No Code AI and ML, how it could address the digital skills gap and diversity in AI - Q&A Roundup

I had the absolute pleasure of speaking at The AI Summit as part of London Tech Week today with the fabulous Sue Daley from Tech UK. Here is my round-up of the session as Sue and me cover all things No Code, AI, Digital Skills, Diversity in Data and AI.

Sue: What are the examples where you see No Code really helping? And is it in only certain parts of the economy?

Zandra: We are seeing it everywhere, along side your job side hustle, ?inhouse IT departments and freelancers building for others, new start-ups using no code app platforms to build MVPs and production ready apps. But its not new No Code has been here for a while – 34% of all the worlds websites are built on Wordpress one of the first No Code website building platforms. No Code is a new badge for something that has been around for a long time, its great that the community and movement can organise itself around around this identity it needed one. Essentially all the technology created to be drag and drop for none-technical people?to build things in and the people that want to build digital solutions to problems without coding!

Sue: How far do you think No Code technologies could reach? How far could this go? Who is participating in the No Code “movement” and why? Is No Code really new? Is it a game changer? If so why?

Zandra: Again its not new, the real change now is that app development has become no code, so from specialist tools like DB builders Access to Website builder tools Wordpress we have Bubble, Webflow, Retool. The domain of app creation is now for the none techies too. Cloud resources are more elastic and affordable, the app creation technologies can be run as a service Retool $8 pcm and you have a scalable solution which can be built in days at low cost without development teams. We are also seeing No Code move into Development Operations and Security enabling development teams to become more efficient so we require less technical resources. However there is still pride in building things from scratch, fear of not being taken seriously as a developer, fear of no-code being unruly…lacking governance it as an image problem with developers.

Sie: There is a lot of talk this week about encouraging access to investment and role of VC’s in tech sector growth. Is the No Code movement an area VC’s should be investing in?

Zandra: Specialist vertical no-code solutions are getting support and investment like Unqork in financial services and Olive in healthcare AI. Less horizontally focused platforms like Appsmith. But with a lack of digital skills is pushing that through…Panintelligence is an example of that. There are several companies that focus on drag and drop app building for web-app designers the draw from the non-technical community for digital solutions to problems that have not attracted capital or been provided budget such as front line health, community, education and 3rd Sector. These tools offer sufficient functionality to provide desperately needed digital innovation to the non-technical teams pushing the innovation to improve services and outcomes for its core stakeholders.

The question is are they sufficiently rich for enterprise deployments? Can they be used to integrate with enterprise solutions, often rich in data, but perhaps lacking the front end capabilities and usability to engage all stakeholder groups that could drive value from the data within legacy and often complex to maintain environments. Here there is a huge opportunity for No Code to enable in house teams to extend the value of these systems and life span.

Ultimately the no-code tools getting most attention and investment are the no-code platforms people are using to building on top of. But we are starting to see VCs invest in companies which have built their solutions entirely on No-Code solutions like Bubble and Webflow. The questions for VCs is how are their portfolio companies leveraging No Code to ensure there is efficient use of capital alongside seeing it as solution for dealing with the current digital skills gap. Here their attention could drive the biggest value for their entire portfolio base.

With a more diverse community of talent entering the No-Code Community than the development community, It could also help VSc reverse the current trend of 89% of all capital going to all male founding teams. In the last few years female founded teams have gone from 3p in every pound invested to 1p as women stepped back from the workplace and running companies during the pandemic picking up the greater share of the responsibilities for care and the home. Such as home-schooling. Business built with no code tools which are more accessible could be a key enabler in shifting more investment to under represented and diverse groups.

Sue:?Going broader into the digital skills gap agenda/issue - Zandra given your interaction with business leaders (you are at the coal face) what is it that people really need right now? Technical skills/softer skills or all of the above? What would make a real difference?

Zandra: The Goverrment report recently showed that 82% of all jobs in the UK list digital skills as a requirement.?Lloyds Banking survey suggests only 64% of Adults have the essential digital skills for work. In 2019 before the Pandemic this was already an issue with the OU finding 9 in 10 UK organisations admitted facing a shortage of digital skills. The pandemic has accelerated the need for digital skills as remote working accelerated the rate of digital adoption and cloud solutions to enable remote workers to continue to be productive in their roles. Worse still since 2015 the Learning and Work Institute said the number of young people taking IT subjects at GCSE has dropped 40% since 2015 with UK Colleges and Universities appealing for help as they lack the skills, resources and knowledge to address the issue. The Lifetime Skills Guarantee and access to a flexible loan making high-level education accessible to people at any point in their lives is a great opportunity to attract a returning group such as parents, carers and those who have had a break due to health reasons. Retraining groups such as NorthCoders, WomenReturners, LeedsCodes are exmples of retraining organisations that can support. The possible addition of the Ada Institute a college for training under represented and under privileged young people in technology could be a real game changer for Yorkshire. We need more funding and support from both private and public sector to drive change faster. The tech industry itself still has an image problem, at a recent event with 150 girls in leeds from schools across in some of the most deprived areas of our city a panel of women in tech were asked questions about pay and the types of jobs they could do. It was clear most of the girls thought tech was for boys who liked gaming and it was all about writing code. We need to expose the diversity of the roles in the sector to more diverse groups to get young people seeing the sector as a place they would like to be. Diverse role models doing different jobs, not just founders and leaders of tech companies that are mainly white men.

Sue: (Ethics) Diversity in the AI industry is so key. Dame Wendy Hall say if AI is not diverse its not ethical. This is a key part of the digital skills conversation given the challenges of bias and building pubic trust – How can the UK get this right and how key is this to the UK’s global leadership in tech and innovation?

Zandra: No Code allows people to move fast (build stuff for less and fast and by one person). But how do we make sure we don’t “move fast and break things”? How do we get this right from a due diligence, compliance and ethical point of view. – We need to understand the risks don’t we?

Moving fast around existing infrastructure can be the best of both worlds. The No Code Stack is built for scale. But yes shadow IT is a concern for many enterprises, in my view it is best they embrace the movement and allow for the digital innovation to thrive perhaps via inhouse incubators. Champions that can work together on both sides, the problem solvers and the digital builders, together they are better placed to assess the risks, challenge, value and practicality of solutions.

But more diversity in the participation on digital innovation will in of its self will challenge bias anyway. Bais on design, bias in data etc so for me focusing on attracting diverse teams will automatically address many of the ethical issues we currently face.

Sue: Government Policy - Zandra what about government support? How could government help? What would be your message to policy makers?

Zandra: No Code needs to be a core part of digital, data and AI strategies coming out of Governement…it isn’t currently.

Include no code as an enabler in the Technology Code of Practice. The inhouse framework for selecting digital solutions by government.

Use No Code solutions internally within government to create agile innovation around legacy systems that will take too long to displace. Create change faster from large data sets and existing infrastructure with niche, specialised projects and use cases. Start with low risk high value projects. A great No Code Lab and Panintelligence example would be Digibete which enables young people with type 1 diabetes to access digital resources and a community to help them self manage with their families their diabetes. It also gives the health professionals access to data insights around engagement on the platform so they can target their scarce resources towards the most in need.

What about the business leaders here in the room. What would be your message to them?

?Create a champion in your organisation on No Code, not a techie, get them to tune into the No Code agenda in your sector the use cases, opportunities, understand the risks. Make it an open conversation and intrapreneurs with rise up to the exciting challenge of solving problems digitally without feeling like they have to be technical.

Set a Challenge for your team to solve with no code, make it a competition, run a hack. Encourage internal digital innovation that’s a huge opportunity.