Meet the Innovators: Harry Keen, CEO & Co-founder at Hazy (synthetic data)
Building upon the success of our Supercharging UK Tech and Innovation campaign, techUK is continuing to explore new ways to build an innovation ecosystem that will benefit people, society, economy and the planet.
This series celebrates the work of members in promoting a healthy UK innovation ecosystem.
Can you tell me about Hazy? What do you do?
Hazy is the leading synthetic data platform that uses generative AI to produce highly secure, representative, and de-identified data. Hazy empowers teams with safe data to accelerate product development, ensuring compliance and security.
With Hazy synthetic data, organisations can guarantee data privacy, drastically reduce development cycles, and avoid overheads associated with using live data.
We work with the most regulated industries - namely financial services, government, telcos - which have a lot of inaccessible data due to regulation, legacy infrastructure and strict governance controls. Made up of a mix of these firms alongside smaller technology providers, techUK’s ecosystem is a useful forum for conversations and thought leadership around data and AI.
How do you interact with the wider UK innovation ecosystem, including SMEs?
Hazy is a UCL spin-out and stays at the forefront of research and innovation within the synthetic data and privacy space. Our Head of Research, Georgi Ganev, is often part of events hosted by the ICO and FCA speaking to SMEs, vendors and regulators about how synthetic data can be used to speed up business operations.
Last year, Hazy launched a demo platform of our product enabling SMEs to trial the platform immediately for free. This enables firms of any size to quickly assess the value of the platform without having to take weeks of workshops.
We partner with technology firms and systems integrators to slot Hazy Synthetic Data into a wider data ecosystem and drive value.
How are your products or solutions enabling a sustainable approach to technology?
Hazy’s core mission is to set data free. Using synthetic data instead of real data enables organisations to develop products and services, test faster and perform analytics without risk, in essence, ‘democratising data’.
Data access requests needed to use live data typically take months to sign off - wasting time, resource and slowing projects. Synthetic data enables data to be shared across departments and borders, speeding up processes that usually take months without risking individuals’ privacy.
We offer distributed architecture deployment using Kubernetes to our customers which not only offers the utmost security but also enables elastic scaling. This minimises cloud compute, reducing the operational costs and potential overallocation of resources of the platform. As an example, deploying the distributed architecture instead of our single container architecture in our SaaS platform has reduced our internal cloud computing costs by 50%.
What's your vision for the UK's tech industry?
Continued investment in AI research and development will likely remain a priority for the UK as it aims to expand its influence and leadership after the success of the AI Summit last year, ahead of which techUK convened industry to feed in their views. The entire sector — regulatory bodies, governments, and tech vendors — should aim for collaborative efforts to establish robust yet adaptable frameworks governing data and AI. We’ve recently seen an example of that in action: our work with Nationwide Building Society has been featured by the ICO along with other privacy-enhancing technology case studies, which is an exciting step in setting industry standards for synthetic data.
The demand for data to train AI models will only increase, but the sector should prioritise ethical and secure practices for procuring, using, and sharing that data. More solutions will adopt a ‘privacy by design’ approach as privacy becomes less of a consideration for governance and legal functions and instead a shared priority across business units due to growing customer expectations.
There is still work to be done to prove value and build trust in how new technologies can fit into large, complex environments. Obviously, securely designed and built systems should be a baseline, but vendors should also be clear on how their tech fits into the wider ecosystem of existing tools — from a purely technical, value chain, and revenue standpoint. Only then will they become operationalised and reach their full potential.
How has Hazy benefitted from techUK membership?
The techUK ecosystem has provided a good opportunity to further our network. We have attended and spoken on panels at techUK’s events which offer a platform for our firm to further education and knowledge of synthetic data and its benefits.
techUK members can feature in this series!
Are you interested in showcasing how your company is leading on innovation and promoting a healthy UK innovation ecosystem?
techUK member companies are eligible to participate in this series, completely free of charge!
