Author: Peter Brookes-Smith

I’m not sure exactly which moment I’d pick as the conception of an idea that I eventually called “dt-squad”…. But as I write this blog in September 2023, just 12 months after Luke Davey and I dragged  dt-squad Ltd out of the ground as a commercial entity, I thought it might be worth reflecting on our “origin…

In January 2021, I was talking to some of the people from jHub (a technology and innovation hub run by the MoD) at a webinar on innovation. One conversation led to another and they mentioned a problem that was on their radar. It sounded really interesting and I asked if I could brief some of…

If you look at any piece of the night sky through a 1mm diameter hole in a piece of paper held out at arms length, how many galaxies should be visible through that hole? Our five children all  know my answer to this “fun”! question that I’ve raised at many parties over the years (you…

In March 2018 a number of stars aligned in a way that would have a lasting impact.  Firstly, I was looking for a new personal project to help me learn more about artificial intelligence and in particular computer vision. Secondly, one of our global partners asked my business if we could help them solve a…

In 2017, I was educating myself about ai and in the course of that journey, I wanted to get a much better understanding of how neural nets work (If you’d like a basic introduction to neural nets, you might enjoy my blog: What is a Neural Net anyway? ) I decided to set myself a ridiculous challenge…

In June this year, a friend (Eleanor Matthews) posted on LinkedIn that her son, studying on his own during lockdown, had completed CS50 and was looking for a new opportunity. I’d never heard of CS50 before and a quick bit of Google Fu let me know it’s a Computer Science module from Harvard that they have released…

In early 2017, I was recovering from an illness and had some time on my hands. I like to learn new things (“smash myself into new ideas”) and the papers were full of articles about artificial intelligence. “Neural Nets” were mentioned all the time and I read that: “they mimic the workings of our brains”.…

In 2019, I was creating an ai tool called ux-insight. It can help businesses get high quality feedback on the applications they deploy for their customers. I wrote this blog about the importance of values and as ux-insight is now a wholly owned proprietary technology used by us here at The Digital Transformation Squad, I…

In about 1975, I was sitting at the kitchen table with my dad and he was listening to the radio. I heard the presenter say that in 1626, a dutch businessman had bought Manhattan Island for a bag of trinkets.  I didn’t really know what Manhattan Island was but I’d heard of it. I knew…

…or Forecasting Sales using Randomness. This blog is also available as a video and you can see it here: In 2015 I was running a technology services company and for their own completely legitimate reasons, one of our largest clients told me they needed to reduce the team size by about 90% (and could be…

This blog is also available as a video and you can see it here: I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago and they were feeling a bit frustrated about a new programme at their work (a really well known UK national company).  I listened carefully while they explained how HR were trying…

When I was in Warsaw in 2015, I met a lady called Zofia Dzik and about 18 months later, she asked me if I would speak at a conference she was organising. The subject is very close to my heart and so of course I agreed. For those that might not be certain, a “fair weather friend” is someone…