Our Story
Meet Julie
In 2015, Julie King was wheelchair bound and in danger of losing her life. For 8 years her health had been deteriorating, yet despite countless tests doctors were at a loss to explain her condition.
Her brother, Steve King, founder and CEO of Black Swan Data Ltd, an award-winning predictive technology business, refused to accept his sister’s bleak prognosis. Having understood the power of social data and predictive analytics to make connections and patterns, he asked himself “what if we apply the same techniques to help Julie?”
Reaching a diagnosis
Steve and his team utilised Black Swan’s technology to scan millions of online conversations and started to match her symptoms with those experienced by others. Combining this with a diary which recorded what she ate and did and how she felt, Steve was able to help clinicians diagnose Julie with a rare form of Parkinson’s. Effective treatment was initiated and Julie is now able to lead a normal life with her family. She has even completed triathlons!
White Swan was founded
Julie's story inspired the people of Black Swan to set-up White Swan as an independent registered charity, to make a positive difference to the world using Black Swan's proprietary technology.
White Swan now unlocks the power of the patient's voice using cutting-edge technology and analytics, improving the health of society by enabling faster diagnosis, more effective treatments and improving patient care.
Our mission is to improve the health of society by accelerating the path to diagnosis, improving the effectiveness of treatment and ultimately helping prevent illness through the use of technology and analytics.
Our mission
With the support of our partners and volunteers, we have achieved a huge amount since the charity was founded in 2018, including:
-
Working with leading academic institutions (including Oxford University, University of Birmingham and Kings College London), well respected charities (including the Alzheimer’s Society), world-renowned hospitals (including the Royal Marsden), as well as global pharmaceuticals (including Bayer).
-
Completing numerous charitable and commissioned projects, winning the first ever charitable place on the London NHS Accelerator Programme (reaching the final 20 from 169 applicants) and achieving a finalist position in 2019 Europe’s Digital Top 50, out of 550 entrant organisations, as judged by Google, McKinsey, Rocket and INSEAD.
-
Having our methodology peer reviewed and published within a research paper in collaboration with the Royal United Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases in Rheumatology International. Three further papers are in development with the University of Oxford, Genomics Institute University of Birmingham, and University of Birmingham (Cardiology department).
-
Growing from zero to 130 volunteers worldwide and attracting over £1m of funding
Most importantly our work has helped patients suffering from a wide range of conditions, including cancer, dementia, sleep disorders, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and other cardiac conditions, ankylosing spondylitis, fibromyalgia, mental health and long covid.
Our achievements
We rely on a combination of income from our commissioned work, grants, philanthropy, donations and contributions from private sector partners to achieve our mission. Our volunteers also generously give their free time to boost the White Swan cause. All of the funds raised go towards our charitable mission and the development of Million Minds to help more patients.
For more information see our Trustee Report.
Our funding
