Stuart chats with Mary O'Callaghan and Rob Way from the British Heart Foundation

Episode 3 - The British Heart Foundation

This is the last in our ‘big charity trilogy’, before we move our focus to smaller organisations. After last week’s interview with Jon Fox from Alzheimer’s Society we gained quite a few listeners - and managed to peak at number 4 in the Not-for-Profit category on Apple Podcast charts. Thanks to the loyal listeners - and as mentioned last week, please do get in touch if you’d like to feedback or feature in the podcast.

This week’s episode features:

Mary O’Callaghan - Director of Technology (Medical & Transformation) at the British Heart Foundation

Rob Way - Director of Technology Strategy & Planning, (also) British Heart Foundation

Stuart McSkimming - Podcast host, independent consultant and experienced CIO with over twenty years experience in the charity sector

We do a double-header with the BHF where we hear an in-depth interview with Rob Way around how the BHF are embedding AI into strategy, and get the bigger picture from co-host, Mary O’Callaghan around how technology is being used, and reflections on the wider sector.

Listen at https://virtuevirtuosity.com, search for ‘Virtue & Virtuosity’ on your podcast player, or scroll down to the bottom of this newsletter for links to the latest episode on your chosen player.

But first… AI & Technology News This Week - the world goes Omni

If you’ve been on a digital-detox retreat you will have missed the big AI battle between Google and OpenAI this week (no other excuses accepted).

OpenAI call it Omni, and Google call it Multi-Modal - but the news is that they’ve both launched / announced products that can interact with the real world. Text-based AI is so 2023. To get your head around it, see this video about Google Astra filmed in a single shot, or this crazy video from OpenAI of two AI’s chatting and singing a song together.

What has this got to do with charities? Well, also check out this review of GPT-4o being used by a visually impaired person to understand the world around them.

We could fill a whole newsletter and podcast many times over with theories on the impact of this technology. But a good starting point could be:

1. What is the aim of my charity?

2. How could this be delivered by an AI that can see, hear, speak to you in dozens of language, and has access to the entire internet. In almost realtime.

3. What is the quality of response that could be delivered today by AI, and how much is the cost per beneficiary. How does this quality/cost metric compare to your charity (be honest)

4. Given the speed of progress with Gen AI, we can expect cost to drop, and quality to improve. In which month/year will the cost be lower, and quality of response be better using GenAI, than your charity.

5. What can you do to accelerate the process above, and therefore better help your beneficiaries? What role does a human play in this?

If anyone wants to join me for a future podcast to debate this - I’d love to chat!

In other news, we’re getting some really good hints and tips about how to get the most from Gen AI - I spotted this succinct quick read from Microsoft on writing better prompts - worth checking out.

Virtue & Virtuosity Episode 3: Bringing your staff on the journey as you build your AI Strategic Roadmap.

My aim with this podcast series and newsletter is to bring the charity sector closer together - and showcase what different organisations are doing, to demystify it for others, and help charities improve their outcomes with technology.

This week, I’m co-hosting with Mary O’Callaghan - where we discuss how benchmarking was successful in enabling charities to compare what they are doing with Technology - but how now there are so many more opportunities.

We then cut to a deep dive with Rob Way who leads Technology Strategy & Planning at BHF.

He describes how BHF have been involved in funding science-related AI for many years, but how the dawn of Gen AI in 2023 has generated many opportunities. He discusses how they built their community of engagement with over 100 staff members, how they’ve run internal AI-related hackathons, and also how they’ve generated their strategic roadmap to improve delivery.

Mary and I then discuss how many organisations sit across multiple sectors, where some of these sectors are further ahead in AI adoption than others - and the boost this can give.

And if you found this inspiring - great news as BHF have not one - but two Technology Directors vacancies at the moment.

Coming up next week

We’ve started the podcast with a trilogy of examples of how large charities are adopting AI. Next week we switch our focus to smaller charities - and cut straight to the chase with our 5 point plan for those organisations that don’t have a CIO or CTO and are trying to figure out where to start in their AI journey.

Future Episodes

Later in June, I’m going to be doing an episode on ethics, bias and sustainability with AI - please get in touch if you’d like to feature in this, or have interesting thoughts.

Feedback

I’m really keen on feedback - this podcast is for you - for the sector. Last week I heard that you loved the way Caty kept things down-to-earth and practical. The aim of the podcast and associated newsletter is to demystify AI & Technology for a non-technical audience, and to share learnings across the sector - so please do comment online.

And don’t forget, drop me a line [email protected], if you’d like me to showcase anything you’re doing on AI in your charity, if you have a suggestion to include in the newsletter, or if you have a great story to tell in the podcast.

Podcast Links

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https://virtuevirtuosity.com

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