Connect to Flourish: Innovatiove Strategies for Growth

The two-day visit entitled "Connect to Flourish: Innovative Strategies for Growth" was jointly hosted by Steven Ireland of East of England International (EEI), the region’s official business support organisation and Daniel He of the Centre for Technology Management, University of Cambridge. It was sponsored by Henry Ge of China Mobile, Innovation Productivity Grand Challenge (IPGC) funded by EPSRC and HE Ventures Ltd.

The first day was spent at Adastral Park in Ipswich where the delegation was hosted by BT and given presentations on current activities, BT Innovate R&D and Innovation Martlesham. A visit to CIP Technologies, also located on Adastral Park, was included in the day’s programme, where attendees heard about the company’s groundbreaking use of photonics.

The second day was held at King’s College in Cambridge and included brief presentations, "elevator-pitch style" by 15 regional telecoms technology companies, a case study from Kodak which has recently set up its research facility in Cambridge and a session on Technology Road Mapping, by Professor Rob Phaal, Centre for Technology Management, University of Cambridge.

At a dinner at King’s College, the delegation heard first hand of the benefits of the city in terms of innovation and collaboration from Professor Ian Leslie, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research), University of Cambridge who described the success as a unique combination of diverse capabilities meeting diverse motivations. 'Innovation needs people to interact and challenge each other which in turn leads to new ideas,' he said. 'This is what makes Cambridge an intense and exciting place to be.'

Professor Leslie also stressed the importance of helping Cambridge to continue growing and innovating, otherwise people will move and it will wither, he added. He hoped some of the delegation would consider coming to Cambridge to join the portfolio of high-profile organisations already here: Microsoft, Phillips, Kodak, Genzyme, Hitachi and Schlumberger.

Madam JIANG Fan, Minister Counsellor, Economic and Commercial Office, Embassy of People’s Republic of China, gave her commitment to strengthening UK-China links to encourage more inward investment by Chinese companies. 'Cambridge and the opportunities it provides in terms of research is an important factor,' she said.

David Riches, CEO of EEI added: 'A warm welcome awaits any company coming to the region, with help available from the EEI team and its partners.'

The Cambridge companies who presented to the delegation included: Idem, Fun Text, Iceni, Cellmetric, TTP, Rakon, Liquavista, Qasara, IOTAS, Hildago, Zinwave, GEP Tec, 4mwireless, HTK and Camitri.

The two-day event concluded with a roundtable discussion led by Don Eungblut, Co-founder and Director, HE Ventures Ltd.