I am driven by realising real world societal business impact from new science driven solutions. I now find myself in the dream job of co-innovating such solutions in rapid iterative cycles, combining science, design, technology and user research. I began on this path with a degree in ecology (physics never seemed complex nor important enough) which led me to driving applied conservation projects at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. A complexity course at the Santa Fe Institute convinced me to undertake a PhD in applied maths which then led to 8 years as scientist at Microsoft Research developing new data-driven models and methods for making actionable predictions of ecological systems before I decided to get back into “the real world” and work in faster cycles with teams with a broader range of skills to realise real impact. Planetary intelligence is my guiding principle: enabling every person and organization to make more intelligent decisions about how they interact with their environment by combining our best understanding, technology and data.
Matthew Smith
Scientist, Microsoft