Sebastian Conran - CEO, Consequential Robotics

An engineer at heart, Sebastian Conran has design in the blood. Focused on designing technologies to make them more emotionally engaging. He is passionate about creating thoughtful & elegant products that are satisfying to use. He believes ‘form follows fabrication’ and that one must thoroughly understand how things are to be made & experienced before you put pencil to paper.

CEO of Consequential Robotics and Sebastian Conran Associates, Sebastian takes a hands-on, down-to-earth approach to all his design projects, and is intimately involved in all aspects throughout the innovation journey, sharing his wealth experience and manufacturing expertise with the design team. His studio’s designs have received many awards for design & innovation as well as being granted over fifty patents and design patents in various fields. From stacking shelves at Habitat in his teens to founding the Consequential Robotics startup, Sebastian's life has been focused on understanding how things are made and sold, as well as ingeniously designing innovative, stylish and satisfying products. He has seen many thousands of successful and enduring products through from concept to consumer.

An advocate of design & technology, Sebastian is currently visiting Professor of Design & Innovation Bristol Robotics Lab and Designer in Residence at University of Sheffield Engineering Faculty. He has taught at The Royal College of Art and Central St. Martins, and judges many international design awards including: Audi, D&AD, Design Week, Dyson, Red Dot and RSA.

Christina Georgiou - Consultant, PA Consulting Group

Christina is a roboticist with experience in research, design and delivery of algorithms and software for intelligent machines. During her PhD in robotics at Sheffield University she designed and implemented novel computer vision and mapping algorithms to help robots map areas more accurately. Christina has also developed visual feature detection and autonomous movement algorithms for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles during her MEng research at the University of Cambridge. At PA she has led development of computer vision algorithms and software for real time, high speed production line inspection, human-machine collaboration to map challenging environments and agricultural field inspection. She has delivered software verification and validation of complex robotics systems, designed algorithms to analyse low quality sensor data and has written reports for the UN on the technical challenges and future for robotics and UAVs.

Zahid Ghadialy - Senior Director, Strategic Marketing, Parallel Wireless UK & EMEA

Zahid Ghadialy is a Senior Director with a fast-moving and innovative US-based young company called Parallel Wireless (PW) that is on a mission to make deployment of any cellular infrastructure as easy and as cost-effective as Wi-Fi. With an extensive experience of over 18 years in the telecom industry as an engineer, programmer, analyst, researcher, architect, trainer, product manager and technical marketer, he is a technologist with a deep understanding of architecting world-class mobile products and solutions. Zahid is currently a member of Board of Directors at CW and 'Future Devices & Technologies' SIG champion. He has also previously been a 'Small Cell SIG' and 'Smart & Intelligent Cities SIG' champion. He is also a Non-Executive Director of eXplanoTech. In his spare time he blogs at 3G4G and you can also catch him on Twitter at @zahidtg.

Cecile Pacoret - Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Geneva

Cécile Pacoret, Ph.D., is a researcher in robotics and neurosciences, founder of a start-up project called ‘Periscope-neurotech’ and a teacher of psychomotor therapists.

Graham Anderson - Senior Specialist, Beko

Graham Anderson is Senior Specialist at Beko R&D, with research interests focused around novel sensors, data analytics, and energy storage/harvesting. Previously he worked as a Senior Scientist at Cambridge Display Technology working on the development of ink jet printed OLED displays and organic thermoelectric generators. Graham has a PhD from Leeds University in spintronics.

Nadia Aziz - Innovation Consultant, Unbounded Future Ltd

Nadia is an emerging technology consultant with heavy focus on AR/VR & new technology areas. She has a broad experience over 12 years as an engineer, programmer, consultant, advisor, speaker, IP scouting and has a passion for emerging technologies and its impact on business transformation. She has also helped in mergers & acquisition programmes in France specifically in the engineering areas. Nadia Aziz was recently an Innovation leader for Emerging Technologies at NTT DATA where she led the development of innovation applications in Augmented (AR) & Virtual Reality (VR)technologies, AI, sensors and wearables.

She is active in Digital Health community and was a co-producer for the GIANT Health Event in 2018.

Esther Ford - Partner, Marks & Clerk LLP, Marks & Clerk

Esther obtained an MEng in Electronic Engineering after studying at the University of Kent and the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt. Having been awarded an Engineering Prize from the Royal Academy of Engineering, she then went on to obtain a PhD in Microelectronics from the University of Cambridge. During her research, Esther developed a nanodot array single electron device with controlled threshold voltage at high temperatures. She also presented the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) Faraday Lecture "The Digital World", which was delivered to live audiences throughout the UK and broadcast over Europe and North America, reaching an audience of 20,000.

After completing her PhD, Esther worked as a research engineer in Nortel Networks and subsequently in a telecommunications design consultancy. She joined the patent profession in 2004 and has extensive experience in managing international patent portfolios. She also has significant experience representing clients at the EPO in oppositions and appeals (both defending and opposing). Esther is highly proficient in German.

Esther joined Marks & Clerk in 2008, and in 2011 enjoyed a secondment as an in-house attorney for a valued client in the Oil/Gas industry. Her recent focus has been in the fields of Internet Service Provision, Oil/Gas recovery, Power Electronics, and the Internet of Things.

Esther has been recognised as a rising star by Managing Intellectual Property, IP Stars, 2017.

Zahid Ghadialy - Senior Director, Strategic Marketing, Parallel Wireless UK & EMEA

Zahid Ghadialy is a Senior Director with a fast-moving and innovative US-based young company called Parallel Wireless (PW) that is on a mission to make deployment of any cellular infrastructure as easy and as cost-effective as Wi-Fi. With an extensive experience of over 18 years in the telecom industry as an engineer, programmer, analyst, researcher, architect, trainer, product manager and technical marketer, he is a technologist with a deep understanding of architecting world-class mobile products and solutions. Zahid is currently a member of Board of Directors at CW and 'Future Devices & Technologies' SIG champion. He has also previously been a 'Small Cell SIG' and 'Smart & Intelligent Cities SIG' champion. He is also a Non-Executive Director of eXplanoTech. In his spare time he blogs at 3G4G and you can also catch him on Twitter at @zahidtg.

David Roberts - Founder, Jabooh Software

David is a technology leader with over 25 years experience working in the hi-tech arena. He has recently completed a successful project for ghd in conjunction with CW where he carried out the role of System Architect and facilitator.  Prior to this he worked in in the C-IoT space where he ran a multi-national R&D department that developed silicon and software designed for the burgeoning IoT market. He was also responsible for driving an agile transformation programme and assisting the organisation with their integration into a large Chinese multi-national telecoms company. Having started his career as a software developer working for BT and Acorn Computers, he went on to hold senior roles in a number of world-class organisations such as Symbian, Cambridge University and Citrix in the areas of Software Development, Project Management, Product Management, Research, Consultancy and Architecture. His background includes leading and developing teams involved in the creation of large-scale integrated hardware and software products, web-based services and CE devices. He is also highly experienced in large-scale agile development practices, agile coaching/transformation and creating and executing strategies for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of organisations.

Charles Sturman - Senior Director Product Marketing, Huawei Technologies Research and Development (UK)

Charles is responsible for Product Marketing at Neul / Huawei Technologies in Cambridge, with responsibility for product strategy and business development in the NB-IoT market. Prior to this he lead u-blox’ activities in the fast moving consumer IoT segment (wearables, smarthome and entertainment) following the acquisition of the ARM Software Radio spin-out Cognovo, where we has founder and executive VP Sales & Marketing. Charles has held various positions in system design, business development and product marketing within Acorn Computers, TTPCom, Motorola and ARM.