Why data matters in the real world

If you work in IT, you will have heard again and again over the past five or ten years how important data is – how it can improve or even revolutionize how we work and live. Phrases like “data is the new oil” or “the data revolution” get thrown around and while the specific wording may change, the sentiment is the same: Data is useful and important in ways we’ve not previously imagined.

Yet when we start to dig into the details, things can sometimes get a bit hazy. Real use cases can be elusive, vague, or rather mundane.

This doesn’t have to be the case, though.

At NetApp Insight Xtra London, ITPro’s features and multimedia editor Rory Bathgate interviewed Sarah de Lagarde – a campaigner and spokesperson who describes herself as 80% human and 20% bionic – and Matt Watts, chief technology evangelist at NetApp.

In this video, the three speakers explore one of the ways in which data is used to make a real life difference: de Lagarde’s AI-powered prosthetic arm.

Pushing the boundaries of prosthetics

In September 2022, de Lagarde was on her commute home when she fell from the platform in a Tube station and became stuck between it and a stationary train. As nobody had seen her fall, the train moved off and in doing so crushed her right arm above the elbow. Still unnoticed, she was struck by a second train that damaged her right leg. Once the alarm was raised and she was freed from under the second train, she was taken to hospital where she underwent emergency surgery to amputate her severely damaged limbs and save her life.

After a long period of rehabilitation, de Lagarde now walks with a “cool” prosthetic leg and uses a prosthetic arm with an AI-enabled hand from a specialist firm called Covvi.

“Every time I use the arm, data gets collected … and the AI function of this is to establish the patterns, recognize which ones I make most often, and then helps me complete those gestures more efficiently,” de Lagarde explains.

Covvi’s technology is able to do this thanks to data collection and analysis, facilitated by NetApp.

“We focus on helping companies build intelligent data infrastructures,” says Watts. “We enable companies to make sure that their data is where it needs to be, with security, such that [they] are able to use that data to innovate.”

In the case of Covvi in particular, Watts says: “This is very personal. The data that’s coming back from your limb is something that’s very personal to you as well. So it’s using that data to create a better experience, to create new grips, to enable you to do new things, but also making sure that that data is incredibly secure, such that no one can have access to it that shouldn’t have access to it.”

That, he says, is what’s behind the intelligent data infrastructure that NetApp has helped architect for Covvi.

Watch the full video now to find out how NetApp enables companies to change lives using the power of data.