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| View of Eryri National Park from Ynys Môn © 2018 Jane Elizabeth Lambert: all rights reserved |
Towards the end of the Menai Science Park's Finance and Innovation Conference on 18 June 2025, a member of the audience remarked that all the speakers were women. Emily Roberts, who was holding the floor at the time, thanked the intervener for noticing. He replied that he was a mathematician and that the chance of all 22 speakers being women was an astronomical number. I was surprised and had hoped to buttonhole him to ascertain his calculation, but a barbecue and mocktails were about to begin, and we were separated by the throng. I had also noticed that all the speakers were women at the time of booking, but never gave it a second thought. That was because they were all professionals (many of whom I had known for several years and in some cases worked with) for whom I have the greatest respect.
The science park's mission is to ignite ambition and innovation for a sustainable Wales, and the Finance and Innovation Conference offered practical guidance on how to achieve such ambition and innovation. The day started with a keynote speech from communications expert and business angel Barbara Want. She delivered valuable advice on presentation. She showed us how to take possession of a meeting and warned us against loading slides with text and statistics that are quickly forgotten. Having listened to an interview while driving to the conference of a former advisor to President Trump who had opined that the President's mixed messages were a sign of his genius, I asked Barbara how that could be. Mr Trump's utterances indicated confusion and indecisiveness to me. To my surprise, she said that it was a tactic that had been developed by the framers of Project 2025 to disconcert the opposition. It was clearly effective because Mr Trump had won two presidential elections against the odds.
Barbara's second contribution was the most interesting of the day. She chaired a panel discussion between solicitor Andrea Knox, graphic designer Catrin Owen, human resources consultant Leah Watkins and Explorage founder Anna Roberts, all of whom had founded businesses or professional practices in Northwest Wales with strong connections to M-SParc. One of Barbara's first questions to the founders was whether it was right to call them female founders. That question reminded me of a seminar that I had attended at my alma mater's innovation campus on 15 April 2025, entitled Engaging and Supporting Female Founders, which I mentioned in St Andrews Innovation in NIPC News on 16 Apr 2016. One of the principal speakers was Simone Korsgaard Jensen, a remarkable recent graduate from St Andrews and UCLA (which happens also to be my graduate school) who joined us by video link from Silicon Valley. Simone had established a company called Stealth, which LinkedIn describes as "building an AI cancer doctor that personalises treatment." She had already raised considerable investment for that company through making a prodigious number of pitches.
It does not surprise me that many successful entrepreneurs are women. Just before the Business and IP Centre network was formed, I helped to found and chaired inventors clubs at Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield central libraries. Most of the members of all those clubs were gentlemen of a certain age, but at each club, there was a young woman with a bright idea for a product that made it to market. One young mother who was frustrated by her daughter's biting every part of a toothbrush except the bristle invented a toothbrush that was all bristle. Another who was fed up with walking from a car park to a venue in heels devised disposable footwear that could fit in an evening bag. I do not think it is a coincidence that the most successful member of each of those clubs was female. It may be that women's social roles encourage the development of transferable time and cost management and other organizational skills. It would be a good research project for a sociologist.
A major asset of the United Kingdom is the NHS's collection of anonymized patient data. The possession of such data accelerates research in the biotech, pharmaceutical and medical devices industries. The launch of the North Wales Medical School at Bangor is likely to spawn all kinds of new businesses in life sciences and attract considerable investment into that sector. For that reason, the panel discussion entitled "Health+" was particularly interesting. Gwenllian Owen interviewed Colette Buckley of the Life Sciences Hub Wales, Marie Latham-Jones of the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and Nia Jewell of Y Pethau Bychain about innovation in health and social care. In England, there are regional healthcare innovation hubs like Medipex Ltd. in Yorkshire. As the NHS is a devolved government responsibility, I enquired about the institutional equivalent in Wales. I learned that there was no direct equivalent, but an IP policy for the Welsh NHS was developing.
The theme of women's enterprise continued with talks by Lucy Bulley and Olaitan Olawande. There was guidance on the available business support from Business Wales, Innovate UK and Big Ideas Wales. Nia Roberts, an innovation consultant, patent attorney and former examiner with the European Patent Office, who chaired the day's meetings, and Emma Richards of the UK Intellectual Property Office gave comprehensive but succinct advice on intellectual property. Nicola Sturrs spoke about business and university collaboration through the innovation voucher scheme. I delivered a seminar on intellectual property law to the teams working on research, innovation, commercialization and partnership support for Bangor University on 23 Feb 2023. I was very impressed and commend that university (see The Day I Went to Bangor, 24 Feb 2023, NIPC News). The last panel discussion was between Emily Roberts, Debbie Jones and Sian Lloyd Robertson on M-SParc's contribution to developing skills.
I had attended the conference to learn, renew existing friendships and acquaintances and to make new connections. However, even though I had no role at the event, I do offer a pro bono initial advice and signposting service to businesses in Northwest Wales throughout the year (see An IP Clinic for M-SParc, 25 Jan 2024). Several individuals asked my advice on IP matters and I was glad to help.
Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form at any time.
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