{"id":6216,"date":"2019-09-19T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T08:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/?p=6216"},"modified":"2019-09-19T10:06:16","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T09:06:16","slug":"meet-josh-swan-policy-and-data-analyst-at-city-redi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/meet-josh-swan-policy-and-data-analyst-at-city-redi\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Josh Swan, Policy and Data Analyst at City-REDI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/08\/Josh-Swan-comp.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-6217\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/08\/Josh-Swan-comp.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"338\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a>Since joining the City-REDI Team in July 2019 I have explored many interesting concepts in economics, entrepreneurship and business. I graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2015 with a degree in BA Political Economy where I looked into the main characteristics of the National and Global Economy. In particular, I enjoyed looking at how competition can foster innovation and expertise at a business level, but also at a global level when I looked at both the USA and USSR in the cold war and the technological advances that came about as a result of competition. For my dissertation, I looked at the impact of 9\/11 on the USA and the global economy as well as designing my own matrix for measuring the impact of democracy that was based on the Economist Intelligence Unit&#8217;s Democracy Index from the economist.<\/p>\n<p>During my studies,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/caser-technologies\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> I incorporated my own limited company<\/a> that specialised in both hardware and software solutions. I learned the value of business partnerships in working with my suppliers, distribution networks and interacting with my customers. Starting my own company lead me to take a job full-time job in the IT sector for a company in Birmingham. It was during this time working as a software specialist that I discovered the route of Data Analytics and how essential it is to organisations to have fast, reliable data in the hands of decision-makers.<\/p>\n<p>I moved away from the IT sector to gain further experience in data by working for a Private Health Organisation. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of working with many different councils to deliver services that helped people lead a healthier lifestyle, which ultimately led to peoples\u2019 lives being extended. I extensively developed my SQL coding skills and began specialising in relational database management which enabled me to better manage data on a larger scale.<\/p>\n<p>By joining the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birmingham.ac.uk\/research\/city-redi\/index.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">City-REDI<\/a> team I have come full-circle back to my interest in regional economics, business and entrepreneurship, as well as, coming back to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birmingham.ac.uk\/index.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">University of Birmingham<\/a> where I first discovered my academic and business interests. My experience with data in real companies has helped me to focus more on quantitative research and efficiently depicting datasets in a way that can influence policy and beyond. Primarily I am interested in automation as a concept in business and productivity, as well as, in the data that we use.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>This blog was written by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/josh-swan-394977a1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Josh Swan<\/a>, Policy and Data Analyst, City-REDI.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Disclaimer:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><em><br \/>\nThe views expressed in this analysis post are those of the authors and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>To sign up to our blog mailing list, please\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:cityredi@contacts.bham.ac.uk?Subject=City-REDI%20Blog%20Mailing%20List\">click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since joining the City-REDI Team in July 2019 I have explored many interesting concepts in economics, entrepreneurship and business. I graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2015 with a degree in BA Political Economy where I looked into the main characteristics of the National and Global Economy. In particular, I enjoyed looking at how &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/meet-josh-swan-policy-and-data-analyst-at-city-redi\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Meet Josh Swan, Policy and Data Analyst at City-REDI&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":6217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,23,6],"tags":[482,255,496,497,205],"class_list":["post-6216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-city-redi","category-economics","tag-data-analytics","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-josh-swan","tag-policy-and-data-analyst","tag-regional-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6216"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6221,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6216\/revisions\/6221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/cityredi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}