Episode 10
Public and Private Sectors with Scott Andrews
Scott Andrews, a dynamic figure bridging the public and private sectors in the UK’s LoRaWAN ecosystem, shares his unique insights into selling LoRaWAN solutions to both small private businesses and large public entities — from farmers monitoring vaccine fridges to councils implementing smart city projects. We dive into the challenges of change management, scaling deployments, and how small wins build toward big transformations.
Key Topics Covered:
Private vs. Public Sector Deployments:
Scott highlights the differences between selling into the private sector (like small farms and butcher shops) versus public sector institutions (like councils and schools). A key theme is managing the aversion to change and public scrutiny in government projects.
Scaling Small:
Many private sector deployments are tiny — sometimes just 3–5 sensors monitoring vaccine fridges, milk storage, or walk-in freezers. But the impact is massive, saving time, ensuring regulatory compliance, and providing defensible data.
Public Sector at Scale:
Scott shares how public health needs during COVID drove rapid, large-scale sensor rollouts—like deploying 200 CO₂ sensors across schools to measure fresh air intake.
The Thin End of the Wedge:
Success comes from small beginnings. Scott explains how a single gateway and a few sensors often lead to expanding sensor deployments once organizations see real-world benefits.
Making Data Understandable:
Many end users—whether farmers, butchers, or public servants—aren’t trained data analysts. Scott’s team at Sensibility uses AI tools like ChatGPT to create plain-English reports that make LoRaWAN data accessible and actionable.
Smart City Success:
Hear the story of how Scott helped the town of Abergavenny win an Innovation Award by deploying hidden soil moisture sensors in public planters to optimize watering—and how they overcame technical challenges like vandalism risk.
Long-Term Vision:
Scott discusses why patience, word of mouth, and helping customers solve real operational problems are critical in building a successful IoT business over time.
Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-andrews-64754534/
https://www.senseability.uk/
https://abergavennytowncouncil.gov.uk/4442/uncategorised/abergavenny-excels-at-britain-in-bloom-awards-2023/Links - MetSci Show
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Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Today's guest on Medio Scientifics.
Speaker B:The business of Lorawan is Scott Andrews, a guy who spent the last 30 years deep in it, but has somehow managed to keep his sense of humor, curiosity and public service intact the entire way.
Speaker B:Scott's one of those rare folks who lives at the intersection of government and entrepreneurship.
Speaker B:By day, he works for a county council in North Wales, building out Lorawan infrastructure and using sensors to solve very real problems, from reducing Covid risks in schools to measuring flood risks and automating temperature logs across public kitchens.
Speaker B:Then on nights and weekends, he's co founder of Senseability, where he helps small businesses and farmers adopt the same kind of tech, whether it's monitoring milk fridges, vaccine coolers or tracking visitor numbers at a Wildlife Trust cafe tucked inside a nature reserve.
Speaker B:In this episode we get into the nitty gritty of what it's like selling into both the public and private sectors, why farmers are some of the most forward thinking people around, and how a town in Wales used soil moisture sensors to win a National Gardening award.
Speaker B:We also talk about the power of AI to make complex data actually useful to people who aren't data nerds and why Scott thinks the thin end of the wedge is the key to long term success in the lower end.
Speaker B:It's a smart, funny, grounded chat with someone who genuinely believes in using technology to make life better for governments, for businesses and for the people they serve.
Speaker B:Let's dig in.
Speaker C:Scott, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker A:No problem at all.
Speaker A:Great to be here.
Speaker C:I'm psyched to have you here because you've got this interesting blend of public and private sector service.
Speaker C:What are the biggest differences when you're selling into the private sector versus the public?
Speaker C:Or is there something else that you see?
Speaker C:It's like, oh yeah, this is an enormous difference between the two.
Speaker C:When it comes to Lorawan, I think.
Speaker A:The biggest difference is trying to factor in change.
Speaker A:So over here in the uk, I think on the private sector you have lots of big organisations chasing the pounds there and the housing sector, the big food chains, the big logistics and things.
Speaker A:So when the angle I'm taking on the private sector is that we're trying to chase the smaller pounds, the farmers, because farms are very small here in the UK compared to what you might have in Australia or the us and you're trying to deal with a farmer who's maybe got 100 cattle, a couple of hundred sheep, and you kind of go, you can monitor your temperature on your vaccines automatically, you can monitor temperature in your barns can monitor the water levels and kind of things.
