Entrepreneurship & Impact Visit from France

WHEN: Tuesday 11 July 2023, 12.30PM - 3.00PM
WHERE: King's College, University of Cambridge

We are delighted to be hosting a delegation from France, including colleagues from Le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the French Embassy in the United Kingdom, to discuss the innovation ecosystem in Cambridge.

The PhD in Uncertain Times – Learning to be Entrepreneurial

You are warmly invited to join this E-Lab event with Inger Mewburn, exploring the PhD in Uncertain Times.

WHEN: Monday 10 July 2023
5.30 pm – 6.00 pm: Wine reception in Chetwynd Room
6.00 pm – 7.00 pm: Talk in Keynes Lecture Theatre
WHERE: King's College, University of Cambridge

TICKETS: book your free tickets here

Professor Inger Mewburn (better known as @Thesiswhisperer on the internet) has a background as a designer and a researcher, which was nurtured at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University. 

Since 2006, she has worked exclusively with PhD students and early career academics, helping them finish complex research projects with (very) demanding stakeholders. She’s passionate about people reaching their potential as researchers and helping create a kinder, more inclusive academy. 

Inger is the Director of Researcher Development at The Australian National University where she oversees professional development workshops and programs for all ANU researchers. Aside from creating new posts on the Thesis Whisperer blog, she writes scholarly papers, books and book chapters about research education, with a special interest in post-PhD employability. She is a co-creator of the PostAc app and co-hosts a regular podcast called ‘On the Reg’ with Dr Jason Downs. 

You find out more via herAmazon author page, or on Wikipedia. You can view her publications and books on the Thesis Whisperer About page. A full list of her scholarly work is available via her Google Scholar page or on her OrcidID page.

Inger is @Thesiswhisperer on all the major social media channels but you can message and talk directly to her on Mastodon here or via Linkedin.

Entrepreneurship & Impact Visit from Utah

WHEN: Friday 23 June 2023, 12.30PM - 4.00PM
WHERE: King's College, University of Cambridge

We are delighted to be hosting a trade delegation from Utah, including startups, investors, members of the State legislature and the Governor, to discuss the tech innovation ecosystem in Cambridge.

You are warmly invited to join the next E-Lab event with Johannes Lenhard and Erika Brodnock on DEI still isn’t changing in venture capital and startups — what can we do?  

WHEN: Tuesday 20th June
WHERE: Judge Business School
5.00 pm – 6.00 pm: Talk in Fadi Boustany Lecture Theatre
6.00 pm – 7.00 pm: Wine reception

BOOK YOUR FREE TICKET HERE

What to look forward to

For years, the diversity numbers haven’t changed much when it comes to decision makers in VC and the kind of founders who receive funding. Over the last two years, Erika Brodnock, herself a serial entrepreneur, and Dr Johannes Lenhard, writer and academic, have interviewed VCs, asset owners and ecosystem builders about what is holding people back and what can be done about it. Their recently published ‘Better Venture’ is a guidebook full of practical ideas and advice on how to finally push for change. In this book talk, the two will present some of the most potent insights which will hopefully start a lively debate.

About the speakers

Dr Johannes Lenhard is affiliate lecturer and researcher at the University of Cambridge. He is research affiliate at the Minderoo Center for Technology and Democracy and the co-director of VentureESG. He has recently published a monograph on people experiencing homelessness in Paris (Making Better Lives), a co-authored book on diversity and inclusion in venture capital and tech (Better Venture) and his forthcoming book on the ‘Ethics of venture capital investors’ is under contract with Columbia University Press. He writes regular for a variety of journalistic outlets and runs the non-profit CHIRN (Cambridge Homelessness Impact Research Network). 

Erika Brodnock is an award-winning entrepreneur (including Female Entrepreneur of the Year and Intel's Global Business Challenge), philanthropist, and angel investor. She is also an MBA, a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London and a PhD in the Inclusion Initiative at the LSE where she is researching how the power of big data and machine learning can be used to diversify access to funding and investment for diverse entrepreneurs and innovators and has authored Diversity Beyond Gender, and co-authored the TRANSPARENT Framework and Better Venture. Through her work at the intersection of technology, wellbeing and product development, Erika has built products and services in the ed-tech, parental wellbeing, and financial markets that disrupt and spearhead a path out of outdated systems. Erika is Sky News’ resident parenting expert; co-founder at Extend Ventures, The Black Funding Network, and Kinhub, providing data-driven coaching and personalised employee support. She is one of 16 Black women in the UK who have raised more than £1m in funding for their startup. Erika is a non-executive director of The Good Play Guide; and serves on the APPG for Entrepreneurship advisory board.

This event is co-organised with the Cambridge Judge Business School MSt in Entrepreneurship Programme.

