Natalia Filipiak recently joined UrbanTide to drive the company mission to make a sustainable world with our suite of innovative AI and data products. As our new Senior Product Manager, Natalia Filipiak brings over a decade of cross-sector product experience to her new role, and a passion for using data technology to tackle global challenges.

We spoke to Natalia about her strategic approach to product development and her ambitious plans for UrbanTide's groundbreaking uSmart platform.

Can you share a bit about your background and why you wanted to work for a technology business focused on using data and AI for good?

I’ve worked in product roles for over a decade now, spanning mobile, web, data and hardware products across various different markets. I wanted to join a company with a versatile product where my broad experience would be put into a good use and where there was lots of space for growth.

UrbanTide’s core product, uSmart, is a data insights platform that’s been adapted to solve very different global challenges across a few different sectors; transport, energy, and health. Our tools help address some of the biggest global challenges of our time, such as climate change, health inequality and poverty. From a product perspective, it doesn’t get more versatile than that and it’s an exciting challenge to be part of.

I’m interested in creating a well defined strategy that delivers products that provide tangible value to customers. Delivering an open data product like uSmart to public sector organisations is really rewarding as you see the results first-hand.

How is UrbanTide’s suite of products changing how clients collect and use data?

Nowadays, there’s no lack of data available. The problem is that often, there’s just too much of it, it’s not easily accessible or it’s fragmented. This makes it difficult to make sense of the information, which means it’s not used in any meaningful way.

Decisions that our clients need to make regarding their own projects and challenges need to be based on clear and reliable data insights, and in real time. If that’s compromised, projects or even organisations can be at risk of losing funding or business viability in the future.

That’s where UrbanTide’s data and AI offering is really transforming how organizations manage projects and find solutions. By aggregating vast amounts of data and using AI algorithms to make sense of the data, they can make better decisions and take suitable actions.

What are your product goals for this year?

UrbanTide has established solid relationships with clients that have been using our data analytics and AI solutions for years. What we’ve learned from these collaborations - and the evolving market - is that a more flexible and easily scalable solution was in demand.

With this in mind, one of my main goals for this year is to launch a new platform that will enable clients to have flexible and robust access control for their users. This would make sure that while data insights are easily discoverable and collaboration is made easy, there’s still enough control to ensure only the right users can access the right data.

Improving or rebuilding an existing product is quite a big challenge both from a product and technical architecture point of view. But we’re lucky to work very closely with our clients, so we can fully understand their problems and build suitable solutions for them.

At UrbanTide, we're always on the lookout for great tech talent. If you're interested in using your skills at a company committed to using AI for good, we want to hear from you! Please reach using the form below.