Speaker A:So they're dealing with smaller scale farms.
Speaker A:But then you still have to change their approach to their method that they might have been doing for decades.
Speaker A:And I'd say also, exactly the same thing also happens with the public sector because in the public sector, if you get things wrong, the amount of scrutiny you're placed under by angry people on Facebook, keyboard warriors or the local press.
Speaker A:So therefore people are risk averse because they don't want to have that scrutiny of.
Speaker A:Well, it's not that they don't want the scrutiny, but they don't want the adverse effect of it all.
Speaker A:So when you start to say, oh, do you know you could do this automatic temperature recording on the food evidence, for example, by the people who go around inspecting restaurants and things, make sure that food is being kept safely and things, people are going, can I do that?
Speaker A:Is it going to affect things?
Speaker A:Or do you want to.
Speaker A:Or do you say, do you want to change the way how you measure the temperature and humidity in schools, in offices, do you want to change the way how you record the temperature in fridges in all the schools, catering kitchens and things like that?
Speaker A:These are all modern ways of doing things.
Speaker A:But people are obviously risk averse because if it goes wrong, the elbow room they've got for a margin of error is very slim because the angry public can go in and say, why don't they consider this?
Speaker A:Why can that.
Speaker C:Okay, so there's a commonality of change.
Speaker C:The big difference is kind of how big the projects are.
Speaker C:Feel free to say no.
Speaker C:Like what are the kind of number sizes for a private versus a public project in any dimension, whether that's sensors, dollars, pounds per contract or whatever.
Speaker C:What does the difference look like?
Speaker A:So at a farm, for example, it might only be like four or five sensors because we're trying to monitor the vaccine fridge, maybe a fridge where the milk might be stored temporarily.
Speaker A:That can be quite small or even say we're working with, we've worked with private butchers and they might have separate walk in freezers and fridges.
Speaker A:So again, there might be only three or four sensors overall.
Speaker A:But then when you work in the public sector it can depend on the actual projects.
Speaker A:So Covid is a great example.
Speaker A:We were tasked to ensure that we could monitor the amount of fresh air that was coming into schools told you to mitigate risks of spreading the virus around.
Speaker A:And the way we did that was to monitor the CO2 levels because if CO2 levels were low, that meant that fresh air was coming in and that meant that the virus wasn't going to linger.
Speaker A:So I think we bought some like 200 odd CO2 sensors to drop the hat because it was the only way we could quickly throw out sensors, gather data, just implement it very quickly and get the results.
Speaker A:But now when you're working on some other projects, depending what it is for, you might just want to buy a few sensors.
Speaker A:I've gone and worked on a project where we've just bought some traffic counter sensors.
Speaker A:It was three sensors.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:It's a small project so I think it can go Horses for courses.
Speaker A:Really?
Speaker A:Six of one, half dozen.
Speaker A:Other.
Speaker C:Yeah, I love the old, the UK things.
Speaker C:Horses for courses is so good.
Speaker C:Let's see.
Speaker C:So I guess one of the questions is when it comes to business, if you're deploying three sensors, how do you survive as a business?
Speaker C:There's not that much profit in that.
Speaker C:I mean maybe that's the super American side and you're like, look, we're saving the planet.
Speaker C:The profit thing is not as important.
Speaker C:But how do you think of that?
Speaker A:I don't disagree, which is why I am still working in the public sector, because I still have my public sector job, paying my mortgage and putting food on the table.
Speaker A:However, it doesn't mean I'm still not interested in the technology and doesn't stop me from thinking, oh, there's real, there are still opportunities.
Speaker A:The way I see it is that it has to be word of mouth and it's the thin end of the wedge and I need more farmers, for example, more butchers to start saying, hey, I'm doing this.
Speaker A:And it means I don't have to do all my temperature recording manually.
Speaker A:I can prove to my insurer that my vaccines are kept safe.
Speaker A:If I'm an agricultural wholesaler, that means I can prove to other farmers that I've kept the medicines all safe and secure.
Speaker A:And eventually people start to say this is just a better way of doing it.
Speaker A:And so I think it's a long term game.
Speaker A:So a bit like how Elon Musk maybe say 12, 15 years ago, people kind of going, electric cars really?
Speaker A:And now we're kind of going, yeah, that seems to be the right way to do it.
