Michael Harper’s Post

🌍 Passionate about data and sustainability? 🔥 Interested in tackling one of the UK's largest sources of carbon emissions? 🎉 Want to work at the most exciting startup in Europe? 🔍 We're looking for a Junior Data Scientist to join our mission! 👉 Apply Here: https://lnkd.in/d7TCVbFy 📈 If you want to build a career in data, this is a fantastic chance to learn and grow with a rapidly scaling company. Data is genuinely at the core of everything we do at Heat Geek. ❓ Any questions, please drop me a message!

Time-of-use tariffs remain one of the biggest opportunities as we transition away from gas boilers to heat pumps or other electric heating. However, shifting usage can have a major impact on the efficiency of a heat pump system, even undermining the potential savings entirely. Check out this video for more: https://lnkd.in/dsDuYQrx I have no doubt we will see more and more innovation in this space over the next few years. From my own experiments, load-shifting my heat pump has saved around 40% in running costs compared to a gas boiler, but it's required making some fairly extreme changes to my home as mentioned in the video 😂 I loved working with Adam Chapman on this one! My first guest appearance on the YouTube channel, definitely not the last.

Let's do this 🚀 When I had the opportunity to join the Heat Geek mission almost two years ago, I knew I had to jump at the chance. Having personally gone through the journey of getting a heat pump, I had seen firsthand the many challenges that needed to be fixed if we are going truly revolutionise low-carbon heating. What I always loved most about Heat Geek was the focus on the engineer. The knowledge that well-trained and knowledgable installers are the vital piece in getting a successful installation. No amount of data science and technology is ever going to remove them from the loop (although we can make their lives a hell of a lot easier!). Getting funding is by no means the core metric: success is ultimately defined by the number of homes we decarbonise and the gas pipes that we disconnect from homes. But this funding helps us accelerate our mission and many of the big ideas we have planned over the coming years. https://lnkd.in/e2s4amVg

Celebrating 1 year at skoon 🎉! What started as sketches on whiteboards has become something real so fast. I never thought that we would be out there so quickly, fixing the problem, and already installing heat pumps in people's homes 🏡 . There are way too many highlights and reflections to stick in this one post. But, by far the main one is the team. Trust me, I am not just saying that to harvest a few likes of this LinkedIn post from them. Genuinely, every person is technically excellent, so connected to the mission, willing to get stuck in on any problem, and most importantly, an amazing laugh to be around. With such a team, it feels like any challenge can be tackled 🌟! Bring on the next year 😊 🚀

This year I started therapy. Tuesday was World Mental Health Day, but I've never been good with deadlines, so here I am sharing my personal insight hoping it helps someone else out there. If you'd asked me a year ago, this was the last thing on my mind. I objectively had everything I wanted: a loving family, close friends I could depend on, a house, a heat pump and an electric car (yes, I'm not joking about these last two 😂). And I was about to take the leap to join a startup, something that had been on my mind for years but I never felt the confidence to actually do. I had no reason to feel negative emotions, I told myself. But, much like a pile of fire wood, stresses and emotions can build up over time. They go unnoticed for years, even decades, as you subconsciously learn to live around them. Yet all it takes is a single match – a triggering event – to ignite the entire stack. And this finally happened to me. Everything came up in the most intense and distressing way. It was frankly pretty terrifying as these deep insecurities I never even knew I had drove me to a really dark place. And to see the negative impact this had on the friends, family and colleagues I hold so dear. But therapy has been a truly enlightening experience. It's helped discuss the difficult emotions it's so easy to ignore, and to dig deeper into the causes and self-understanding. And to start to develop a toolbox of methods to healthily address these. I'm still early on my journey, but now recognise that mental health is not some ON/OFF kind of state. Even in the highs, you've got to keep an eye on the firewood that might be building up. In many ways, I hope I still am going to therapy this time next year. So, if just one person reads this and it makes them think about therapy, then I'm happy 🙂 the more normalised it is, the better.

Thrilled to share that skoon have partnered with OVO 🎉 I previously worked at OVO, so undoubtedly they are close to my heart. But it's hard to imagine a company more perfectly aligned to our vision for low-carbon heating. It's been amazing to collaborate with many former colleagues as we launched this, and it's only just the start of what is to come 📈 The startup journey is full of moments where you pinch yourself and wonder, "Is this real?". Today is undoubtedly one of those days. But when you have an incredible team working on a problem, things always move quicker than you expect! Let's go 🚀

One of the hardest things I found about data science is getting into data science. As a graduate, you can look at a job specification and be quickly intimidated by all the skills they seem to expect of you! Not only that, but there are SO MANY different roles you could go for! Data Analyst, Data Scientist, Data Engineer, ML Engineer, Business Analyst, and the list goes on. How do you make an informed choice? So, I decided it would be good to help aspiring students with this 🙂 I've been fortunate to engage with students at UCL, University of Southampton and Newcastle University. And recently presented "Data Science in the Wild", where I spoke about my experience since leaving academia. Thanks for the invitation Tatiana Alvares-Sanches! The underlying message is that if you enjoy data, there will be a role for you, and it something you can shape! But reflect on what it is that really excites you: don't feel you need to be a master of all the tools and skills out there. If you are thinking about a career in data, do feel free to reach out to me and I'll be more than happy to chat 🙂

Super excited this is finally public 🎉 I've always held a lot of respect for Adam Chapman and his work at Heat Geek. So when I found out he was going to be part skoon, I knew I had to be part of the mission! It's only been a couple of months, but we've already started building some amazing stuff, which I can't wait to share. Data Science + Domain Expertise = 🚀🚀🚀