Recently Manny Aparicio came together with other innovators in the energy sector for the GE Energy Summit.
According to Innovation Summit Organizer and Saffron Adviser Sammy Haroon, the goal of the Summit was to deliver two innovative solutions for GE Energy.
But unlike other summits, these tangible solutions included a business plan for actionable execution.
The success of the venture was confirmed when GE Energy Executives committed sponsorship and funding on the spot.
With a significant contribution from consumer BI expert Franz Dill, one of the winning concepts focused on the idea of data as a value added product.
Data is an underutilized asset and increasingly so in the energy business as the grid gets smarter.
All the devices and appliances in our homes and businesses generate valuable data. Even refrigerators and air conditioners!
By leveraging the data asset as the ‘third leg of the stool’, data and it’s knowledge might be sold or used not as a commodity but as a value adder.
According to Dill, the key was democratization of data, which has a special resonance here at Saffron.
We need to move this data asset away from the advanced mathematicians and in to the hands of decision makers and entrepreneurs.
So they can operationalize it, make insights, or realize completely new business opportunities.
Increasingly we see that the manufacturing of the future will be the manufacturing of knowledge.
And making sense of big data continues to provide new and surprising solutions to the business and environmental challenges we face.
James Kirk is CMO at Saffron Technology