You are warmly invited to join this E-Lab event with Stuart Wood, Shannon Bonke and Malcolm McKenzie on Motorcycle Design through a century - Sustainability, Innovation, and Performance, with a celebration of Phil Vincent (1926) - King’s Engineer and Entrepreneur 

WHEN: Friday 16th June
WHERE: King’s College

5PM - Drinks and Exhibition in Chetwynd

5.30PM - 7PM - Talk in Keynes Lecture Theatre

TICKETS: book your free ticket here

Traditional automotive industries need to reinvent themselves to stay relevant for today’s zero-carbon imperative. While long-established, they need to rediscover a start-up mentality to make themselves relevant for today’s customers.

Stuart Wood, Chief Engineer of Triumph Motorcycles, has been the anchor of Triumph engineering since the company was re-created by John Bloor in the 1980s. Having rebuilt its position as a renowned specialist motorcycle business, Triumph is now addressing the sustainability challenge. Stuart will discuss how Triumph are tackling this from both business and engineering perspectives, and will bring along selected exhibits (including a prototype Triumph performance electric motorcycle) to illustrate issues, progress and success. 

Alongside Stuart, Shannon Bonke, a postdoctoral research associate in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry and King’s College, Cambridge will discuss the development of green liquid fuels made from CO2, water and renewable electricity. Shannon’s research at Cambridge aims to break the link between modern life and environmental destruction by addressing the core challenge on the road to Net-Zero. This challenge is developing energy storage systems to handle the natural intermittency of solar and wind power. His focus is on making green/alternative fuels from renewable electricity to enable a rapid transition from fossil fuels to cheap, on-demand, renewable power and thereby cut >80% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Shannon received his PhD in chemistry from Monash University in his native Australia where he set the world record efficiency for converting solar energy into green hydrogen, which led to an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship to join the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Germany prior to moving to Cambridge where he develops green liquid fuels made from CO2, water and renewable electricity.

Malcolm McKenzie will also highlight some of the relevant learnings from Phil Vincent (King’s Engineer (1926) and Entrepreneur) who we are celebrating over this weekend. Vincent went on to build a renowned motorcycle company which produced some of the most iconic motorcycles through the 1930s to 1950s. During this period, sustainability was linked to the reliability imperative. Vincent succeeded with machine longevity (~50% of the machines still exist today), whilst also producing some of the most innovative and fastest motorcycles of the period. In fact, he created an icon, lauded in folk music, literature and art exhibitions, as well as in many speed and endurance records.   

Malcolm McKenzie bought his first motorbike while an engineering student at King’s some decades ago. Starting his career in engine design he moved into telecoms and, following an MBA, into management and then turnaround consultancy. He has been a partner at EY, founded his own Transformation business, and also been active in business start-ups. Currently he leads Alvarez & Marsal’s European Corporate Practice, working with major and mid-sized businesses on turnaround. He also co-founded the King’s Entrepreneurship Lab. A Vincent owner (along with several other marques), Malcolm is also Chairman of the Vincent Spares Company, which supplies spare parts to keep these iconic bikes on the road.

The talks will be accompanied by a small exhibition of modern Triumph engineering, archives of Phil Vincent and related exhibits.

On the following day, Saturday 17th, in celebration of the 95th anniversary of Phil Vincent being granted his first patent while a King’s second year undergraduate, the Vincent Owners Club will exhibit and ride a procession of some 20 original Vincents from the 1930s-1950s through the College to honour these innovations. A unique moment! 12.00 Midday on the cobbles outside King’s Porters Lodge to experience these unique creations!

1-2-1 Career Support for E-Lab Members

WHEN: Friday 16th June, 9:00 to 12:30
WHERE: King’s College, Keynes Seminar Room 2b

King's E-Lab Career Mentor Margaret O'Neill is available for 1-2-1 meetings, where you can discuss in more detail your personal plans. Please book a slot here.

1-2-1 Career Support for E-Lab Members

WHEN: Thursday 15th June, 9:00 to 12:30
WHERE: King’s College, Keynes Seminar Room 2b

King's E-Lab Career Mentor Margaret O'Neill is available for 1-2-1 meetings, where you can discuss in more detail your personal plans. Please book a slot here.

Workshop: Breaking into Web3, withAndrew Masanto and Andrew Yeoh

You are warmly invited to join this E-Lab event where we are hosting Andrew Masanto and Andrew Yeoh from Nillion, an innovative web3 internet infrastructure project. In this workshop, they will navigate you through the fundamentals of web3 and blockchain, offer valuable insights on how to identify technological “waves” including the latest exciting intersection of crypto and AI, and equip you with necessary knowledge to break into the decentralised industry. Their goal for students and professionals, at the end of this workshop, is to have a better understanding and feel empowered to capture the opportunities presented by the emerging landscape of decentralised technologies.