Speaker C:Now we're going like, oh, we're going to burn them up because that'll offset all the good they've done.
Speaker C:God bless people.
Speaker C:Okay, so you've got the small farmers or the small businesses on the one side, I can see how that sounds from your description is like, okay, this Makes it easier for you to check your milk fridge or your vaccine fridge or your temperature.
Speaker C:Is that how you go in and pitch them when you talk to them?
Speaker C:And how do you find them?
Speaker C:Like walk me through the kind of small business sales cycle for you with Lorawan.
Speaker C:What happens first?
Speaker C:How do you find the customers?
Speaker A:Finding customers is difficult, like.
Speaker A:So I'm posting on my local Facebooks and things.
Speaker A:That has worked.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:I've also completed some consultancy.
Speaker A:We were planning Lorawan coverage and from that, when you're engaging with the public about the possible new opportunities of digital connectivity, people might come back going, oh, can you do this?
Speaker A:You go, yes.
Speaker A:And you start to explore that.
Speaker A:So we're starting to explore some people counting around a port area down in South Wales that a project we could do.
Speaker A:But also, it sounds cliched as well, but once you have a customer, it's important to explore what else they can do.
Speaker A:So we've got a wildlife trust, which is a charitable organization that was for the benefit of a wildlife area.
Speaker A:So they got some funding a couple of years ago for Lorawan Gateway for a weather station because they wanted to have more weather data.
Speaker A:But we've also now starting to work with them about putting footfall counters in so they can measure the amount of people going into their cafe.
Speaker A:And that's all that's doing is just using the infrastructure we've already got.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And as we all know, a Lorawan Gateway can support many hundreds of sensors.
Speaker A:So it's about helping to explore what else they've already invested in as well.
Speaker C:Got it.
Speaker C:And is that the thin end of the wedge idea that you're talking about earlier?
Speaker C:We're like, all right, I'm just going to get a gateway and one or two sensors for the first use, case in.
Speaker C:And then once they see that it works, we can explore and expand more.
Speaker A:Yes, yeah.
Speaker A:And for example, with the Wildlife Trust in the uk, there are many wildlife trusts and they're all held under an umbrella organization.
Speaker A:Hopefully they'll have a positive experience and they'll have a chat with the other wildlife trusts and we're able to explore that.
Speaker A:Then they can talk with other conservation organizations or maybe then talk with organizations who have requirements to monitor water or the environment and things.
Speaker A:And it all kind of does starts to dovetail together.
Speaker A:So yes, definitely.
Speaker A:Thin end of the wed and long term vision.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:And you've taken a while to do this and you've built up from kind of finding Lorawan and you put in your first Couple sensors to helping whole.
Speaker C:Was it towns or counties or what do you guys call councils?
Speaker A:Yeah, so the councils.
Speaker A:Because in my public sector job, I work for a county council.
Speaker A:We have a responsibility for 115,000 population.
Speaker A:It covers a rural area.
Speaker A:We've also got a very dense urban area on the coastal strip, which is a traditional Victorian town type environments.
Speaker A:And from the rural area is where I cut my teeth really, with the Lorawan, you know, where you go, oh my good God, Lorawan's amazing because it can go for miles.
Speaker A:Now at the other times you also go, oh, how frustrating.
Speaker A:I thought it would work, but it doesn't because there's a little bump of a hill in the way and you really realize how the topography is a big challenge.
Speaker A:But you know, with all that sort of learning experience and it was working in the, in that rural area where we were talking with farmers and farmers would go, well, where can I go explore what I can do with this?
Speaker A:And at the time, because we were just working in the public sector, you're not allowed to.
Speaker A:You can't recommend anyone, really.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:All good public servants should be able to advocate for a particular company because it starts to give a particular private company an unfair advantage.
Speaker C:That's how we do in America, right?
Speaker C:Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker A:But it made myself and my colleague realize there's an opportunity here in the technology and we were excited by it.
Speaker A:So then we set up a company sensibility and we do work outside the county, primarily with the private sector.
Speaker C:Hat and this is you and Will that do?
Speaker C:Sensibility?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:And then how, how do the two of you work together in the business?
Speaker C:Are there, is there a pretty clear separation of kind of who does what or do you both just get after it wherever you can?
Speaker A:Will is more.
