MG5602 – Mobile, Social Media and Cloud Services

Coursework case study - Olwg Ltd

1. About the company - Olwg Ltd (olwg.co.uk)

Olwg is a Welsh word that means ‘Vision’. When co-founders Tony & Rosie Griffiths
started the company in June 2020 they had a joint vision of creating a company that
simplifies and democratises cleantech project decision-making. Following global careers
spanning over 25 years in energy project developments, their motivation was the realisation
that what determines the success or failure of projects is the timeliness of their
implementation. Energy projects are taking too long to evaluate, and many projects suffer
from recycle due to poor problem definition, and overly long, inaccurate analysis in
feasibility stage.
At Olwg, we discovered we could accelerate projects by providing coherent integrated tools
to evaluate and compare projects on a consistent basis. To do that, Olwg has developed a
series of interactive learning and decision tools for energy transition projects all hosted on
the Insyn Platform and can be access on all operating systems and screen formats (including
mobile). Through Insyn platform, we can help clean energy investors and decision makers
achieve their ambitions by getting to the right decisions quicker.

2. Insyn Platform (insyn.co.uk)

 What is Insyn? 
Insyn (i.e. meaning “Insight” in Swedish ) is a cloud-hosted community-based Platform
for sharing high-quality energy transition information and decision-making tools. It is an
unbiased community-based ‘one-stop-shop’ for energy professionals and decision-makers.
The emphasis is on making available a growing range of fit-for-purpose, accessible and
interactive tools- and on growing a ‘community of practice’ of users and collaborators.
To date, 13 applications have been developed in Insyn platform and more are frequently
added.  Manu of these apps and calcs can still be tested for FREE on Insyn (login required).
Our applications can be quickly customised to meet the needs of specific projects.

 What is the purpose of Insyn?

The purpose of the platform is to support high quality and rapid energy transition project
decision-making, and to facilitate a modern & interactive approach to exploring different
pathways.
We aim to achieve this through aggregating open-source information and providing
unbiased technology / project evaluation tools to explore energy transition problems.
 It is an antidote to:
o Biased information promoting specific technologies or processes by vested interests.
o Good information, data & tools being either unaffordable or taking a long time to
find 
o Long expensive studies & 300-page static reports.
o Massive difficult-to-use spreadsheets
 Who are target users of Insyn?

Insyn supports decision makers and analysts in a wide spectrum of roles across the energy
sector on cleantech solutions, including investment companies, energy companies, project
developers, innovators, research groups, government bodies and consultancies.
Example users who could benefit from Insyn include:
o Analysts in investment companies and energy companies seeking tools and peer
expertise to help screen the drivers of value in cleantech companies or projects
o Local Government, Community Energy Schemes and Policy-Makers who are looking
for interactive tools and expertise to help explore the interaction between technical
designs, economic + carbon performance
o Strategy Professionals in energy companies seeking efficient ways to compare costs
and carbon footprint of different classes of cleantech project.
o Business Development and Project Developers seeking independent analysis to
identifying possible target cleantech project types for greenfield development or for
acquisitions
 o Energy Consultants who seek curated information, interactive tools and expert input
to expedite the screening of economic and+ carbon performance of their technical
designs
o Research Institutes, Academics & Students who are looking for interactive tools to
support their wholistic learning & research efforts.
Some customer insights:
o Consultants have been our main user: They understand the value of the tools.
o Local Gov / Research Institutes have shown interest in specific areas.
o Local Councils / Community Energy / Students have limited engagement so far;
hence, a more targeted marketing and sales effort is required.
 How mature / 'ready' is Insyn?
Insyn is a prototype product designed to test features and user feedback in a live setting,
and to learn from members' interactions to guide on the direction of further development.
In terms of “Technology Readiness Level” (TRL) according to the BEIS definitions, the
lifecycle model tools and Insyn Platform - as August 2021- could be described as TRL6
'Demonstration Prototype'. This means that it has been developed to 'demonstrate a working
representative prototype in a relevant environment to prove engineering feasibility, but that
not all end-user features or interfaces are necessarily available at this stage'. 
In 2021-22, our aim is to further develop the platform, content, and user experience up to
a TRL7 – “Operational Prototype (alpha product)”.
We can only do this with the support of users, collaborators, and investors - so please
spread the word!
3. Some recent updates and future plan
Below are some company updates of current activities and future plan for 2022-23.

 We are in the process of reworking the Insyn site format to match the new branding
that we adopted for the main Olwg site. 
 We are also in the process of revising the paywall plans we initially set up.  We plan
to give part of it away for free and keep the more ‘industrial’ parts under an elevated
paywall. Nonetheless, we plan to keep all content ‘free forever’ for all students and
academic partners.
 We also plan to drive more memberships (from within industry) to the platform, add
more contents/ application tools (and possibly a new channel as well).  To continue to
develop material and learn about what customers want, the Community Platform
feature on Insyn platform allows members to suggest new content / features and
report bugs etc that we can act on. 
 In reality, we expect the Platform to take 2+ years to build the richness and breadth of
content to eventually be commercially self-sustaining through membership
subscriptions, app licencing, etc.
 4. MG5602 Coursework requirement

Many countries in the COP26 in the Glasgow climate change summit have agreed to set
the goal to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Towards this carbon neutral
economy, it is now more imperative than ever before for businesses and organisations to seek
ways accelerating their clean, low carbon energy transitions.
In this coursework, your group is required to choose ONE specific organisation which
has energy-related problem(s) and you will need to develop a use case that demonstrates how
the application tools/services provided by Insyn platform could help address the problems.
The chosen company can be in any industry, but it MUST be in the target user group of Insyn
platform as identified in Section 2 above. The company problem can be actual or
hypothetically developed with relevant justification.
Your group report (Minimum 3000 words) should follow the structure as below:

Executive summary

1. Introduction
- Introduce the context of the carbon neutral economy
- Conduct a literature review to discuss academic works related to the company
problem and the clean, low carbon energy transitions toward carbon neutral
economy.
- Introduce Olwg Ltd and discuss how its Insyn platform fits into the carbon
neutrality context.
2. Company overview
- Introduce the background of the chosen company case and its operating industry.

3. Problem description
- Describe the company problem and critically discuss its causes, importance and
impacts to the company.

4. Proposed solution
- Critically analyse and evaluate which and how the existing application
tools/services provided by Insyn platform can be used to address the identified
problem.
 - Identify and discuss 2-3 major issues which are currently not covered by Insyn but
which might be appended to it in the future or addressed in partnership with others
for critical challenges – depending on the particular company / use case the
student chooses.
- Suggest types of new, additional interactive content and user experience features
that should be developed into the future versions of the platform to address those
issues.
- Suggest a Marketing & Sales plan on how the platform and its tools can be
marketed using digital means.

5. Professional issues
- Discuss any potential implementation issues (eg. Security, control, privacy,
regulations, membership agreements, maintenance, price/cost, sustainability, staff
training, to name a few) when the company decides to work with Olwg Ltd and
uses the Insyn platform.

6. Conclusion

Reference

Appendix