Andrew Masanto and Andrew Yeoh, alongside their co-founders, have been developing Nillion since 2021. Nillion has strong ties to Cambridge as this groundbreaking technology was first revealed live here in November 2021. Nillion has since raised $20m in Seed Round funding, won the CoinList Seed Program and made a number of marquee hires, including the Founding Engineer of Uber joining as Founding CTO. Whether you're a curious student, an aspiring entrepreneur, possess coding expertise, or simply hold a profound interest in the decentralized future of the internet, this workshop will provide you with indispensable tools and knowledge to capitalise on the imminent opportunities in web3. 

About the speakers

Andrew Masanto is the Founding CSO of Nillion, and is an American entrepreneur, former lawyer and collaborative artist. As an early and prolific founder in web3, he started two of the top 100 cryptocurrencies (Reserve (2019) and Hedera Hashgraph (2017)) as Founding CMO and in 2021 started NFT.com. Outside of web3, Masanto started Higher Click marketing agency (exited in 2012), Petlab Co (named the fastest growing pet company in the USA by Entrepreneur Magazine), and has been recognised as one of the top marketers in the world, winning several industry awards and having guest lectured at Harvard, Oxford, MIT and Columbia Universities. 

Andrew Yeoh is the Founding CMO of Nillion, and is a serial entrepreneur and former investment banker at UBS and Rothschild. He was also on the founding team of Metalink, built the Bitclout community and was a Hedera SVP GP.

About Nillion

​Nillion is new internet infrastructure based on a cryptographic innovation which has led to the development of a novel technology called Nil Message Compute (NMC). The technology fundamentally changes the way data is stored, processed and decentralised and opens up a realm of new decentralised use cases in web3 and blockchains, such as private smart contracts, MEV frontrunning protection, private DEXs, blind DAO voting, keyless multi-chain wallets, private AI/ML, decentralised credit scoring, and more. 

The founding team behind Nillion have founded several unicorn and successful crypto and non-crypto companies, including Uber, Indiegogo and two of the top 100 cryptocurrencies (Hedera Hashgraph and Reserve). 

If you would like to attend, please RSVP to entrepreneur@kings.cam.ac.uk to confirm your spot.

TICKETS: RSVP entrepreneur@kings.cam.ac.uk
WHEN: Monday 12 June, 6.30PM
WHERE: Audit Room, King's College, University of Cambridge

A Conversation with the Godfather of AI

You are warmly invited to join the next E-Lab event with King's (KC 1967) very own Geoffrey Hinton, the Godfather of AI.
WHEN: Friday 26 May 2023
5.30 pm – 6.00 pm: Wine reception in Chetwynd Room
6.00 pm – 7.00 pm: Interview followed by Q&A in Keynes Lecture Theatre
WHERE: King's College, University of Cambridge

WATCH: watch the recording of the event, below or here.

SPEAKERS' BIO:

Geoffrey Hinton (KC 1967, Natural Sciences)

Dubbed the British "godfather of AI" and a pioneer of deep learning, Geoff until recently divided his time between work as an academic at the University of Toronto, in the Department of Computer Science (Emeritus Professor) and a role at Google, where he was the part-time Vice President and Engineering Fellow, managing Brain Team Toronto, now a part of the Google Brain Team. 

Earlier this month, Geoff announced his resignation from Google in a statement to the New York Times.

Geoff came up to King's to read Psychology and during his studies realised that scientists didn't really understand the brain.  How neurons learned or computed could not be explained and he has spent his career trying to better understand these processes.  From Cambridge he went on to the University of Edinburgh to pursue a doctorate in artificial intelligence, followed by postdoc appointments at the University of Sussex and the University of California San Diego.  Geoff subsequently spent five years in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie-Mellon University, before making the move to Toronto where he has been ever since, apart from a three-year spell at UCL (1998-2001) where he set up the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit. 

Geoff was one of the researchers who introduced the backpropagation algorithm and the first to use backpropagation for learning word embeddings. His other contributions to neural network research include Boltzmann machines, distributed representations, time-delay neural nets, mixtures of experts, variational learning and deep learning.  His research group in Toronto made major breakthroughs in deep learning that revolutionized speech recognition and object classification.

 A co-founder of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Geoff has received numerous awards, including the 2018 Turing Award (received jointly with two colleagues), as well as featuring in the 2016 Wired 100 list of global influencers.  He has been awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of Sussex and Edinburgh.

Read more about Geoffrey in the recent NY Times article.

