University research to commercial reality
Ideas to Reality is a showcase event and celebration of world-changing research, ideas and expertise from across the University of Cambridge, with a particular focus on our academics’ success in commercialising the results of their research and expertise through consultancy, licensing and company creation.
Ideas to Reality brings together members of the University, industrial partners and members of the business, investment and mentor communities to celebrate the successful translation of University research and ideas into commercial reality.
The celebration provides a forum to:
- Explore the breadth of the University’s research, the wide variety of our collaborations and the global impact achieved by the University’s academics and researchers, working with the support of Cambridge Enterprise
- Hear from some of the academics and researchers we have worked with and learn more about their journey to impact through commercialisation of their research and expertise
- Speak with Cambridge academic entrepreneurs, their commercialisation partners and the wider Cambridge innovation ecosystem, to learn more about some of the exciting research originating from the University and make new connections
- Make new connections with members of the University, industrial partners and members of the business, investment and mentor communities who have contributed so much, both directly and through the unique and powerful ecosystem that exists in and around Cambridge
Order of evening
18:00 – Arrival and networking
18:30 – Speeches
Dr Diarmuid O’Brien
Chief Executive, Cambridge Enterprise
Diarmuid is the Chief Executive of Cambridge Enterprise; the organisation responsible for commercialising research from the University of Cambridge; with a mission to support the translation of leading-edge, world-changing ideas into major societal and economic benefit.
Diarmuid has twenty years’ experience connecting academic based research with the enterprise community. Previously he was the Chief Innovation & Enterprise Officer at Trinity College Dublin, where he had overall responsibility for the development and enhancement of the college’s innovation and enterprise strategy.
Professor Andy Neely OBE
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations, University of Cambridge
Professor Andy Neely OBE is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations at the University of Cambridge and former Head of the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM). He was the Founding Director of the Centre for Digital Built Britain and the Cambridge Service Alliance.
Professor Neely is widely recognised for his work on the servitisation of manufacturing, as well as his work on performance measurement and management. He received an OBE for services to Research and to University/Industry Collaboration in 2020.
18:35 – Showcase
Nyobolt
Nyobolt was spun out of the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry in 2016. It was co-founded by Professor Clare Grey and Dr Sai Shivareddy to commercialise their novel ultra-high power battery technology.
This new class of battery technology achieves record-breaking ultrafast charging and the world’s highest power batteries.
In February 2021, Cambridge Enterprise joined in an £8 million Series A investment round, led by IQ Capital, for Nyobolt and continues to play an active role in the company as part of the board.
And, in July 2022, Nyobolt announced the close of £50 million funding in its Series B round which will enable the company to enter a stage of manufacturing at scale.
Speaker Bio – Professor Dame Clare Grey
DIOSynVax
Aided by Cambridge Enterprise, DIOSynVax was founded in 2017 by Professor Jonathan Heeney with the objective to radically alter the way vaccine antigens are designed.
Historically, the creation of an effective new vaccine has required years of work and hundreds of millions of pounds. DIOSynVax, which is shorthand for Digitally designed, Immune Optimised Selected and Synthesized Vaccines, uses a multi-step vaccine platform technology that speeds up the process enormously.
In March 2022, it was announced that DIOSynVax would receive $42million to develop a vaccine candidate that could protect against a raft of coronaviruses, including future Covid-19 variants, and help in the fight to prevent future pandemics.
Clari-Fi
Sam Waller and his colleagues of The Inclusive Design Group at the Department’s Cambridge Engineering Design Centre have created a new visual clarity test using Gaussian blurring to electronically simulate the challenges of viewing an image that is displayed on a mobile phone, often at a size that is smaller than a postage stamp.
In support, Dr Waller and the group have launched a tool, Clari-Fi, which performs this visual clarity test at the click of a button in PowerPoint. Relevant to e-commerce, it helps brand teams design better e-commerce images, thus enabling consumers to shop more quickly and accurately for products on mobile device. It also gives retailers the ability to test their images against global standards body guidelines, quickly.
Working with the Research Tools team, this tool is now available for licensing through Cambridge Enterprise.
Barocal
Barocal, a spin-out of the University of Cambridge, is pioneering barocaloric technology to satisfy low-carbon heating and cooling requirements and provide a unique efficient solution without greenhouse gases.
Instead of using refrigerant gases with high global warming potential, Barocal’s technology uses new solid-state, temperature-changing materials. Cheap and non-toxic, these are organic materials that release and absorb heat at different pressures as they change volume. Known as barocaloric materials, they are more efficient than fluid refrigerants. And, as they are solids, they are more environmentally friendly and easier to recycle at the end of a product’s lifetime.
In February 2022, Barocal secured a £1.3 million investment to accelerate commercialisation of its novel technology designed to dramatically cut global CO₂ emissions. The investment was led by IP Group plc and Cambridge Enterprise participated in the funding as part of a new sustainability initiative.
THIS Institute and THIScovery
The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute, also known as THIS Institute, is based at the University of Cambridge and is funded by the Health Foundation. THIS Institute works closely with the NHS and its patients and staff, and a wider range of other stakeholders including national bodies, charities, and policy-makers, to improve the evidence base for improving quality and safety in healthcare.
THIS Institute has developed THIScovery, an online research and engagement platform where people who have questions about health and care can meeting with people who can help with those answers.
Following support from Cambridge Enterprise, Thiscovery has been used in numerous consultancy projects, co-designing new approaches for improving the safety of maternity care. The results of which will have an impact on maternity services throughout England, improving care for families and reducing clinical negligence claims for the NHS
Kalamna CIC
In 2018, with the support of Cambridge Social Ventures Programme at the Cambridge Judge Business School, Dr Saussan Khalil founded Kalamna CIC, an award-winning social enterprise with a unique offering for young Arabic learners and their families.
With help from Cambridge Enterprise, Dr Khalil and her collaborators secured funding from the University of Cambridge Arts and Humanities Impact Fund to partner with Kalamna CIC to develop and test Kalamna Phonics™, an innovative phonics-based toolkit drawing on her fundamental research.
A licensing arrangement managed by Cambridge Enterprise now enables Kalamna CIC to launch the toolkit to an international community of teachers and learners, establishing a new benchmark in evidence-based best practice in the teaching of modern Arabic.
18:55 – Networking resumes
20:00 – Close