, David has been an organiser of the world’s largest AdTech-focused meetup group. ATML currently has over 2,500 members on meetup.com.