On the Hook: Regulating Web3

WHEN: Wednesday 10 May 2023

6 pm – 7.30 pm: Panel Discussion in Keynes Lecture Theatre

7.30 pm – 8 pm: Wine reception in Chetwynd Room

WHERE: King's College, University of Cambridge

Emerging technologies have the potential to revolutionize the world as we know it. Given the exciting business opportunities, DLT, blockchain and Web3 are becoming increasingly appealing to entrepreneurs. However, due to its novelty, the industry's liabilities for its participants are not yet settled comprehensively. While some regulators across the globe have established the responsibilities of crypto asset issuers and service providers (with the EU’s MiCA regulation at the forefront), the extent of liability for other participants - developers, DAO members and their delegators, proxy advisors, miners and validators in particular - remains somewhat unclear.

This "On the Hook: Regulating Web3" event aims to bring together diverse experts to discuss present risks, regulatory tendencies and industry trends through the lens of financial regulation, corporate governance and tort law, associated with various actors in the Web3 space. The discussion will attempt to identify possible regulatory hooks to address these risks and debate on other potential regulatory approaches.

About the speakers

Matthew Kimber is a lawyer at the UK Law Commission of England and Wales and one of the main drivers behind its projects regarding emerging technologies, including very recent DAOs call for evidence.

Jessica Lee is a partner in the Brown Rudnick’s Litigation & Arbitration Practice, named a Rising Star for civil fraud in The Legal 500 2023. She represents clients in complex and high value commercial litigation. Her particular experience includes crypto and blockchain matters.

Brian Sanya Mondoh is a PGR student conducting research on the application of DLTs and smart contracts in enhancing trust and data integrity in public procurement. Brian is a Dual Qualified Advocate, Barrister of England and Wales and Attorney-at-Law at the Bar of Trinidad and Tobago. He has published research and commentary on the regulation of digital assets including NFTs, DAOs, and DeFi. His co-authored work has been listed on SSRN's top ten download list and has been featured on MIT Computational Law Report Idea Forum on Composable Governance in the contexts of legal tech, business automation, and Web3.

Matt Green is the Blockchain Litigation Lead at Shoosmiths and is a lawyer specializing in Digital Assets, Technology, Blockchain and Intellectual Property. His practice is specifically designed to service businesses utilizing blockchain technology, recovering crypto assets and advising on copyright, trademarks. He has also co-written two academic papers entitled “DAOs: The Future of Corporate Governance or an Illusion” and "NFT Legal and Regulatory Compliance: Connoisseurship and Critique", both listed on SSRN's top ten downloads.

Dino Kandiloros is legal associate at Outlier Ventures, one of the leading Web3 accelerator investing and partnering with 200 of the best founders in Web3 every year and supporting projects across DeFi, NFTs, blockchain infrastructure and more.

Han Verstraete is a founder and a CEO at Otonomos that helps builders and investors in crypto and tech form and maintain their legal entities in all major jurisdictions around the world. He is also a founder of OtoCo.io which helps entities to incorporate natively on blockchain, tokenize their shares and perform all governance actions on-chain.

This event is co-organised with the Cambridge European Society and Cambridge Blockchain Society.

Drinks at the King’s E-Lab

What better way to end the first week of Easter term than to come and chat with our Entrepreneur in Residence, Lab Associates and the directors of the E-Lab and to hear more about our programme and activities. Do drop by for a chat - we also love to hear your thoughts on business and entrepreneurship!

WHEN: Tuesday 2 May 2023 from 6PM
WHERE: King's College Bar, University of Cambridge

WHEN: Tuesday 25 April 2023, 6.00 pm-6.30 pm wine reception, 6.30 pm-7.30 pm fireside talk
WHERE: Provost’s Lodge, King's College, University of Cambridge

Sarah is a Kings alumna and a judge in the Kings Entrepreneurship Prize.

During the talk, she will share her raw and honest insights that will accelerate your entrepreneurial career both professionally as well as personally.

Sarah Wood is a digital entrepreneur and diversity advocate, driving innovation and transforming business culture for the better. She co-founded Unruly, the international video advertising marketplace, acquired by NewsCorp for £114 million in 2015.

Unruly grew from an idea charting the popularity of viral videos to a global online advertising business, built on the power of content to tell a story, working with brands that want to move people not just reach them, bringing emotional intelligence to digital advertising.

Sarah is Senior Independent Director on the board of Tech Nation, the growth platform for ambitious British tech entrepreneurs. She is an ambassador for The Prince’s Trust Women supporting Women Programme, on the advisory boards for AccelerateHer and City Ventures (University of London) and invests in UK tech startups and scaleups.

Drawing on her experience as CEO of Unruly, Sarah wrote the must-read career handbook ‘Stepping Up: How to Accelerate Your Leadership Potential’ which calls for more diverse, digital and empathetic business leaders.

Sarah has been a judge for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the world. She is in demand as a commentator on the technology industry, and business as a whole. When speaking, Sarah can cover topics from the future of technology to women in business, as well as telling her own remarkable business story.

