Old Salt. White Swan. They sound like words thrown together to make cool brand names, but there’s more to it than that. I won’t re-tell the Old Salt story here (if you don’t know it and can’t stand the suspense then take a gander at the about page), but White Swan came into being for a deeply personal reason for Steve King, founder of Black Swan Data Ltd.
Steve’s sister, Julie King, suffered with an undiagnosed condition for eight years and was in danger of losing her life due to her undiagnosed illness. Instead of preparing for the worst, Steve decided to use the technology and capabilities of Black Swan to help clinicians diagnose Julie with a rare form of Parkinsons’s. Following diagnosis, Julie was able to receive treatment and is now living a normal life with her family.
This life-changing diagnosis was the start of White Swan, which began as a not-for-profit offshoot to Black Swan and is now an independent registered charity. White Swan uses the data capabilities of Black Swan to help others like Julie reach diagnosis, understand pathways to care across a range of physical and mental health conditions and support academics and clinicians to identify symptoms, triggers and treatment opportunities. Their aim is to improve health and wellbeing using technology and analytics.
Like White Swan, I believe our health is determined by a broad range of factors, and is of the utmost importance, in fact, prioritising my own health was one of the reasons I decided to set up my own agency. Having met with the lovely folk at White Swan, I’m now supporting their work by helping with data analysis and reporting, identifying the primary symptoms of an illness, associated symptoms and areas where greater patient support is needed.
If you’re a data scientist or insight professional with a passion for improving society’s health and wellbeing and are intrigued by the above, then please get in touch with White Swan to see if there’s a way you can help too!
