2 Comments
  1. hadizamudi 1 year ago

    Hi all,

    I am Hadiza Mudi, a senior Lecturer in Bauchi state College of Nursing Sciences, Nigeria.
    Nice to meet you all.

  2. Nigel 1 year ago

    I wear 3 hats:
    Hat 1: personal
    I am originally a civil engineer (FICE), with experience working on 3rd world development in Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and India.
    I have evolved into a professional development expert running an international consultancy Cambridge Professional Development Ltd which advises on matters to do with improving the performance of professionals in all sectors (Hat 3 below).
    We have also started the Acocks Greener community association 3 years ago (Hat 2). I am a Director of MOZES (Meadows Ozone Energy Services Company) http://www.mozes.org.uk in Nottingham, which was the inspiration for Acocks Greener.
    When we moved to Birmingham 6 years ago, we made our house (built in 1958 as social housing) as eco-friendly as possible. It already had double-glazing and cavity wall insulation. We have added: external wall insulation, solar PV panels on the roof and a battery, Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR), underfloor heating (and insulation) and a home environmental monitoring station (measuring: temperature, humidity, VOC, PM2.5, CO2).
    Hat 2: Acocks Greener
    Acocks Greener is a community organisation in the 2 wards of Acocks Green and Tyseley, with objectives:
    * To reduce the local carbon footprint as part of Birmingham’s ‘Route to Zero’ by 2030.
    * To enable the area to become self sufficient in its energy related technologies.
    * To enable the local residents and then other areas to access affordable energy and contribute to the community and economic development of Birmingham.
    * To re-green our local environment.
    * To contribute in any way to initiatives that tackle the Climate Emergency.
    We want to make Acocks Greener the pilot area for climate change initiatives in Birmingham – to try out new ideas, and cooperate with Tyseley Energy Park, the City Council and the Universities. Acocks Green is a particularly suitable place for pilot and demonstration projects because it so accurately reflects ‘average Birmingham’ in its social, ethnic, economic and deprivation mix, and in its housing and public transport. Our exceptionally strong community involvement makes Acocks Greener a really good test-bed and role-model for other areas.
    We already have support from all the local community groups, Birmingham City Council (BCC), Tyseley Energy Park and from our MP and Councillors.
    We are trying to make Acocks Greener to become a ‘Living Lab’, monitoring impact on a statistically significant number of diverse buildings (homes and businesses) attracting projects and funding to help the deprived areas of the ward. Some of the projects for which we are seeking funding:
    1. get final year primary school children to build home environmental monitoring stations (so they learn about the environmental science, technology, electronics and programming) to install in their homes (to collect data on temperature, humidity, air pollution, noise, energy use, etc) so that we have a base-line from which to compare the impact of any changes (and a young environmental champion in every family). The Raspberry Pi computers cost about £125 each and will provide each home with a Linux operating system computer whose only user will therefore be the child (thereby combatting digital exclusion due to poverty). The sensors will cost an additional £125, meaning a total of £5,000 per class of 20. BCC help will enable this programme to be rolled out to other classes (and Youth Groups and secondary schools) and in other schools across our wards and the whole of Birmingham.
    2. make an inventory of the housing stock in the ward (using drones as well as surveys), indicating: ownership and occupation, size and construction type, suitability for external wall insulation, PV panels, etc. This will help in quickly selecting homes to approach for particular types of project.
    3. act as a Living Lab, fully monitored and ready to implement new ideas so that their impact can be measured.
    4. retrofit external wall insulation (and ideally Mechanical Ventilation & Heat Recovery, MVHR) into housing. [It would also give the opportunity to install photovoltaic panels on the roof of suitable sites]
    5. rebuild the many garage-blocks owned and rented out by the city council so that they become eco-garages:
    * making them wide enough to store a modern car
    * building a second floor which could provide storage (currently virtually all garages are actually used solely for storage, so that the roads are cluttered with parked cars)
    * installing photovoltaic panels on the roof and electric car charging points so that the electric cars can serve as battery storage over night.
    6. install ground source heat pumps (GSHPs) and sell the hot water to nearby houses as a renewable substitute for gas-fired water heating and central heating – for example under Acocks Green Recreation Ground. GSHPs under roads, parking areas and playing fields provide a renewable heat store for use throughout the year (Air Source Heat Pumps are at their least efficient when air temperature is lowest, the time when they are most needed).
    7. together with Enterprise Car Clubs we have set up an e-car share club to reduce car ownership (and therefore on-street parking) and promote use of low carbon vehicles. We urgently need EV charging sites where we can place additional cars.
    8. provide advice and support to local residents, community/faith groups and SMEs on energy-saving measures and how to finance the work. We would like to work closely with PAS2035 assessors. We are currently working with the Energy Champions project of Footsteps (Birmingham Faith Groups for a Low Carbon Future), the PLACE project on enhancing the role of the planning system in moving to Net Zero, and the Low Carbon SMEs project of Aston University.
    Hat 3: Cambridge Professional Development (www.CamProf.com)
    CamProf is a small international consultancy since 1994, working globally with expertise in:
    1. Competencies & occupational standards: their development, uptake and uses (especially professional, technical & managerial), competency frameworks, databases, essential/employability skills
    2. Adult learning & professional development: learning through experience, initial formation, continuing professional development, apprenticeship, learning design, e-learning, mentoring, careers counselling, learning organisations
    3. Assessment: of competencies (including attitudes and values), recognition of prior learning, portfolios of evidence, assessor competencies, quality assurance
    4. Accreditation: qualifications, ‘open badges’, qualification frameworks, regulation of occupations/professions, foreign credential recognition, credit accumulation & transfer, quality assurance
    5. International & intercultural aspects: diversity & inclusion, recruitment, selection, aptitude testing, alternative careers, refugees, immigrants, mobility, international project design, international project management
    6. Project management: project design, project management, quality assurance, sustainability, dissemination, finding suitable partners, design /organize /facilitate meetings, report writing
    7. Organisation development: international development projects, international networks, strategy, programme evaluation, feasibility studies, strategic review, labour market information
    8. Data collection: secondary research, international bench-marking, e-survey design, qualitative and quantitative analysis, face-to-face and virtual focus group facilitation, data presentation
    CamProf has a long track record of developing occupational standards of competence in UK and internationally. We have a daughter company in Canada. Relevant recent projects:
    – a global scan of ‘clean/green tech’ initiatives to inform new course development for the University of Prince Edward Island and Holland College in Canada.
    – preparing a global competency framework for humanitarian logistics for the International Federation of the Red Cross/Crescent.
    – preparing a global competency framework for primary healthcare workers in sexual & reproductive health and rights for the World Health Organization.
    – instigating an (unsuccessful) project proposal for EU Horizon 2020 funding, to create occupational standards of competence for green occupations and a new ‘green’ key competence for use in education and lifelong learning. The bid was led by a university in Germany, with partners in Finland, Estonia, Spain, Slovenia, Romania (mostly assembled by CamProf). In UK both CamProf (expertise occupational standards) and Acocks Greener (‘living lab’) were partners.
    Relevant past projects:
    – APL-Bud development of a system for accreditation of prior learning for the Polish construction sector, which included pilots for Polish construction workers in Poland, UK, Germany.
    – a report for UK CITB (Construction Industry Training Board) on the skills impact of modern methods of construction (off-site).
    – occupational standards for the not-for-profit sector in British Columbia (Canada).
    – the Open Badge Network EU project on micro credentials.

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