Recognised for her work in the tech industry and for her entrepreneurship, Sarah has been named Veuve Clicquot’s Businesswoman of the Year, City AM’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and awarded an OBE for services to technology and innovation.

Second King's E-Lab Annual Nobel Prize Lecture by Joseph E. Stiglitz

Friday 21 April; 5.00 pm – 6.00 pm: Lecture followed by Q&A in Lecture Theatre 2, Judge Business School
Webinar recording: view the recording below or here

About our speaker:

Joseph E. Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is also the co-chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD, and the Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute. Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001 and the John Bates Clark Medal in 1979. He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank and a former chair of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers. In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, a think tank on international development based at Columbia University. In 2011 Stiglitz was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Known for his pioneering work on asymmetric information, Stiglitz's research focuses on income distribution, climate change, corporate governance, public policy, macroeconomics and globalization. He is the author of numerous books including, most recently, People, Power, and Profits, Rewriting the Rules of the European Economy, and Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited.

The Path Less Travelled: From EastEnder to Footballer to Biotech Entrepreneur
You are warmly invited to join the next E-Lab event with Darrin M Disley on The Path Less Travelled: From EastEnder to Footballer to Biotech Entrepreneur.

Monday 20 March
6 pm – 6.30 pm: Wine reception in Chetwynd Room
6.30 pm – 7.30 pm: Talk in Keynes Lecture Theatre
TICKETS: book your free tickets here

Dr Darrin M Disley OBE, Parallel Entrepreneur, Angel Investor and Enterprise Champion.

My story is an improbable one. I was born into a poor family in the East End of London, where my father was an ex-convict and builder and my mother a meals-on-wheel lady and cleaner. I was told at age 13 that I was not good enough to study chemistry at O-Level (GCSE) and so went on to leave school at 16 with no formal qualifications in order to pursue first a career in professional football. Finding only moderate success with this, I went back for further education which eventually opened a more rewarding career as a serial entrepreneur, angel investor educator and enterprise champion.

My journey of self-discovery started at Cambridge. Here I developed a new level of confidence that came from a realization that I could succeed in academics and hold my own on a social level with students that came from backgrounds that I considered to be superior to my own. From a research perspective I also identified that intellectual breadth rather than depth could be strength instead of a weakness, as it helped me to see how technology could be applied to deliver commercial and societal impact. This, along with an aptitude for bringing those smarter than me together to solve big problems, combined into a platform for building a career in the commercialisation of technology.

I have gone on to start-up and grow of numerous business ventures securing over $700 million business financing from grant, angel, corporate, venture capital and public market sources as well as closing over $700 million of product, service, licensing, and M&A deals. Three of these businesses failed and each of the successful ones have gone through difficult phases that required resilience, resourcefulness, reflection, and a sense of reciprocity to overcome.

This talk/discussion will focus on entrepreneurial traits, mind-sets and motivations as well as highlighting my idea of a “Home Run” model of how to build a successful business that works for all stakeholders. I exemplar the lessons (good, bad and ugly) learned from my journey from EastEnder to footballer to entrepreneur, angel investor and enterprise champion

To celebrate the end of week 7 of Lent Term, we are pleased to be co-hosting a wine tasting at the E-Lab with the Cambridge University Wine Society (CUWS) on Thursday 9th of March 2023.

WHEN: Thursday 9 March 2023 from 7.00 pm
WHERE: Chetwynd Room & Keynes Lecture Theatre, King’s College Cambridge, dress code is smart casual.
TICKETS: For tickets click here

Created in 2018 by Ivan Massonnat to restore the prestige of a thousand-year-old vineyard, the Pithon-Paillé estate of Jo Pithon, who is renowned for developing the reputation of Anjou wines, Domaine Belargus is not only critically acclaimed but a true wine lover’s dream come true – the manifestation of the vision of a wine enthusiast.

The estate spans 24 hectares of some of the most renowned terroirs in Anjou, focusing exclusively on Chenin Blanc to explore the micro-terroirs of the region in a single-plot approach through an unprecedented selection of grand crus, single-plots, and monopoles.
Entirely biodynamic, every wine is rigorously produced to highlight the signature identity and features of each plot. Please join us in discovering their collection that is redefining the vineyards of the Loire Valley.

Ivan Massonnat fundamentally believes in the virtues of a collective approach: since inception the Belargus project has been designed as a team adventure, bringing together young talents (notably winemaker Adrien Moreau and vineyard manager Amaury Chartier) and some iconic Loire pioneers (namely Jo Pithon and Guy Bossard).