Episodes are promoted extensively throughout the year to thousands of stakeholders across the UK's technology sector (including tech companies, VCs, policy officials, and ministers) via techUK's monthly newsletters, website pages, and social channels.
Please contact rory.daniels@techuk.org to feature in this series or enquire about techUK membership.
This series is hosted & produced by:
Rory Daniels
Senior Programme Manager, Emerging Technologies
Rory Daniels
Senior Programme Manager, Emerging Technologies
Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.
During this time, Rory worked on the Government's response to Covid-19 (NHS Test & Trace), school funding strategy (Department for Education) and international climate and nature policy (Cabinet Office). He also tackled the social care crisis whilst on secondment to techUK's Health and Social Care programme in 2022.
Before this, Rory worked in the House of Commons and House of Lords alongside completing degrees in Political Economy and Global Politics.
Today, Rory leads techUK's emerging technologies activity across everything from immersive, web3, AI and robotics to space, gaming & metaverse.
This involves co-running techUK's flagship Innovation campaign, managing four series (including the 'Meet the Innovators' interview series), and launching 4-6-month 'sprint campaigns' on transformative technologies and sectors.
Programme Assistant, Technology and Innovation, techUK
Harriet Allen
Programme Assistant, Technology and Innovation, techUK
Tania Teixeira
Social Media and Content Manager, techUK
Tania Teixeira
Social Media and Content Manager, techUK
Tania joined the Marketing and Communications team at techUK as a Social Media and Content Manager in July 2022.
Prior to techUK, Tania worked at early-stage tech start-ups (both art-tech and fintech). With a creative educational background (BA in Fine Arts and MA in Writing), Tania developed the core skills to grow expertise in content creation across various formats. Tania is passionate about organic growth and community building and she will help build and expand techUK’s incredible community of thought leaders.
Outside work hours, Tania loves to be around nature and animals, discovering new food and enjoying music events.
The UK is home to emerging technologies that have the power to revolutionise entire industries. From quantum to semiconductors; from gaming to the New Space Economy, they all have the unique opportunity to help prepare for what comes next.
techUK members lead the development of these technologies. Together we are working with Government and other stakeholders to address tech innovation priorities and build an innovation ecosystem that will benefit people, society, economy and the planet - and unleash the UK as a global leader in tech and innovation.
For more information, or to get in touch, please visit our Innovation Hub and click ‘contact us’.
techUK's sprint campaigns explore how emerging and transformative technologies are developed, applied and commercialised across the UK's innovation ecosystem.
Activity includes workshops, roundtables, panel discussions, networking sessions, Summits, and flagship reports (setting out recommendations for Government and industry).
Each campaign runs for 4-6 months and features regular collaborations with programmes across techUK.
techUK's latest sprint campaign is on Robotic & Automation technologies. Find out how to get involved by clicking here.
Running from September to November 2023, this campaign explored how the UK can lead on the development, application and commercialisation of space technologies, bring more non-space companies into the sector, and ultimately realise the benefits of the New Space Economy.
These technologies include AI, quantum, lasers, robotics & automation, advanced propulsion and materials, and semiconductors.
Activity has taken the form of roundtables, panel discussions, networking sessions, Summits, thought leadership pieces, policy recommendations, and a report. The report, containing member case studies and policy recommendations, was launched in March 2024 at Satellite Applications Catapult's Harwell campus.
Get in touch below to find out more about techUK's ongoing work in this area.
This webinar explored the space industry of tomorrow and panellists spoke about what steps the UK can take to become a superpower across a broad spectrum of emerging and transformative space technologies.
Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.
During this time, Rory worked on the Government's response to Covid-19 (NHS Test & Trace), school funding strategy (Department for Education) and international climate and nature policy (Cabinet Office). He also tackled the social care crisis whilst on secondment to techUK's Health and Social Care programme in 2022.
Before this, Rory worked in the House of Commons and House of Lords alongside completing degrees in Political Economy and Global Politics.
Today, Rory leads techUK's emerging technologies activity across everything from immersive, web3, AI and robotics to space, gaming & metaverse.
