THAMES VALLEY TECH AWARDS
2018
Inaugural Tech Awards honour top Thames Valley businesses
The first Thames Valley Tech Awards took place in May at the Royal Berkshire Conference Centre at Reading’s Madejski Stadium, with 10 winners announced
The awards were organised by The Business Magazine to recognise the outstanding achievements of The Thames Valley’s tech companies.
David Murray, publisher of The Business Magazine, noted: “The region is home to a cluster of technology companies from global market leaders to start-ups. The area has the largest cluster of digital businesses outside London – contributing tens of billions to the UK’s digital economy.”
He added: “We were really impressed with the technology companies that entered the awards, and especially the finalists that came through an extensive judging process. They are shining examples of technology in the Thames Valley.”
Headline sponsors were two of the Thames Valley’s tech sector powerhouses, Westcoast and Sage. The other event sponsors and supporters were Austin Fraser, Barclays, Blake Morgan, Boyes Turner, Centerprise, ConnectTVT, Grant Thornton, Howbery Business Park, Lambert Smith Hampton, LDC, Moore Stephens, Penningtons Manches and techUK.
Nearly 400 winners, finalists and guests attended the event, which raised over £1,700 for Byte Night, the tech industry’s national ‘sleep-out’ event. Byte Night is Action for Children’s main annual fundraiser.
The awards were presented by writer and broadcaster Angela Lamont. She commented: “There are just 10 awards up for grabs tonight, so they are not being handed out like confetti. I am glad I wasn’t one of the judges – they’ve done a grand job. It must have been a very difficult task.”
Insights from a futurist
Guest speaker Peter Cochrane, a futurist, entrepreneur and engineering adviser to international industries and government, discussed change and the future effects of change on corporations.
The former head of research at BT talked about how he joined the company straight from school. Among his many notable achievements, he described being the UK’s first professor of sentient systems as “a lot of fun”.
Cochrane is an experienced entrepreneur and investor in many start-ups, including online travel agency ebookers and music recognition app Shazam.
“I’ve started over 20 companies. The vast majority actually failed. But out of them came ebookers and Shazam. ebookers went from zero to a billion pound business in four years with a 35% monthly growth rate. When two young men came to me with the idea for Shazam I immediately wrote a cheque for them to prepare a business plan.”
Business success is usually down to people, he noted. “The best managers and people I have worked for are the ones who looked on me as their child, nurtured me, and made me grow and realise my potential,” he said.
“I have great pleasure in taking ordinary people and getting them to do extraordinary things, and getting extraordinary people to work miracles,” he added.
Explaining that he can predict technology for the next 15 years, Cochrane said attention is focusing on a sustainable future that will rely on biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics and AI. “We will not achieve sustainability until we start creating materials that are better than the ones we find naturally,” he said, citing the examples of nano-steel and programmable plastic.
“My dream car in the next 20 years is one where if it gets scratched it self heals, I don’t have to clean it because it is self-cleaning, and the shell is the battery,” he said. “We already have these types of plastics. This is not a science project; it’s an engineering project.”
He then talked about the potential of combining AI with supercomputing and how it could improve our understanding of the communication between the human genome and protein folding. At present, humans don’t have the mental capacity to make the necessary calculations to work out why the communication goes wrong.
“The failure of the communication between genome and protein folding creates about 95% of all human ailments, including cancer,” he said. “It’s a big challenge, but AI and supercomputing can create medical solutions.”
Headline Sponsors: 10
businessmag.co.uk
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – JULY/AUGUST 2018
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