WHEN: Tuesday 7 March 2023
WHERE: King's College, University of Cambridge

6 pm – 6.30 pm: Wine reception in Chetwynd Room;
6.30 pm – 7.30 pm: Talk in Keynes Lecture Theatre

What to look forward to
Competition policy is becoming increasingly concerned with the rise of Big Tech, dominant in the digital services we all rely on. The traditional toolkit of competition economics may not be well adapted to deal with multi-sided digital platforms, or with other new economic challenges such as sustainability and inequality. In this speaker event, Diane Coyle discusses these concerns and outlines how policymakers can use existing tools and develop new ones, especially to deal with dynamic as well as static effects, to ensure markets work better for society.

About Diane
Diane Coyle is an economist and a former advisor to the UK Treasury. She was vice-chair of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and was a member of the UK Competition Commission from 2001 until 2019. Since March 2018, she has been the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, co-directing the Bennett Institute.

Drinks at the King’s E-Lab

What better way to end week 6 of Lent term than to come and chat with the students who participated in this year's King's Entrepreneurship Lab programme (2022 cohort), our Entrepreneur in Residence, Lab Associates and the directors of the E-Lab and to hear more about our programme and activities. Do drop by for a chat - we also love to hear your thoughts on business and entrepreneurship!

WHEN: Wednesday 1 March 2023 from 7PM
WHERE: King's College Bar, University of Cambridge

Workshop: Digitally Marketing a Business, with Luke Pearce

This workshop will explore the practicalities of how to market your business in a digital world, ranging from the basics of advertising to creating a socially interactive website and generating “buzz” on social media around your company and products. The workshop is led by Luke Pearce, Chief Executive Officer of the Radical Tea Towel Company, a company well-known for their strong digital marketing! This event is hands-on and active participation is strongly encouraged, so come prepared with your questions!

If you would like to attend, please RSVP to entrepreneur@kings.cam.ac.uk to confirm your spot.

TICKETS: RSVP to entrepreneur@kings.cam.ac.uk
WHEN: Wednesday 1 March 2023
WHERE: King's College, University of Cambridge

WHEN: Thursday 23 February 2023
6 pm – 6.30 pm: Wine reception in Chetwynd Room;
6.30 pm – 7.30 pm: Talk in Keynes Lecture Theatre

This event is under Chatham House Rule

What to look forward to:

In this fireside chat, Laurel will discuss her relationship with entrepreneurship, leading the launch of M&S Money brand, her experience in Uber, and trends in biotech that she see from her positions in CUHP and the Biomedical Campus. She will also reflect her personal journey, leadership style and what she see are the critical success factors when leading a business. 

About the speaker:

Laurel Powers-Freeling has had a long and varied career, starting with professional services at both McKinsey & Company and Morgan Stanley.  She’s held senior management and board level positions at UK FTSE 100 companies, including the Prudential, Abbey Life, Lloyds Bank Group and Marks & Spencer, where she launched M&S Bank and also was responsible for M&S’s first steps into on-line retailing.  At American Express, she was responsible for UK and European operations, and also launched a unique product—The Red Card—which she developed in partnership with Bono (as in U2 Bono) as part of his Project Red, which raises funds for addressing AIDS, Malaria and other health challenges in Africa.  She was appointed a Non-Executive Director of the Bank of England, and has served as a Senior Advisor since.

Laurel has been involved with some twenty boards as a non-executive director, including Bank of Ireland, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Atom Bank.  Laurel was a part of the start-up of Atom.  She is currently Chair of Uber in the UK, which serves some 7 million riders, working with 90,000 drivers.  Elsewhere in the digital space, she chairs Moneybox, and app-based savings and investment platform which, as of this week, now has over 1 million customers, and Ripe Thinking, a specialist insurance platform.

In Cambridge, Laurel chairs Cambridge Biomedical Campus Ltd., which focuses on life sciences growth and developing the Biomedical Campus for the future.

Finally, she’s married to Dr Anthony Freeling, our acting University Vice Chancellor.  They have two daughters:  one is a senior engineer at Google in Silicon Valley, and the other is a Sustainability Lead for Handelsbanken, a leading European bank.

TICKETS: Evensong open to general public
WHEN: Wednesday 15 February 2023, 5.30-6.30 pm Evensong in Chapel, please be seated by 5.20pm
WHERE: The King’s College Chapel, King's College, University of Cambridge
CHAPEL ADDRESS: Click here for a copy of the address given by Malcolm McKenzie (Fellow Benefactor) at Evensong on ‘Religion and Enterprise’.
POP-UP EXHIBITION: A pop-up exhibition of items from the Special Collections that was in the Chapel at this special Evensong, on the topic of Science and Religion, has been digitised and put online here.

The Dean of King's College, Cambridge and the Directors of the Entrepreneurship Lab are pleased to invite you to a special service of Evensong (sung by the King’s Voices) on Wednesday 15th February at 5.30pm.

The address at Evensong is on ‘Religion and Enterprise’, given by Malcolm McKenzie, co-founder of the E-Lab.  