Speaker A:Got more skill sets on the software side.
Speaker A:It sounds cliche to do it, but we've been dabbling a bit in the old AI because one thing we're finding, especially this applies in both areas with the small companies and with the county councils, is that you are providing a lot of IT information, a lot of data to people who are not data analysts.
Speaker A:In the council, you've got people who train to be social workers, people who trained to be librarians, you got people who trained to be mechanics and teachers and things.
Speaker A:And in the private sector, you've got people who want to be butchers, who are people who are trained to be farmers.
Speaker A:And then you go and hey, go look at this graph and go and compare the data over the past 30 days.
Speaker A:And what's the worst scenario that you've had?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:They might not understand it.
Speaker A:So dare I say it's to use the AI.
Speaker A:And integrating ChatGPT in with our reports has been a godsend.
Speaker A:Because then you can just go, here's the data, here's your worst case scenario, here's what you're.
Speaker A:Because you're not just relying on thresholds, you're giving context to the data as well.
Speaker A:And we find that really helps.
Speaker C:I think it's fantastic.
Speaker C:And I listen to.
Speaker C:I think like most of us listening to this listen to a lot of podcasts and it seems like there's almost an apology piece for using AI.
Speaker C:And I think, holy shit, it's like the single biggest technological jump of our generation.
Speaker C:Like, we should totally be using this thing like crazy because it's a massive advantage to use it versus not.
Speaker C:So I think you're doing fantastic work there.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And like I say, it really helps people who do not have that IT background.
Speaker A:I've worked in IT for nearly 30 years now, so I feel au fait with understanding graphs and interpreting the data with different scenarios.
Speaker A:And you put that in front of a farmer who's got fingers the size of sausages and doesn't.
Speaker A:He just doesn't like working with computers.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:So it helps him.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I've found in my interaction with farmers and folks kind of out in the rural areas, I went in there with the typical rotten, stupid, ignorant idea that they were kind of country bumpkins.
Speaker C:And I found that the farmers I've talked to are kind of the smartest, most driven, creative people because they're constantly solving problems in the real world that the rest of us like.
Speaker C:We don't have to solve those problems because in the city, they've basically been solved for us.
Speaker C:Like, farmers are cutting edge folks in my experience, which was a super big surprise to me.
Speaker C:They're totally willing to do new stuff.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think that's where this tech can also help them is because they're out solving those real world problems and finding sheep stuck on fences and cattle trapped in streams and all that kind of thing, they don't want to get bogged down in statutory paperwork.
Speaker A:And if you can find a bit of tech that can complete that statutory paperwork and do those that record keeping for them for it.
Speaker C:Okay, so that's part of the pitch.
Speaker C:Could you walk me through what it looks like to find a new customer?
Speaker C:Like what's the thing when you walk onto a farm or someone responds to maybe one of Your ads where you say, okay, this is what I'm going to lead with because this almost always works.
Speaker A:Basically you'd say, do you want to have automatic temperature recording?
Speaker A:Do you want to have the record guaranteed to be recorded?
Speaker A:Do you want a record which is wholly accurate?
Speaker A:So I think that's always important in a, a shop or a retail environment where maybe you might be employing 16, 17, 18 year olds and they'll just go, oh, I don't care, the temperature's just four degrees.
Speaker C:Yeah, close enough.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, close enough.
Speaker A:Oh, I forgot to do it.
Speaker A:Oh, I think it was about 4 degrees Celsius and it doesn't matter, but this way you can say it's guaranteed to be recorded, it's guaranteed to be accurate, it's guaranteed to be agnostic, it's guaranteed to be done.
Speaker A:You can guarantee historical records and because it is guaranteed, but it then becomes clear evidence, which means you can provide it to your, the food inspectors, you can provide it to the insurance companies.
Speaker A:As I say, we can store the records for you automatically, which means you don't have to have sheaves of paper and clipboards and files for it, we can store it for you.
Speaker A:And should you be inspected by vets or by food inspectors or whatever, you can just click on this link, which we send you once a month anyhow.
Speaker A:So you've always got it handy, but you just click on this link and you've got all the records there for you to pull down.
Speaker C:Oh, that's super cool.
Speaker C:So the really the pitch is that we do the paperwork for you and the kind of paperwork magically happens in all the recording.
Speaker C:I can see how that would be pretty useful.
