Interview: Niall Robinson, head of product innovation, Met Office | Computer Weekly
Summary
Niall Robinson, head of product innovation at the Met Office, is an experienced executive who turns novel ideas at the UK’s national weather and climate service into valuable outputs. He then helped lead the Met Office Informatics Lab, where he collaborated with a team of technologists, scientists and designers to find innovative ways to make the most of the organisation’s data. So, data-driven organisations like ours need to lean into that effort.” Robinson says one of his most important projects right now is using the Snowflake Marketplace, which is a platform that allows users to access, explore and provide data services, to create new socio-economic value for the Met Office. “The work we’re undertaking is about getting our data into that system and creating a webpage, with a curated user experience, that makes this information much easier to use.” Artificial intelligence (AI) is another important area of data-led innovation for the Met Office. “The Met Office is in a partnership with the Alan Turing Institute to do some work in that area as well.” In addition, Robinson is eager to explore how his organisation can use AI in its products and services.