On Wednesday 15th February, as a part of College Chapel Evensong, Malcolm McKenzie (Fellow Benefactor and Co-Founder of the King’s Entrepreneurship Lab) will give an Address on Enterprise and Religion.  He will be exploring in the broadest sense what the Entrepreneur can learn from Religion, and what the Religious can learn from Enterprise.  He will also explore some ethical issues for entrepreneurs.

Malcolm (King’s 1977) has both held leading roles in, as well as advising, ventures, scale-ups and major businesses.  He is currently Head of Corporate for the specialist turnaround house Alvarez & Marsal, as well as being Chair of a small technology business.

You are warmly invited to join the next E Lab event with Judith Wallenstein on Pursuing the Right Opportunities. 

Wednesday 8 February
6 pm – 6.30 pm: Wine reception in Chetwynd Room
6.30 pm – 7.30 pm: Talk in Keynes Lecture Theatre

What to look forward to

Judith will talk about the trending topics from Davos WEF Jan 2023, the buzzing opportunities to pursue within healthcare, and what is keeping CEOs up at night amid high inflation, the low growth environment and urgent sustainability actions. On a personal note, she will share her leadership insights, what she is (not) looking for in young talents across industries and what advice she would give to those on crossroads with their career choice. 

About Judith

Judith is a Managing Director and Senior Partner at Boston Consulting Group, Co-lead of BCG's Global Climate Moonshot, BCG's Global CEO Advisory Practice Head, Former Head of BCG's Sustainability Practice in Central & Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Climate & Sustainability is also an integral part of the work she is doing with (new) CEOs as the Global Head of BCG’s CEO Advisory Practice – both with Global Fortune 500 CEOs and growth tech leaders across biotech, software, fintech, argitech and Greentech.

She has also been part of COP26 and COP27 teams and is passionate about bringing the Climate & Health topic to COP28. Her day to day work is in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, with a focus on R&D and scaling hypergrowth biotech companies.

Workshop: Multilateral Innovations, with Bright Simons

We live in an Age of (Digital) Platforms. But today's platforms, even the mightiest, are very much in their infancy in terms of their ability to truly impact the big issues of the day: broken trust in institutions, climate, inequality, public service quality etc. A big part of the reason is the lack of integration across private, civil, public and the international sector. Multilateral Innovation is an emerging concept with a big promise: platforms will be reborn to change the world. The workshop is led by Bright Simons, founder and president of mPedigree, a social enterprise which has been noted for its works to expose makers and distributors of counterfeit medicine and developing tech to allow the verification of certain products. Bright also has experience at AgroTrack and Koldchain and has written for the Huffington Post, IMANI, Harvard Business Review Digital and is a regular contributor to the BBC’s Business Daily programs. This event is hands-on and active participation is strongly encouraged, so come prepared with your questions!

TICKETS: RSVP entrepreneur@kings.cam.ac.uk
WHEN: Friday 3 February 2023
WHERE: Audit Room, King's College, University of Cambridge

TICKETS: book your tickets here, stream available here: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83718042309

WHEN: Tuesday 17 January 2023, 5.30 pm - 6.00 pm wine reception, 6.00 pm – 7.00 pm talk (keynote + Q&A)
WHERE: Chetwynd Room and Keynes Lecture Theatre, King's College, University of Cambridge

Dr David Ko and Richard Busellato

With three decades of investment experience working with pensions and savings institutions, Dr David Ko (King’s College alumni 1982) and Richard Busellato talk about the ways in which we are all pushing the world beyond its limits. Our investments are draining the world of its resources just so we can hoard money for our individual futures – our retirement. If we are going to be sustainable, forget retiring – it is the ethical thing to do. If we can’t retire, what are we working for? If investing is unsustainable, should we save at all?

Speakers
Dr David Ko and Richard Busellato are authors of a book on the sustainability issues of investments. After three decades in the industry, even as seasoned professionals they somewhat ashamedly admit to only recognizing recently the extent of the problems. We save to protect our own future, but the savings need to grow by so much that they destroy the future. The problem is our economy is not designed for a world with finite limits; an economic model for this needs to be centred on ethics and purpose. Having worked at renowned hedge funds such as LTCM and Millennium, and investment companies such as Henderson and Bank of America, they have recently left the industry so they may speak more freely. 

• Sustainability can't be bought

• www.rethinkingchoices.com

• Listen and share our webinar recording on The Unsustainable Truth.

We at the E Lab were thinking what should the last event of this calendar year be. Inviting a speaker? Pitching event? Lecture? Nah! The idea is for you to share for 5 minutes some of your learnings, things you wish you knew, things you figured out, things you messed up, things you wish someone would have told you sooner…

This could be anything from juggling business and personal life, finding investors, bootstrapping, having uncomfortable conversations with cofounders and colleagues, having to let go of people, hiring the right people, imposter syndrome, finding a market fit…you name it!