Speaker C:Useful to someone who wants to be outside and doesn't, doesn't want to be doing paperwork.
Speaker A:Okay, yeah.
Speaker C:And then with.
Speaker C:Was it Abergavenny?
Speaker C:Yes, totally different thing.
Speaker C:It's a smart city, if I'm getting it right.
Speaker C:And you were instrumental in making it.
Speaker C:So how did you approach that one?
Speaker C:That can't be like, hey, we're going to keep the milk cold.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So in the uk there's lots of regional competitions for Britain in Bloom, where if your town is all full of lush flowers and things, you win a little prize.
Speaker A:And they wanted to win that because you do get a lot of press from it as well.
Speaker A:So they were approached us asking for some ideas and we came up with the idea of using soil moisture sensors in the planters.
Speaker A:So the planters are just sited around the town full of these plants and things.
Speaker A:And so we put the soil moisture sensors in there, there were some unknowns because obviously lots of them designed for an agricultural scenario where you could put the prongs in the soil, then attach the sender unit to a fence post or to a tree or something.
Speaker A:You can't do that in a town centre.
Speaker A:The likelihood of being vandalized is very high, or even just people being intrigued, as in, what is this black box?
Speaker A:So we decided to hide it in the shrubbery that's already in the planter and also put it slightly under the topsoil, so just a couple of centimeters an inch or so below the topsoil.
Speaker A:And we couldn't guarantee it, but we felt likelihood that.
Speaker A:Strong likelihood that it was going to work.
Speaker A:Because I know you've had Dean Marsh on an interview recently and he's had experience with water meters and water meters in the UK are nearly always underground 45 centimeters, which is about 15, 16 inches, something like that.
Speaker A:So they've been using those for Lorawan.
Speaker A:So we were thinking, well, if these are a few centimeters underground, about an inch, then they should work.
Speaker A:And they've been proven to do so.
Speaker A:So we just need to make sure that we have soil moisture sensors.
Speaker A:But the sender unit was IP67 to make sure that it was completely waterproof and dustproof and they've worked.
Speaker C:Oh, it's red.
Speaker C:And that really leans into the strengths of Lorawen as far as being super robust and able to get through kind of anything.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:Yeah, super cool.
Speaker C:And they were psyched on it and they.
Speaker C:They won the thing they wanted to win, right?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:They won the innovation award from the Royal Horticultural Society on that.
Speaker A:So that's been good and it's been a little flag for us to wave.
Speaker A:So proud of that, Scott.
Speaker C:Super cool to have you on and talk about kind of the real world at both the smallest levels, just a couple sensors and then thousands of sensors across wide areas, or hundreds, at least hundreds of sensors across wide areas.
Speaker C:Thanks so much for coming on and making the time, sharing your expertise with us.
Speaker A:No problem.
Speaker A:Thanks for the invite.
Speaker D:That's it for this episode of the Business of Lorawen.
Speaker D:I built this for you, the one person in about 100,000 who actually has an interest in how this tiny little slice of the world works.
Speaker D:Of course, this isn't just about you and me.
Speaker D:It's about everyone in Lorwind and how we can work together to make an exceptional thing.
Speaker D:Lorawen is a dispersed community with little pockets of knowledge all around the world.
Speaker D:And most of them don't talk to each other as much as I'd like.
Speaker D:So the first and best thing we can do to make this show better is to get more guests on who I don't even know exist.
Speaker D:I want to talk to strangers, strangers who are your friends.
Speaker D:Please introduce me to the most rad Lorawan air you know or point them my way or help reach out and give me a name.
Speaker D:When it comes to running down Lorawan guests, I can track a falcon on a cloudy day.
Speaker D:If you can remember Metsci show, you can find me.
Speaker D:That's M e t s c I s h o w Metsci show.
Speaker D:Okay, so sharing knowledge by getting great guests on is the first and by far the most important thing we can do to make this better.
Speaker D:The next best thing for the show to do is the usual stuff.
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Speaker D:If you want to try Lorawan for yourself, sign up for a Medio scientific account@console.medioscientific.com and get your first 400 data credits for free.
Speaker D:That's enough to run a sensor for about a year if you're firing every hour.
Speaker D:The show is supported by a grant from the Helium foundation and produced by Gristle King, Inc.
Speaker D:I'm Nick Hawks.
Speaker D:I'll see you on the next show.
