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Interview: Manager Donald MacRitchie

My name’s Donald MacRitchie. Um, I work in the Isle of Lewis in Greenspace. It’s a research project looking at the built environment and other, um, energy issues. Uh, and I help manage that programme.

Uh, there’s a number of strands to the research, particularly. There’s the built environment, there’s infomatics, there’s where the energy comes from, um, why is the energy here – uh, the economics of the whole argument, or the whole debate. Uh, so it’s got a number of strands on that aspect. We also have a commercial – a commercialisation aspect to the project as well, which we are moving forward.

It started, basically, with an idea, an idea that we needed software tools that were easily accessible on the Internet, for example, rather than working on desktop solutions. It started off, um, by me meeting somebody who had an interest in that whole software thing, and the college here supported that idea, and, and assisted us in promoting the whole thing. So it started off very small, but now we’ve got a team of twenty plus, uh, a strong team that’s developing and, and helping the whole research agenda.

The college itself, um, has been very supportive to the research. Um, and it also has a, has a desire to expand capacity in research, and that helps the whole UHI process of having capacity in research. Equally, uh, it’s not, it’s not pure research, it’s applied research that goes towards commercialisation. And the idea is they take products from research, and ideas from research into the commercial environment, so the small spin-off company has been formed, Greenspace Live, to try and take these products to market, um, and face that challenge.

A lot of, um, what we do is Internet-based, first of all. That was the decision made a long time ago, that we would try and stay Internet-centric. In other words, wherever you are, at any time, anywhere you can actually link into what we’re trying to do here. So the products that we’ve created are Internet-centric. So they can be, um – it’s something that’s quite easy to do from here. Um, there are challenges, obviously, in the commercialisation aspect, being close to customers, for example. Uh, but if we can use the Internet to our benefit to try and reach these customers, then, then that’ll be, you know, that’ll be an opportunity. Uh, but, the, the important thing here is the talent is here, and the talent can come here, and it’s all about talent and people. And research is very much about quality people, people who want to come back and live here, for example. Give them an opportunity that they didn’t have before. Um, look at how the island chain works, and how we can actually look at this beyond just this particular location. If it’s an Internet-based approach then that could be expanded further.

In terms of the business I think that, um, we, we have various challenges. I think we need funding in the business. Obviously that’s going to be a challenge. And once we get funding in the business, then we can look at the whole sales and how we market what we’re trying to sell. Um, I see it an exciting time, I see us developing new tools. We’re working on various projects with the Technology Strategy Board to help us develop new tools for the future. We keep on evolving and changing, and having a road map that, that’s progressive and, and forward-thinking. So I can see, um, there are challenges but I can also see there’s an opportunity for success.

We have, at the moment, a number of our tools online, basically, which are used, um, on a free trial basis at the moment, for companies to use, um, so that we can understand what their needs are, in a sense. I think it’s a, it’s a partnership between, between customers and what we have. You can’t just create technology and hope that you can, you know, you can impose that on somebody. Customers will say to you let’s adapt this, let’s change this. But we have had very positive feedback from companies, property companies, building owners, designers who want to use this kind of lightweight approach, in a sense, Internet approach, uh, to what we’re trying to do. And I think if we can, if we can build on that, uh, and try and kind of develop that further, then, then we’ll make a success of it.

Um, and I think the one thing that we need to say is that we want to double our capacity. Uh, I think we want to look at what we have achieved, and build on these achievements, to try and create, um, a stronger pool of talent that, that will help industrial companies achieve their aims, because they need help as well to look at this as the region of energy, of natural energy. And we can contribute to that.

Clilstore GreenspaceDonald MacdonaldMalcolm Murray

Short url:   https://clilstore.eu/cs/661