I joined Codit as a Principal Consultant spearheading their UK Iot & IIoT offerings. During this time, I have helped the team Codit’s Swiss Team with their IoT project which was having technical problems and behind schedule. I was tasked in ascertaining the issues with the project and asked to get them back on track. That meant establishing a project plan, delivery schedule and reorganising the teams and tasks in order for them to meet the customers Public Release v1 at the end of this year. I also had to look at what they were doing wrong or inefficiently with the IoT solution. With some pointers given to API development and re-architecting & rewriting some of the IoT, I am happy to say that customer confidence has grown tremendously in this short time with features now being deployed on a weekly basis, the project has just met its first milestone with the sprint deliveries that I planned, and the project is back on course. Finally, as of Friday 19th October, I am the first British member of staff to have been made a practice lead for all of Codit Internationally, to which involves spending one day a week dedicated to leading my other international team practitioners and passing down my acquired knowledge and experience, setting education and training pathways, setting standards and best-practice for the whole group to be guided by. I’ve also guided the Lonza and Brit Insurance products and set Codit on its path within the Metaverse working closely with Microsoft.

As my NHS contract was finished a friend reached out to help him with setting up Nexer Insights new office in the UK and he had two projects that needed doing before October, which worked out well as my son had also broke his leg at the time before joining Codit in October. For Viridor, I had to conceive a solution to 8x waste to energy plants utilising not only IIoT4 and OPC-UA but also create workshops and present a cost-effective solution that would enable Viridor to gain valuable insight into the vast amount of telemetry consumed each day in order to perform predictive and preventative maintenance. This also involved a lot of research and consultations with Basim and Mihaella of Microsoft. Also, during these workshops I also exposed various flaws in the existing 3rd party solution to which there was no real IoT Solution nor any security in place. Because of my findings, Nexer were awarded the contract and given the go-ahead to implement my IIoT Architecture & Solution in the new year.
The other project was for Unilever creating an IoT Edge Solution that would process stop messages from the machines and extract 30s before and after from NVRs and upload to Azure Storage so the videos and events could be consumed in PowerBi. Architecture, Design and implementation for this was relatively easy using Azure Functions, ASA, ACR, Edge Storage synced with Azure Storage, and custom Edge Module code deployed to an ASE.

Because of my recent experiences with Azure FHIR I was offered a contract to help the NHS (South, Central & Western Commissioning Unit) to help them architect, develop and get back on track their LeDeR project and get them through the GDS reviews. The solution enabled the deaths of many Disabled, Autistic and Mentally challenged people due to Covid get processed and reviewed quicker by the relevant and necessary departments. I was the technical specialist for the 3month project using Azure in conjunction with FHIR, C#, .NetCore5, Azure Blob storage, APIM, and some PowerShell. I also helped with the integration of Azure Databricks, FHIR and PowerBi for. The project got back on track and the system went live on the 9th June. This has been a fascinating experience where I’ve not only used my knowledge of Azure FHIR & Healthcare but also helped identified problems and bugs to Microsoft where it fails to meet FHIR HL7 R4 specifications and has issues. Also evaluated Google and AWS offerings and to be fair they have similar issues. Some parts I cannot discuss due to sensitivity but I also architected and achieved a way better to store patient attachments and access them via FHIR whilst maintaining a clear SoC. At present I am in my last 3 weeks and there is very little for me to help the team with so I’m expecting that the contract will not be extended any further.

