A Very Brief History

World Horse Welfare

For the past three decades, I worked as head of IT in the head office and on-site across all four World Horse Welfare farms. My role was to ensure that the IT systems fully supported the charity's strategic ambitions and supported the staff in their daily roles.  

At the end of March 2024, I left the charity that had been my second home for 30 years. Starting back in 1993, there was no Internet or websites, just a fax machine. By 1994, we had one PC. By the end of 1995, everyone had email, and this thing called ‘the Internet’ that was never likely to catch on… We even had a website.

Thankfully, things are very different today, and I'm proud to have played a part in that progress. My journey was never about wires, cables, or smart devices. It was always about the cause, the people, the passion, and the horses, which have been a huge part of my life.

Process, Technology, Digital Transformation and other words animal experts struggle to trust.

Gifted Equines

I was involved in the development of Gifted Equines from the beginning. Having worked on-site and across all four World Horse Welfare farms over my time, I could see all the fantastic things our people were doing. But I could also see the limitations of the technology available to them. There was difficulty recording and reporting on data consistently, duplication of effort, cabinets of paper, and folders of spreadsheets sprawling across offices and computers.

I wanted to free our farms, field officers, grooms and support staff from the limitations of spreadsheets and on-site paper records. Gifted Equines had to be a cloud system that was available to anyone with a browser. We needed data entry to shift from being an extra chore to being something that provided clear benefits and insights on the go. Giving users immediate access to dashboards that showed them their tasks and horses was essential and allowed them to update and view data instantly. Touchscreens in the barns enable users with a horse in one hand to check them in with the other, and speech-to-text ensures they can still get what they want when typing isn’t an option.

Expanding the breadth and depth of data collection was important, but we didn’t want just to get better data for data’s sake. Equine professionals involved in a horse's journey previously relied on reams of paper to remind them of past appointments and afflictions. They can now access appointments, medical history and anything else they need through their own login portals. Gifted has intelligent reporting capabilities to provide instant insights to users, managers and equine professionals. The data in Gifted Equines is useful, useable and powerful. It doesn’t just sit there collecting dust but can be explored, analysed and even shared to bring value to other experts in the equine welfare community.

The benefits of an accessible, user-friendly, cloud-based solution have implications beyond individual farms and organisations. A solution for the digital ID of equines and other animals is now tangible and available. A robust digital identity is crucial for traceability, control of the food chain, and biosecurity. The potential for collaboration and integration with other valuable systems is also vital, and Gifted Equines facilitates this through a no-code API library.

Our main aim with Gifted Equines was to address inefficiencies in the equine welfare sector by providing access to cutting-edge technological resources that were previously inaccessible. The flexibility of the Gifted platform allowed us to create something without worrying about the implications of coding or bespoke development. With Westwood Forster, we configured Gifted Equines to provide a holistic solution to all equine welfare needs. It didn’t take long. The potential to expand Gifted Equines to other sectors and animals is vast, and we plan to realise that potential fully. The ultimate goal is to provide a system that allows people across the board to do more good for their animals.