M-SParc's Finance and Innovation Conference where all the Speakers happened to be Women

View of Eryri National Park from Ynys Môn

© 2018 Jane Elizabeth Lambert: all rights reserved 

 

Jane Lambert

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. 

Gwynedd Innovation Conference

Lake Bala

Author Necrothesp Licence CC BY-SA 3.0  Source Wikimedia Commons

 

Jane Lambert

Yesterday's Gwynedd Innovation Conference took place at the Gwersyll Yr Urdd Glan-llyn on the banks of Lake Bala (Llyn Tegid), one of the loveliest parts of Wales.  Lakeside communities are rare in the United Kingdom.  I can think of Windermere and Ambleside in England, Pitlochry and Drumnadrochit in Scotland and Enniskillen in Northern Ireland.  They are all special places with an Alpine feel.  Bala is, however, unique because it abuts the largest lake in Wales and some would say the most beautiful.

Gwynedd is a massive county in Northwest Wales which occupies much of the territory of the medieval kingdom of Gwynedd.  The county has excellent secondary schools and a leading research university which have trained a disproportionate number of highly skilled men and women who have pursued glittering careers in business, government, academia, the arts and the learned professions in every part of the world except their own.   With such initiatives as the opening of the Menai Science Park and the Pontio Centre opportunities are opening for the movers and shakers of the region. Moreover, talented folk from outside are making their homes and settling up businesses there.

Yesterday's conference celebrated those developments.  We heard from Jonny Charlton who developed a light carbon tandem that is attracting worldwide attention, filmmaker Asa Bailey whose work has gone viral on YouTube and an executive from Ifor Williams Trailers Ltd., a Corwen company whose products are distributed around the world.  We also heard from representatives of the organizations that have assisted them such as Richard Fraser-Williams of Business Wales, Stella Peace of InnovateUK and others from Gwynedd Council, the Development Bank of Wales, the Welsh Government and Bangor University,

The event was initiated by the Menai Science Park.  It was chaired by the science park's managing director Pryderi ap Rhisiart and we heard from his colleagues Gwenllian Owen, Sion Wynne and Tom Burke,  Tom delivered presentations on tourism technology and agricultural technology both of which are vitally important as tourism and farming are mainstays of the Welsh economy.   They and others who worked on the conference but did not speak deserve many congratulations for their respective contributions to a very successful event.

M-SParc can build on this success.  A lady sitting behind me suggested future activities in places like Dolgellau and other towns in the former county of Meirionnydd, an idea which received an echo of appreciation,   

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on +44 (0)20 7494 5252 during UK business hours or send me a message through my contact form at any time.

Digidol 24

Llanbrynmair, the first community in the UK with full-fibre broadband

Author Folks at 137 Licence CC BY0SA 3,0 Source Wikimedia Commons

Jane Lambert

In Tallinn, I remarked that Estonia reminded me of Wales.  Estonia has a highly developed digital infrastructure that has launched businesses like Skype, Bolt, and Starship Technologies. Having spent Wednesday, 23 Oct 2024 at Digidol 24 - Wales's Digital Conference, Wales reminded me very much of Estonia. An impression was strengthened by the news that Llanbrynmair in Powys was the first telephone exchange area in the UK where every resident had access to ultrafast broadband (see Mari Grug 19 Oct 2024 BBC website).

Digidol 24 was the biggest event that I had ever attended at the Menai Science Park and one of the best.  When I learned that it was to be hosted by Ameer Davies-Ranam I could not stay away.  Ameer (or Sgrameer as he is known on YouTube) kept me amused and actually taught me a bit of Welsh during lockdown.  I loved his pub, burger, Chinese, Christmas dinner, curry and other eatery reviews.  He is such a good sport that he even tried Welsh folk dancing which includes a leap known as "the grasshopper".  I introduced myself to Sgrameer during the coffee break and he seemed genuinely surprised and flattered to learn that he had a fan in Yorkshire.

Plenary sessions were held in the science park's atrium where the Tanio is located.  There were breakout sessions in room G69 and the Ffiws, Boardroom and Collaboration rooms.  I attended the plenary sessions but visited the Ffiws room for lunch and the exhibition stands in G69.   

The first speaker in the atrium was Glyn Jones, Chief Digital Officer and Director of Analysis at the Welsh Government, who delivered an update on the Digital Strategy for Wales.  He was followed by Avril Lewis, Managing Director at Technology Connected, who spoke about Wales Tech Week which takes place at the International Conference Centre in Newport between 24 and 26 Nov 2024. I had previously heard her at the Digital Wales event at the Welsh Government's office in London on 12 Sept 2023 (see Reflections on Wales Innovation Week in London on 20 Sept 2023).

One of the most interesting presentations of the day was an introduction to Glu by Mike Hawkes of CapVentis. Dr Hawkes had previously spoken at Wales Enterprise Day in 2023.  Glu appears to be a comprehensive suite of business applications built around a single-core GluFoundation. I listened very carefully to his talk and discussed it with him over lunch afterwards.  As far as I could understand it, the technical advance lay in the connection and manipulation of data in different formats.  The "Our Glu Journey" segment at the end of the Glu page on the CapVentis website provides further information.  If my understanding is correct, this technology could be of immense commercial value.

Another fascinating presentation was delivered by Paul Kinlan of Google.  He discussed the history of the development of the Chrome browser and operating system and Google's plans for its future development. I encountered him on the way to lunch and asked him what if anything could be done to improve the interoperability of files created by Microsoft software on Chrome and vice versa.  I remarked that it is possible to run Office 365 pm a Chromebook but not very convenient.  I got the impression that the difficulties were more commercial than technical.