This involves co-running techUK's flagship Innovation campaign, managing four series (including the 'Meet the Innovators' interview series), and launching 4-6-month 'sprint campaigns' on transformative technologies and sectors.
Running from January to May 2024, this sprint campaign explored how the UK can lead on the development, application and commercialisation of the technologies set to underpin the Gaming & Esports sector of the future.
These include AI, augmented / virtual / mixed / extended reality, haptics, cloud & edge computing, semiconductors, and advanced connectivity (5/6G).
Activity took the form of roundtables, panel discussions, networking sessions, Summits, and thought leadership pieces. A report featuring member case studies and policy recommendations was launched at The National Videogame Museum in November 2024.
Get in touch below to find out more about techUK's future plans in this space.
This features 8 future tech trends, case studies, and recommendations for Government to make future leadership in gaming and Esports technologies a reality.
This webinar explored the gaming industry of tomorrow and asked what steps businesses can take to lead in the development, commercialisation, application and adoption of the key emerging technologies that will underpin it.
This webinar explored the key technologies behind the future of Esports in the UK and asked what more the UK can do to lead on their development and application.
Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.
During this time, Rory worked on the Government's response to Covid-19 (NHS Test & Trace), school funding strategy (Department for Education) and international climate and nature policy (Cabinet Office). He also tackled the social care crisis whilst on secondment to techUK's Health and Social Care programme in 2022.
Before this, Rory worked in the House of Commons and House of Lords alongside completing degrees in Political Economy and Global Politics.
Today, Rory leads techUK's emerging technologies activity across everything from immersive, web3, AI and robotics to space, gaming & metaverse.
This involves co-running techUK's flagship Innovation campaign, managing four series (including the 'Meet the Innovators' interview series), and launching 4-6-month 'sprint campaigns' on transformative technologies and sectors.
Running from July to December 2024, this campaign explored how the UK can lead on the development, application and commercialisation of web3 and immersive technologies.
These include blockchain, smart contracts, digital assets, augmented / virtual / mixed / extended reality, spatial computing, haptics and holograms.
Activity took the form of roundtables, workshops, panel discussions, networking sessions, tech demos, Summits, thought leadership pieces, policy recommendations, and a report (to be launched in 2025).
Get in touch below to find out more about techUK's future plans in this space.
This features 8 future tech trends, case studies, and recommendations for Government to make future leadership in gaming and Esports technologies a reality.
Rory joined techUK in June 2023 after three years in the Civil Service on its Fast Stream leadership development programme.
During this time, Rory worked on the Government's response to Covid-19 (NHS Test & Trace), school funding strategy (Department for Education) and international climate and nature policy (Cabinet Office). He also tackled the social care crisis whilst on secondment to techUK's Health and Social Care programme in 2022.
Before this, Rory worked in the House of Commons and House of Lords alongside completing degrees in Political Economy and Global Politics.
Today, Rory leads techUK's emerging technologies activity across everything from immersive, web3, AI and robotics to space, gaming & metaverse.
This involves co-running techUK's flagship Innovation campaign, managing four series (including the 'Meet the Innovators' interview series), and launching 4-6-month 'sprint campaigns' on transformative technologies and sectors.
Our annual Campaign Weeks enable techUK members to explore how the UK can lead on the development and application of emerging and transformative technologies.
Members do this by contributing blogs or vlogs, speaking at events, and highlighting examples of best practice within the UK's tech sector.
During this week we will be bringing you news, views and insights from the technology sector on what Quantum Commercialisation will mean to the UK’s society and economy. you can read more below #QuantumUK
#UnleashInnovation - techUK's Technology and Innovation programme is excited to host its innovation campaign week, as part of the Unleashing Innovation campaign, from 13-17 May.
#SuperchargeUKTech - techUK's Technology and Innovation programme is excited to have hosted its innovation campaign week, as part of the Supercharging Innovation campaign, between 18-22 September.
