Robert Hogg

Bio

I am founder and Managing Director of an award-winning software company, Black Marble. We specialise in high end development utilising the Microsoft stack, from cloud to mobile, web to intelligence, devops to rescue.

I've been programming my entire life, and I have a passion for development, and producing amazing solutions that engage people and their organisations.

I am enthusiastic about the development community; especially encouraging young people to move into software development. As a result I run a large number of events across Europe every year, including the DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper (DDD) series (in the North of England, Reading and beyond).

In 2015, Microsoft recognised Black Marble as the world's best Windows- development organisation, and in 2016, as the the world's best devops organisation. This is based on our excellence in both development and development practices needed to build innovative solutions.

Recently I've been promoting a product I designed (tuServ) which is reimagining how police forces can mobilise and transform, and move into the future. It is currently saving police forces time and effort, enabling them to focus on frontline policing.

Spotlight

I was recently given the opportunity to take a new approach to solving a customer's problem in a manner that would radically change how they approached the operational side of their organisation. A UK police force wanted to mobilise and transform their policing strategies and were looking for someone who could take them beyond the electronic forms approach. I was given the freedom to craft an architecture and solution, utilising various products on the Microsoft platform, that would result in not only cost and time savings, but also dramatically improve their frontline operations.

I applied my knowledge of software architecture, integration solutions, managing secure data and an innovative UX approach, and using software such as BizTalk, Azure, and the Universal Windows Platform, to create a game-changing solution. tuServ resulted in 14% in savings per officer and was recognised by Microsoft with 2 Worldwide Partner Awards. It is now rolling out to multiple UK police forces, as well as generating international interest and approaches from other industries to make the same radical change.

The Regional Director Program presented excellent avenues to test my model, as well as verify that my boundary-pushing solution was possible and beyond what anyone else was doing with the platform.