After lunch, Llion Jones delivered an online presentation on artificial intelligence from Tokyo.  He is one of the authors of Attention is All You Need which proposed a simple network architecture called "the Transformer" based solely on attention mechanisms.  According to the Eventbrite card, the Transformer became the basis of ChatGPT.  Mr Jones is now working for Sakana AI which describes itself on https://sakana.ai/seed-round/ as a new AI research company based in Tokyo.  It aims to develop transformative AI that will lead to the next paradigm. The main focus of its research and development of new kinds of foundation models will be based on nature-inspired intelligence. The company's name is Sakana (さかな) which means "fish" in Japanese. It is meant to invoke the idea of a school of fish coming together and forming a coherent entity from simple rules.

Being mindful of The Society of Authors' statement that

"The unlicensed use of creatiuve works for training generative AI is a major unjust threat to the livelihood of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted"

I asked Mr Jones whether he agreed that there was a distinction to be drawn between creativity and intelligence.  To my surprise, he replied that there wasn't. I responded that they are completely different mental processes, the former being an exercise in understanding and the latter an inspiration of the spirit. My view is that authors like Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian Rankin have nothing to worry about.  A machine may be great at creating elevator music but will never produce a work that stands comparison with Chopin.

A highlight of the day was an unscheduled session of short presentations by three of M-SParc's tenants in the atrium.  One of the speakers was Tomos Owen who co-founded Pelly.  That is an app that helps football clubs make recruitment and other decisions.  This is another product that has been developed in the science park and has considerable commercial potential.  

The last of the plenary speakers was Susi Marston who discussed the digital infrastructure that is soon to be rolled out in Wales.  She promised very similar services to those that are available in Estonia including tariff-free voice calls and very fast broadband.  BT had a stand in the atrium which I visited during one of the breaks.  There I learned about the 5G mobile network that the company is installing.  I was told by one of Ms Marston's colleagues that there is an excellent signal at the summit of Yr Wyddfa and that Northern Ireland has the most advanced fibre network in the UK.

Breakout sessions that I would have attended had it been possible to be in two places at once included 

• Huw Watkins and Iqbal Bedi on Technology Options to Improve SME Performance - Examples from North Wales and the BT Connectivity Roadshow in the Ffiws room, 
• Senedd member Rhin ap Iorwerth's reflections on the Digital Strategy, the panel discussion on smart buildings and decarbonization and the Federation of Small Businesses' Creative Report in the Boardroom, and
• Business Wales's workshops in the Collaboration Room.

I visited as many of the stands as I could.  I was particularly glad to make contact with Ambition North Wales which brings together the region's local authorities and its universities and to renew my connection with Gogledd Creadigol.

One of the reasons for Estonia's success in establishing and growing new businesses is that it has a highly skilled workforce.  In my article on Estonia, I explained that that was because it has an excellent education system and that its kids regularly outscore children from other countries in the OECD PISA tests.  However, Welsh schoolchildren are not far behind and one of M-SParc's most important activities is Club Sparci.  It was encouraging to see that the last event of the day was a meeting of Club Sparci where the kids would learn about Raspberry Pi.  

Anybody wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during UK office hours or send me a message through my contact form.

EGNI 2023

Author Global World Atlas Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 Source Wikimedia Commons

 

Jane Lambert

"Egni" is Cymraeg for "energy" and there is a lot of it about in Anglesey both physically and metaphorically. Both kinds came together yesterday in EGNI 2023 at the Menai Science Park. EGNI 2023 was advertised as "THE low carbon and renewable energy event of the year." It consisted of a conference and exhibition with a parallel event for local schoolchildren.

The conference consisted of four sessions on the following themes:

• Why Net Zero?
• How are we doing it?
• Strategic and Large Energy Projects
• Young Persons' Panel.

The first session was launched by an impressive speech from a local sixth former called Owain. He did not say what he intends to do for a living but he has every chance of distinguishing himself in whatever career he chooses to follow. Owain was followed by speakers from the Welsh Government, Ambition North Wales the local authority and other institutions. The second session focused on local initiatives to achieve net zero. The third session was a panel discussion with representatives from BP, Rolls Royce, HyCymru (the Wales Hygrogen Trade Association) and other organizations on large-scale projects to develop renewable and nuclear resources. For the final session, Owain returned with another local sixth former called Seren and a student from Bangor University to quiz M-SParc's managing director and two of the speakers on their personal commitments towards achieving net zero. During the lunch and tea breaks, we were entertained by local artist Josh Weaver. The conference finished with a short concert by Eve Goodman.

I enjoyed all the presentations and learned a lot from each of the speakers but for me as an intellectual property lawyer, the panel discussion on strategic and large energy projects was the most interesting session The transition from fossil fuels to renewables and nuclear energy is potentially as important as the transition from animal power to steam in the 18th century. Every major economy is investing heavily in wind, solar, tidal and other renewable energy sources and the rewards for the companies that develop those technologies first will be substantial. With abundant wind and tidal power and half a century's experience in nuclear power generation, Anglesey is well placed for those developments. I invited the speakers to consider the worldwide licensing opportunities from those developments in a question to the panellists.

Yesterday was not the first time that M-SParc considered those opportunities. The theme for World Intellectual Property Day in 2020 was Innovate for a Green Future which the science park celebrated with presentations on the Intellectual Property Office's Green Channel and the WIPO Green database (see Anglesey to celebrate World Intellectual Property Day with Talks on Protecting and Exploiting Green Innovation at M-SParc 5 March 2020).

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact page.