Developing a Big Data artificial intelligence platform to assist the hospitality SME sector to achieve a green recovery from COVID-19 by reducing energy consumption, identifying wastage, controlling costs and becoming more resilient.

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Current energy management solutions are geared toward larger companies and are too expensive and complicated for SMEs_._ As a result, UK SMEs annually overconsume £8.6 billion in energy, which is equivalent to **15.4 million tons of CO2 emission** (7)_._ However, the smart meters rollout has been continuously delayed and is now not expected until 2024 (8)_._ An energy management solution that is accessible to SME business owners, provides useful recommendations to reduce energy wastage and is independent of smart meters, will fulfil a critical need -- every year wasted means more unnecessary carbon emissions. If a successful full rollout of smart meters is ever achieved, OAK can incorporate their data into our offering. OAK is well positioned to fill this market need: **WHY**: To accelerate the transition to a sustainable future **HOW**: Provide SMEs with actionable energy insights, based on real-time data, showing them how to manage their consumption in order to reduce and save, making their businesses more resilient in a post-Covid world **WHAT**: An affordable and accessible energy optimisation platform OAK's initial target market is hospitality. Hospitality businesses have been severely affected by COVID-19\. According to a recent UK Hospitality report, once lockdown was in full operation, month on month sales dropped by 89%, which is equal to £4.7 billion of lost revenue (9). Future growth rates are uncertain, but it is clear that the pandemic will continue to have a significant impact for many years (10). These businesses require new strategies to survive through this period and recover previous profitability. OAK presents an ideal solution that allows them to reduce fixed costs and increase profit margins, all while becoming more sustainable and helping achieve the government's 2050 net zero carbon targets. Our aim is to develop a scalable machine learning IoT tool that helps reduce these economic and environmental deficits by up to £6.3 million over the course of Phase 1 and 2 SBRI projects and save the equivalent of 10,000 tons of CO2 emissions. Further economic recovery will be supported by providing businesses the financial stability to retain their existing staff and potentially make additional hires to return to pre-Covid levels. Our 3-year ambition is to impact 10% of the UK deficit to the hospitality industry and grow our business to 50 employees and turnover of at least £7M whilst continuing R&D in this high growth and important sector.