Advantage Innovations. Because of my knowledge and experience with working with Misty Robotics, IoT and IIoT, I was asked by David at Advantage Innovations evaluate their IoT product and give advice on changes, new features and validate their solution. During this time I was responsible for not only that original remit but to get them as a Greenfield company up and running. This meant creating their roadmap for their product, and also defining their overall product and release cycle. I then architected the solution that met the needs of the business and of that of the offered product and got them onto the starter program with Microsoft allowing them access to Dynamics and Azure for a year, for free. The reason for leaving was I was waiting on them to get seeding investment to acquire my services as the finances were relatively limited.
Supercel365

Although I can’t talk too much about this project due to non-disclaimers, the remit was to provide a PoC that enabled everyday users of Teams, Alexa et al the ability to ask a technical question like “why does teams keep setting me to away”, it would interrogate a machine learning knowledge base and return the answer by voice and sending a hyperlink to view the answer if applicable. If there was no answer the user was offered the ability to talk to a Professional which would for a small fee would sort the problem and give you the answers that you needed. The PoC was demonstrated and worked successfully so I did a handover in mid February before starting the NHS contract.

Because of my knowledge and experience with working with Misty Robotics, IoT and IIoT, I was asked by Service Robotics Ltd to come onboard and act as their Head of Development so that they could get their Genie product out to pilot and into care homes. The project was late and the 3rd party development team they used not up to the job. I architected the solution correctly including implementing Azure IoT and DPS to manage the units, along with integrating Azure FHIR for the storage of all patient/user critical data also have the capability of not only being HIPPA compliant but also allow 3rd party health parties and clinicians access to the records and telemetry obtained by the various IoT sensors. I also designed the new system approach for the robot including system services and an SDK to make future development easier for the staff. I was also responsible for creating the sprints, maintaining tempo/momentum and mentoring the staff at CodexIQ (3rd party development team) who were producing the software. The pilot is due for the 28th August but thanks to my team when reorganised, my in-depth knowledge of IoT & experience with Misty Robotics producing their SDK, and leadership skills I’m happy to say that the pilot is going to be ahead of schedule by two weeks making me free from the 14th August.

When I do leave I know that the people at Service Robotics and more importantly the users of the robot will have secure functionality, the correct architecture in place and more importantly the ability to move towards Microsoft Dynamics & Field Services thanks to my small POC demonstrating preventative maintenance in the Genie units and more importantly preventative medicine to intervene should a patient for example with COPD not have their CPAP mask on then a small IoT with a small Tensor Flow ML set can determine and alarm the care home administrator to send a care assistant to the patient etc. The final piece of work I produced before leaving was a data analytics engine using PowerBI for presentation, and Azure Data Factory & Azure Data Lakes, and Databricks to be consumed by various AzureML routines to monitor for behavioural/routine changes etc.

For iBrandIQ, I was originally asked to be in charge of development, manage the team and take ownership of their Product. This led to a lucrative API deal with a well known global manufacturer. I was not only responsible for the Technical Architecture but also act as a Solution Architect and design the solution top-to-bottom. As I cannot divulge too much information due to contractual stipulations and confidentiality clauses, all I can say is the end product vastly improved response times through a new Azure hosted API which allows multi-zonal real-time reporting using the Azure Tech Stack for a well known worldwide manufacturer and breathed new life into the existing iBrandIQ software offering.

For my freelance projects I’ve been acting as an Azure Technical Consultant (IoT) for company called Unicard to get their Azure IoT project off the ground working with the team in Bulgaria and acting as a second pair of hands for Stoyan (Development Team Lead) to guide and direct him. I’ve also been active still in the Misty Robotics community driving innovation by connecting multiple sensors via the Arduino backpack and not only using Azure as a platform but Google and AWS and evaluating their IoT products for various clients in the US. In particular, and whats given me the most interest and satisfaction from this was helping Robert Miller with his Elder Care solution with the unit and Azure cognitive services and Chris Kooks integrating TensorFlow Lite through the Arduino Misty Backpack to determine dementia patients gait and falls. Recently I have produced a addon using the AM8833 IR Sensor to monitor peoples temperatures whilst maintaining social distancing rules.

