Hetco: Year in Review
The COVID-19 outbreak has made 2020 a year like no other for all of us. At Hetco, this year has brought more change and learnings than Simon and I could imagine at the start of it. Here are some milestones that we achieved and the lessons we learnt :
The year began with us winning an Innovate UK grant for Hetco’s first venture — Pattern Project
#makelocal #imademyclothes
A micro-factory which cuts custom-clothing for sustainably-minded people. Pattern Project designs wardrobe-essentials, cuts them out on high-quality fabrics making them easy to sew and truly satisfying to wear. Current status: we are working towards a January launch. Follow our progress on https://www.instagram.com/patternprojectuk/.
Come February, we created MSF Makes for Médecins Sans Frontières
#designfortherealworld #decoloniseinnovation
A quarterly publication showcasing innovative field projects and tools to help staff replicate ideas which work in their own context. MSF Makes provides a practical way to share field generated knowledge, it is available in print and online. Current status: 500 copies printed, distribution on pause due to COVID-19. Have a deeper look at: http://msfmakes.com/
In April, we proposed ‘Meaningful Metrics’ for the BBC.
A lightweight framework examining the impact of sports media consumption on everyday behaviours & real-world actions. Meaningful Metrics explains six kinds of effects watching sports video can drive. We learnt an important lesson during this project — data security policies can restrict parallel computing and the use of virtual machines for analysis. This affects our work-flow and we are yet to figure a way around it.
#hybridresearch #dataismessy #mediaimpact
In June we won ‘Best Use of Data’ at Design Week awards
…and MSF Makes was highly commended for Best Social Design.
Open Source Tools Powering Health Data Science was a project for Wellcome Trust completed in 2019. We created 9 maps of open source software used in healthcare to help explain the landscape and new opportunities.
The judges said: “A comprehensive end-to-end discovery process that has creatively used techniques and methods to drive actionable outcomes around a complex landscape. The deliverables have been considered creatively and capture the rich and multifaceted relationship between thematic maps.”
In July we moved to our new studio!
With Pattern Project needing space for machinery, Big-sister Hetco funded a new studio space outside of central London allowing us to grow (and importantly no commute!) #newspace #growing
In August, we designed a web tool for Wellcome Trust to explore global public trust in science
#datastories #smallmultiples #tufte
We were commissioned by the Public Engagement department at Wellcome Trust to review the Wellcome Global Monitor 2018 dataset, to reveal meaningful opportunities for research for teams within Wellcome. We identified patterns within the dataset and worked with Studio Ala and Smithery to help communicate the complexity of the findings. This was the first Hetco project integrating multiple datasets for sensemaking. Have a look: https://hetco.io/wgmlenses/.
In September, we released our first commercial version of WhoWhat
#collaboration #sensibleinnovation
WhoWhat is a tool to help people capture and understand the breadth of work happening across an organisation to increase collaboration and decrease duplication. Have a look here: https://msf.whowhat.io/
To wrap up the year, we are currently testing our first AR experience.
Watch this space — we will share insights and open-source tools in the new year. #augmentedreality #hypecycle
2020 has been a year of remote collaboration & friendships. Next year, we will reflect and share more about each of the projects mentioned above. Meanwhile — do write to us to learn more!
Many thanks to Peter Krige, Christophe Machet, StudioAla, Barabara Fonseca, Bysshe Studio, Alyeda Rocha, Miranda Stanford, Tina Gorjanc, Haris Finazzi, Chloe Chia, Jonah Tobias, Paul Ooms, WeareStudio, Sue Rainton, Sarah Parkin, Neisha Crosland, James Theobald and Fiona Dent for their support this year.
