Steve Baker - Managing Director, Fen Technology

Steve leads Fen Technology, an engineering business which supports both start-ups and multinationals to deliver new, technology-enabled products. He is an electronic engineer by training and his work has spanned software defined radio for test instrumentation, a decade-and-more of cellular handset technologies, IoT services, and satellite communications. Across a variety of technical and commercial roles he has delivered hardware, software and service propositions. Out of hours, Steve is likely to be found either refining his sourdough technique (with a knowing nod to the nominative determinism), running off the sourdough-derived carbs or improving his (limited) double bass skills.

Robert Driver - Senior Advisor, UKTIN

Bob currently is a senior advisor for the UK Telecoms Innovation Network (UKTIN), having been interim head of this new organisation to February 2023. Bob has helped to create an innovation network for the UK Telecoms industry, bringing together industry, academia, and government to catalyse telecoms R&D investment, cooperation, and commercialisation.

Founded in 2022, UKTIN is delivered by a consortium of four partners - who draw on their distinct strengths in a collaborative approach: The Digital Catapult (Lead), Cambridge Wireless, WM5G and the University of Bristol. UKTIN has been initially funded by the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to drive the Telecom Supply Chain Diversification Strategy.

From 2018 to October 2022 Bob led the UK5G programme on behalf of CW. CW was the lead partner for a consortium chosen by the Department of Digital, Culture Media and Sport, to create and deliver the national 5G Innovation Network. The consortium included CW, the KTN and TM Forum. UK5G brought together and marketed the UK’s 5G eco-system - including the national Testbed & Trials programme along with other business-led 5G initiatives.

Bob was CEO of CW from May 2015 to November 2018 focusing on leading the development of the organisation, broadening its reach with other sectors and clusters, while retaining the unique culture and dynamism of the CW community.

Prior to working at CW, Bob was Director for Technology at UK Trade & Investment (now part of the Department for Business and Trade) where he successfully led national teams helping UK tech companies to access overseas opportunities as well as attracting technology inward investment into the UK. He also coordinated the UKTI science and innovation agenda and was responsible for the delivery of UKTI events from small missions to large trade fairs.

Paul Egan - CEO, 8power

Paul has enjoyed a long career in wireless technology and IoT. In the early 90’s he was part of the initial team at ARM. In the late 90’s he joined CSR shortly after its creation playing a key role in design of its Bluetooth ICs, before co-founding LPWAN pioneer Neul in 2010. At Neul, Paul served as VP, Business Development. Neul was acquired by Huawei in 2014 and the Neul technology is being rolled out globally as NB-IoT. Before joining 8power, Paul worked as principal consultant at the Digital Catapult starting the IoTUK project. 

Paul Garner - Head of Future Business Technology Research Practi, BT

Matthew Scherba - Director/Founder, Plancentric

An entrepreneurial executive with 20 years of international IT, software, sales and consulting experience covering the full technology lifecycle. A founder, who has also run and invested in companies across cloud software, mobile applications, M2M, machine learning analytics, and Internet of Things (IOT), in both the corporate and start-up space, across the UK, Europe and US markets.