Chamber Patrons
Partners: Shamim HM with Mark Payne
Park Regis partners with Five Rivers
Park Regis has signed an exclusive city centre hotel partnership with award-winning hospitality company Five Rivers to provide specialist catering services for Asian weddings and events. It comes just weeks after the
four-star deluxe Park Regis unveiled its £850,000 conference and events space on the 16th floor, which boasts 360 degree views across the city. The elegant events space, which
stretches over 5,250 sq ft and has floor-to-ceiling windows, can accommodate lavish celebrations, weddings and events for up to 400 people, and the affiliation with the catering and hospitality specialist means Park Regis will be the only city centre hotel to offer authentic Indian food.
‘This really is an extraordinary events space, with inspiring views of the city’
Mark Payne, general manager,
said: “We are very excited to partner with Five Rivers, which provides exquisite, gourmet Asian catering for large-scale events. “We’re incredibly proud of our
new events space on Level 16 and working with Five Rivers will provide us with the opportunity to position Park Regis as the premium venue in the heart of the city for specialist weddings and events.” Shamim HM, group director at
Walsall-based Five Rivers, said: “We are proud to have been chosen by Park Regis Birmingham to partner them in marketing and delivering specialist Asian events in this truly unique space. “We are renowned for providing
exceptional cuisine together with flawless hospitality, a vision we share closely with the management of Park Regis. “Those who choose to host their
celebrations at Level 16 of Park Regis, can be rest assured that they will be in the trusted hands of the hospitality industry’s finest exponents.”
30 CHAMBERLINK October 2018
‘Virtual eyes’ look at trust in self-driving cars
Jaguar Land Rover has fitted ‘virtual eyes’ to intelligent pods to understand how humans will trust self-driving vehicles, as research studies suggest that as many as 63 per cent of pedestrians worry about how safe it will be to cross the road in the future. The friendly-faced ‘eye pods’
have a vital job – helping work out how much information future self- driving cars should share with users or pedestrians to ensure that people trust the technology. As part of the engineering
project, Jaguar Land Rover has enlisted the help of a team of cognitive psychologists to better understand how vehicle behaviour affects human confidence in new technology. The trust trials form part of
Jaguar Land Rover’s Government- supported UK Autodrive project. The intelligent pods, run
autonomously on a fabricated street scene in Coventry, while the behaviour of pedestrians is analysed as they wait to cross the
‘We want to know if it is beneficial to provide humans with information about a vehicle’s intentions’
road. The ‘eyes’ have been devised by a team of advanced engineers, working in Jaguar Land Rover’s Future Mobility division. The pods seek out the pedestrian - appearing to ‘look’ directly at them - signalling to road users that it has identified them, and intends to take avoiding action. Engineers record trust levels in
the person before and after the pod makes ‘eye contact’ to find out whether it generates sufficient confidence that it would stop for them. Previous studies suggest as many 63 per cent of pedestrians and cyclists say they’d feel less safe sharing the road with a self-driving vehicle. The trial is aligned with the
brand’s long-term strategic goals:
to make cars safer, free up people’s valuable time and improve mobility for everyone. Pete Bennett, future mobility
research manager at Jaguar Land Rover, said: “It’s second-nature to glance at the driver of the approaching vehicle before stepping into the road. Understanding how this translates in tomorrow’s more automated world is important. “We want to know if it is beneficial to provide humans with information about a vehicle’s intentions or whether simply letting a pedestrian know it has been recognised is enough to improve confidence.” The trials are part of a wider
study exploring how future connected and autonomous vehicles can replicate human behaviour and reactions when driving. As part of the study, more than
500 test subjects have been studied interacting with the self- driving pods, designed by UK Autodrive partner Aurrigo.
University festival to return
The University of Birmingham’s annual festival of the written and spoken word is returning in October. The festival – on Friday 19 and Saturday 20
October – features more than 20 free workshops, panels, performances and author talks celebrating literary expressions of Birmingham, beauty, body positivity and multiculturalism. The 2018 ‘Book to the Future’ festival includes a panel of professional bloggers sharing their stories
and successes. It will include Instagram-idol-turned-bestselling-
author Alice Liveing. A UOB graduate, Alice has recently become an
ambassador for Woman’s Aid and is a health and wellbeing influencer. She is joined by UOB graduate, blogger, YouTuber,
author and social media guru Hannah Witton. Her content explores sex and relationships, health and body image.
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