For AgileCadence (Inverness), I was originally asked to be their Azure IoT Consultant, and design a simple prototype to communicate with 220 devices in a hospital (behind their AWS broker) and using Microsoft Azure, IoT Hub, CosmosDB, and a .Net Core2 produce a working solution that demonstrated that it could be achieved in the short span. I had 2 other members available to me and I produced the design and allocated tasks whilst I also wrote the API using Cosmonaut to take data from AWS, register in IoT Hub, process on the service bus for Dynamics Field Service users, and also store the actual telemetry in CosmosDB. I was involved with the primary stakeholders for meeting between AgileCadence and their Client and served as an Azure Specialist. Since July, I’ve already been put in charge of all IoT/Ai & Machine Learning Innovations Unit. I’m also responsible for staff members and mentoring. At present for some of our big clients I’ve been using Azure Data Lakes, HD Insights, ETL, streaming analytics to incorporate into various working machine learning models and gathering information from data lakes as well as integrating IoT device telemetry. Data sources are typically consumed by Dynamics365 (via Service Bus) or PowerBI applications, and not forgetting Azure Logic apps and Functions. SSIS, SSRS and SSAS are integrated as standard. I’ve also just been given complete control and managing the team on producing our own IP utilising machine learning and Ai in Dynamics. All key services in my architectures can be auto-scaled up or scaled down based upon consumption and costs, especially important when using Machine Learning, Ai and CosmosDb!

I was given the contract to take over as Technical Lead and Technical Project Manager for the Worksity project. The team of four developers and were 5 weeks behind schedule before I took over. After I analysed where the teams strengths were and introduced them to an Agile Framework I got the project back on track for them to meet their Phase 1 targets. I was also responsible creating the agile framework for Worksity to use, sprint planning, code reviews, sprint reviews, all 3rd party authorisation & authentication (LinkedIn, Google & Facebook) and I wrote the Worksity AngularJS component to integrate with Tesco’s Grocery and Product APIs. All frontend code was written in AngularJS, HTML5, PHP, JavaScript & jQuery whilst the backend was written purely in PHP attaching to MySQL. Both Frontend and Backend used CodeIgniter’s MVCs framework.

Since April, I have also worked on several small Microservice projects connecting to Nodejs, Azure and WordPress to cater for functionality that did not exist, and some small scale PaaS and SaaS Azure solutions. I also wrote and designed the framework for ‘InTouch with Health’ Wayfinding project using HTML5, CSS, Javascript & jQuery. A good portion of this year has been taken up by sorting out the affairs of my late mother who passed away despite offers of employment and opportunities made by Lemongrass, inTouch with health and Home Emergency Assist.

Both PRTi and Click2Scan offered me the ability to work from home doing 50/50 between the two companies. For Click2Scan I had to create a robust and secure License Server for their latest bespoke product but after the first meeting where I explained they could also integrate all their other products and sell them online I was given the go-ahead to architect the application, design and implement as well as mentoring two other developers, one would be integrating with their products and the other developer would be producing the Magento PHP connection to the WCF web server solution I created. With over 100,000 users per month using the license software, was due to hardware failure so I suggested we migrate to Azure, so I migrated the license solution to azure and it has had no downtime since. I was also entrusted with setting up CI and CD on Team Foundation Server, teaching TDD to the developers and acting as a mentor to the junior web developers. The last project I was involved with was creating an architectural design and physical design for a data synchronizer between Sage, MS Dynamics and SQL servers (one by VPN and the other was an Azure database). I produced a simple proof of concept application to show feasibility and left the project knowing that everything was in place for the team to pick up and take over with clear direction.

For PRTi, they asked me to create some microservices for their existing Wireless Billing solution and implement it using Microsoft Azure, which led to a modification to their mobile app to control their units and some more modifications to their internal and external websites for the Billing software they produced. Along with PRTi and C2S, when work was slow to arrive I have lent my services to local companies for code reviews, web development, consultancy. At the end of November i finished my last project for C2S writing a Xero integration to C2S’s Zahara CMS solution, which will also get them Xero accredited partner developers. With Zahara, the Registation solutions and various other customers where I have had to migrate data to AzureSQ I have used ETL package and the Data Migration Assistant (DMA).

