BrightMinded Update - November 2023

It has been a while since our last company update and we have so many new things to tell you. We have been working on amazing projects whilst going out on some very fun socials, and we have new people to introduce you !

Projects

In July we delivered a new version of FLOCERT’s public website to celebrate their 20th anniversary as the global Fairtrade certification body!

The site features a fresh new look and is available in their five working languages. Visitors can search FLOCERT’s customer database for certified Fairtrade organisations, and potential customers can generate personalised cost estimates and detailed information on the criteria they must comply with to achieve certification.

Knowledge Agent proofs of concept

We’ve been busy developing our Knowledge Agents based on the Large Language Models (LLM) popularised by ChatGPT. Before BrightMinded the founders worked together delivering Artificial Intelligence solutions to clients, so we have the experience needed to apply AI techniques to real-world problems. We’re speaking to our existing clients about possible use cases, and building different proofs of concept to demonstrate how we can add value either for their internal teams or end-users.

Our current application was built in collaboration with the National Retrofit Hub – a non-profit organisation bringing together all those involved in retrofitting energy and water efficiency measures to existing buildings. These measures are vital for the UK to achieve its energy security, fuel poverty, and climate change goals, and the Hub enables best practices through information gathering and knowledge sharing. With their many partner organisations they have access to thousands of relevant web-based and document resources.

Our Knowledge Agent allows all retrofit stakeholders to query this wealth of information in a conversational manner. The user will either be presented with an answer to their question constructed from the relevant information the Knowledge Agent identified in the Hub’s corpus of information or they will be signposted to content that may have relevant information related to their question, all in an intuitive user interface. The National Retrofit Hub are now developing proposals for how this functionality will allow users to access good quality, relevant information, in a way that mitigates risk.

If your organisation would benefit from allowing your end-users or your internal team to query your content in English rather than a traditional search interface, please get in touch!

Generative AI event

John attended the Generative AI and LLM in focus event organised by Digital Catapult.

The main takeaway from the event was that we are still in the very early stages of the generative AI revolution, comparable probably to where the web was in the late 90s. It is clear that there are lots of opportunities for disruption, but it is not yet clear which of these will be realised and made permanent. It is important to establish for which use cases generative AI will be a good solution.

As with any new technology, there are lots of risks that will need to be managed and mitigated. But change our lives and businesses, generative AI will.

BrightMinded day out

Every summer we organise some fun activities for our team so that we can spend time together outside of work whilst learning new skills. We highly value positive work relationships at BrightMinded!

This year we first went to Preston Manor where we played murder mystery. We got split into groups and had to guess who was the killer, where it took place and what weapon was used. The decorated scenes, actors, and clues made the experience 10 times better. We all had a great time !

After our fun activity, we went back to Brighton for some lunch. As always we like to go places where everyone will be able to find what they like to eat, so in this case we had a great lunch at Alcampo Lounge in London Road. Unfortunately, we didn’t take any pictures of our lunch, but we can tell you that it was delicious!!

To end our day out we crossed the road to The World’s End pub, where we not only had some drinks, but also got the chance to play incredible video games in their arcade area. It even involved car racing!

Team expansion

Our team has grown a lot since our last update!! 

First, Karl joined our team in May as a software developer. His eight years of experience have allowed him to develop great attention to detail and he prides himself on writing high quality code. His passion for website development allows BrightMinded to obtain great results.  

Indigo joined us over the summer to complete an eight week summer internship programme between her second and final year of biology studies at the University of Sussex. During her time with us she helped with marketing by supporting the team, and got to learn how marketing works at a B2B software company. She brought great new perspectives and creativity to the team, and is definitely being missed! We would like to highlight two amazing blogs Indigo wrote, one about her experience in the internship program and another interesting blog about machine learning and languages.

In July we had two people joining our team. First, Josh joined at the start of the month as a part-time software developer while he is studying for his Masters in advanced computer science at the University of Sussex. At the end of the month, Andrei joined our great team of software developers, bringing to the team 15 years of amazing coding experience. 

Lastly, in September, Almudena, who previously did a summer internship with us, joined our team as a marketing assistant. She helps us in maintaining our website up-to-date and generates some very innovative ideas. Is great to have a familiar face back!

Recent blogs

We have recently posted some very interesting blog posts which we encourage you to read. 

A comparison between two big content management systems: Umbraco and WordPress. In this blog you will find the opinion of an expert who makes an extensive and deep comparison between these two platforms looking into their functionality and features. 

Finally, considering how technology and artificial intelligence have evolved over the past few years, we have a very interesting blog post about ChatGPT. A very timely read indeed!