This is a super relaxed, safe and supportive environment and we cannot wait to learn from you all!

By invitation only

TICKETS: Available here & make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for early access
WHEN: Tuesday 29 Nov 5.30-6pm drinks, 6.00pm-6.50 pm talk
WHERE: King's College, University of Cambridge

Redemption Roasters are on a mission to reduce reoffending rates through coffee. They believe exceptional coffee can come from people and places you wouldn’t expect; at their roastery in HMP The Mount, they train offenders in coffee industry skills with the aim of reducing reoffending in the UK (people leaving prison are 50% more likely to reoffend if they leave without skills or a job). Upon release, they help our graduates find work in our own coffee shops, or within our network. As a social enterprise, RR think differently to other specialty coffee companies; they strive for profit in order to achieve our purpose. Every member of the Redemption Roasters team has a role to play in achieving that purpose; to challenge perceptions and change lives through Speciality coffee.

To Ted Rosner and Max Dubiel, coffee means opportunity. They began building a successful sourcing and roasting business after meeting at St Andrew’s University, Scotland, and saw a gap in the market for a coffee company that does things simply and fairly.

This begins with the people they buy their beans from and ends with a carbon-neutral roasting process. Along the way, they have uncovered a way to give new skills to a group often left behind in society. A chance meeting with a prison executive at a coffee festival led them to offer barista training classes in Aylesbury Prison, England. This evolved to creating eight in-custody barista academies and five penitentiary-based roasting facilities. Redemption Roasters is now six years old and is being rolled out in prisons up and down the UK.

If you’re considering your next steps after graduation and not quite sure where to start, this interactive workshop is for you. Whether you have an idea of where you want to go, or have just started exploring, this session aims to give you the structure, tools and tips you need to begin building your career plan.  

The workshop will be led by Careers Consultant Margaret O’Neill, who has over 20 years’ experience in helping students and professionals of all ages, nationalities and backgrounds to find their purpose and achieve their career ambitions. Her aim is that you leave with increased confidence, focus and clarity of purpose to manage your own career journey effectively.  

Margaret will be available for follow up 121 meetings on Thursday 24 November, where you can discuss in more detail your personal plans.

WHEN: Wednesday 23 November  
WHERE:Audit Room, Kings College

TICKETS: Available here & make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for early access
WHEN: Tuesday 22 November 2022
WHERE: King's College, University of Cambridge

Matt Clifford is the co-founder and CEO of Entrepreneur First (EF), the world’s leading talent investor, and Chair of ARIA, the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency.

He writes a weekly newsletter, Thoughts In Between, on how the world got to be the way it is and how it’s changing. Outside EF, he serves on the boards of Code First Girls, which he co-founded with Alice Bentinck, the Kennedy Memorial Trust and Innovate UK. He was awarded an MBE for services to business in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2016.

Entrepreneur First is one of the “world’s leading talent investor’s”. The companies built at EF are now worth over $10bn. Every six months, in six countries around the world, EF brings together and funds exceptional individuals to help them meet their co-founder, develop an idea and raise money from leading investors - as fast as possible.

EF alumni companies include Tractable (a computer vision unicorn), Cleo, Omnipresent, Aztec, Transcelestial, Airbank and many more. EF is backed by some of the world's best tech founders and company builders, including Patrick and John Collison (Stripe); Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Demis Hassabis (DeepMind); Tom Blomfield (GoCardless and Monzo), Sara Clemens (Pandora and Twitch); Nat Friedman (GitHub); and Matt Mullenweg (Wordpress).

Entreprenur First’s mission is to enable the best talent to maximise their impact is one of the most important problems in the world. Learn more about EF here.

WHEN: Friday 11th November 6.30 – 7.30 pm

WHERE: Wine Room, King’s College Cambridge

TICKETS: All welcome & please email elab@kings.cam.ac.uk to confirm your spot.

The E-Lab is delighted to welcome Teri Yu (Linkedin) who is running our first workshop of the year!

This workshop is aimed at entrepreneurs keen to understand how to take the seeds of an idea and turn this into a profitable business venture. The event will be a discussion with an introduction from Teri, followed by a hands-on discussion on transitioning your business from an idea to a fully-fledged enterprise. Audience participation and discussion is heavily encouraged!

Teri Yu is a repeat founder who raised $2.5m+ and successfully exited the start-up. She has deep product and sales expertise from experiences at Asana and Microsoft, as well as previously being a YouTube creator. Currently, Teri is CEO and co-founder of Vibely, a platform that encourages communities to accomplish their dreams together. In the past, she has featured on Forbes, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Magnetic, Newsbreak and Blogher, to name but a few.