Due to a motorbike accident and brain injury in 1999, I had to give up working as ordered by the doctors. Since 2002, I have been working for myself as mostly a contract developer. Since then I have

• Written bespoke solutions for Dr Ian Sedwell’s consultancy on an as needed basis producing work in Perl,ASP, MySQL, SQL Server, PHP, VB and C#.
• Multiple database consultations for various southern based companies, informing them of their problems and how to make their databases perform better.
• Various applications ranging from basic to advanced EPOS solutions in VB.Net and later C#.
• Requirements Specification and initial system design for Henry Ling printers for a work flow based system.
• Designed and written a proprietary alarm system which recorded video and sent still pictures to the customer’s mobile phone, they could also activate, reset and deactivate the system via SMS messaging, this led to the further prototype for a boat solution but sadly the after the initial boat prototype was made the project never got the funding to take off commercially.
• I have wrote a fleet management application to track and record the hire and whereabouts of hire-buggies, this also led to an application prototype for a clients who wanted to track vending machines via their android mobile phone using C#.
• Written a database application using MySQL and C#, an application for an Online Gaming clan to record data in real time using Frostbites Game & Communication data packets via TCPIP and JSON to record the stats using C#, MySQL & the Frostbite.

I started as senior software developer, but due to knowledge and experience was made the team leader and I was responsible for the design & development of the RHS’s (Royal Horticultural Society) new EPOS and internet system at that time including adapting their existing client-server software. Using an Incremental Model and a form of early Agile made the project adaptable for customer requirement changes and was a month ahead of schedule release incorporating many customer requirement changes at random intervals. I also had a lot of customer contact and I was almost on site every day, including selling them new features of the software.

I started off doing software development and due to my commitment, motivation and skills they made me the team leader of the project. In the end, I was in charge of 3 other people. Apart from development, I also made on-site visits to clients. The project was 2 months behind schedule when I started, but since my influence, the project became a 2 weeks ahead of the deadline. The work was for a large global client-server system for SMS Insurance and a large oil company and the tools used were Visual Basic 5 & 6 and SQL Server 6.5 using the Spiral Model. Although the system was 30% complete when I started on it I had to complete the trickier parts of the system. This project meant I had a lot of customer contact and I was on site every week for meetings including getting user feedback and re-engineering and adding new functionality, as well as managing the project development team.

At Cole and Sharp I was responsible for a small team of software and hardware consultants. I designed, created and organised the Electronic Document Archiving client-server system that they was selling to various companies. I also was responsible for developing the Microsoft Exchange and Adobe software for AWE as well as the Archiving project. The AWE at that time made me to adhere to use a traditional waterfall model, whereas the other main customer GEC Marconi wanted me to use an Incremental approach. I have also had to write Active Server Pages that connected to SQL servers and accounting systems. Finally I also had to write Pegasus and Sage accounting bespoke applications.

I gained 4 years solid VB and 2+ years worth of SQL Server during my Time at Bluechip. I also gained all my MAPI & Exchange experience as well as learning and implementing CGI and ASP applications that linked to the stock control and accounts systems. I was working part-time during my degree and as a programmer but due to rapid success of other projects I was made a Technical Director whilst doing my university degree (as my degree in years 2 and 4 was only for 3 days a week) so I was working for blue chip 4 days and university for 3 days. This meant that I had to manage my time extremely well and adapt to the pressure of managing and producing projects at blue chip, and maintaining my course at university. I wrote many client-server and n-tier applications varying from epos, data synchronisations with sage & outlook and their very first wintelex prototype. My opus magnum was a small piece of software that integrated with Sage and Outlook and allowed data synchronisations in real-time with very low latency. We took the product to the Birmingham show where our stall was closed down and the software was bought by Sage on that day. Despite their own development team using the same SDK at the time, mmy solution/architecture & implementation was much faster and easier !