Prof Susan Halford, University of Bristol, UK

Conference Talk!

At our TFNetworkSpring21 conference on "Creating Value for Economies: Collaborate - Innovate - Educate". 

Susan Halford is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol, UK.

Susan is a Geographer by training, has been an organizational Sociologist for the past 30 years and over the past decade has worked across the social and engineering sciences with a research focus on emerging technologies, digital data and infrastructures. 

As Professor of Sociology at the University of Southampton until December 2018, she was a founding Director of the Web Science Institute. In 2019 Susan joined the University of Bristol as Professor of Sociology and founding co-Director of the Bristol Digital Futures Institute (BDFI), at the centre of the University’s new Temple Quarter innovation campus. 

BDFI is a University Research Institute that pioneers transformative approaches to digital innovation, bringing together researchers from across the disciplines and working with our partners in industry, government and civil society. BDFI is developing in-depth systematic understanding of sociotechnical futures to drive the creation of digital technologies for inclusive, prosperous and sustainable societies.

Susan is a member of the UKRI Digital Economy Programme Board, the UK Biobank Ethics Committee and chairs the ESRC on New and Emerging forms of Data. She is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences and the Royal Society of Arts and is currently President of the British Sociological Association 2018-21. 

Susan's presentation title is: Collaborative research for sociodigital futures: interdisciplinary and cross-sectional perspectives

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Joseph Spear, Director of Communications at Mvine Limited

Conference Talk!

At our TFNetworkSpring21 conference on "Creating Value for Economies: Collaborate - Innovate - Educate". 

No stranger to Adastral Park or to Tommy Flowers Network, Joseph Spear is recognised by many in his present role as director of communications at Mvine Limited. 

He has over 35 years track record in communications mainly for high tech businesses. During his career he has acquired a bit of a reputation as someone who knows how to bring technology innovation out of the labs and into mainstream profit centres. Having done that several times over, Joseph is presently focused on high-growth areas of cyber security, particularly the identity of people and the identity of things, industrial scale internet of things, and Industry 4.0. 

He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) awarded by University of Essex and University of East Anglia as well as a Bac+4 from ICSV-CNAM in France. He is a member of the Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (The ITP) and BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. 

A fun fact:  Joseph was once told “Your Hired” in The Apprentice but not in the UK. 

LinkedIn
Twitter: @Mvine

Synopsis
How do you prove something about you is true without giving out personally identifiable information to somebody you don’t know? That was one conundrum that had to be solve when in 2020 UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) awarded British eight tech firms £450,000 public funds to develop an innovation for Covid-19 test result status certificates.

Only one project succeeded. And among 850 UKRI projects was the first to complete.

In this short-form presentation, Joseph Spear from Mvine will outline how it was solved. And then how with the collaboration of the University of Lancaster the innovation was offered for trials within primary care, social care, education, travel and hospitality sectors.

Spend 10 minutes listening to Joseph tell the story about how amazing things happen when academia and industry work together, and about the power of innovation.

Attendees to this session will be able to away and include these key lessons in their own research and apply techniques to their projects. Ahead of the session, as scene setter, you can do a web search on “vaccine passports” which has seen considerable coverage in the press, particularly since 12 January 2021. If you want to know why, join this session starting at 10.35am. 

Dr. John Drake University of Leicester and a Visiting Research Fellow at BT

Conference Talk!

At our TFNetworkSpring21 conference on "Creating Value for Economies: Collaborate - Innovate - Educate". 

Dr John H. Drake is an Associate Professor in the School of Informatics at the University of Leicester and a Visiting Research Fellow at BT. 

He previously held faculty positions at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Nottingham, working extensively within the partnerships of these two organisations in China. He holds a BSc, MSc and PhD in Computer Science and is a professional member of the ACM and IEEE. 

His research interests lie at the interface between Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Operational Research, focusing on metaheuristic and evolutionary computation methods for real-world scheduling problems. Previous research has centred on maintenance scheduling for real-world infrastructure networks in the context of railways and telecommunications, in partnership with Banedanmark and British Telecom respectively, developing intelligent decision support systems to facilitate efficient allocation of resources for such problems. 

He has published over 30 papers in SCI-indexed leading conferences and journals in the fields of Computer Science and Operational Research, including European Journal of Operational Research (Elsevier), Computers & Operations Research (Elsevier) and Evolutionary Computation (MIT Press). 

He is currently a co-investigator on OR-MASTER (EP/M020258/1), a £2.3M EPSRC programme grant project focused on reducing congestion at airports.

Title: I was a PGR once - a career. 

Synopsis: Having attended the first Tommy Flowers conference in early 2017, and almost every one since, I now consider myself somewhat of a veteran! This talk will cover my journey from PGR to faculty member (and visiting researcher at BT), via the Tommy Flowers Network, offering some observations and advice to budding PGRs based on some of the experiences I had and the lessons I learnt along the way.

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Dr Amanda Chmura, EPSRC – UKRI, Deputy Director Partnerships

Conference Day1 Panel with representatives from EPSRC-UKRI, Industry and Academia!

At our TFNetworkSpring21 conference on "Creating Value for Economies: Collaborate - Innovate - Educate". 

Dr Amanda Chmura is Deputy Director Partnerships of Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council - UK Research and Innovation (EPSRC-UKRI).

Amanda’s main responsibility is to provide strategic leadership for EPSRC’s engagement with business and in accelerating the impact of the research and training investments made by EPSRC.

Amanda has specific corporate oversight for our relationships with Jaguar Land Rover, BAE Systems and the University of Bath.

Previously Amanda has led:

• The Balancing Capability strategy and the 2018 Centres for Doctoral Training investment as Deputy Director;
• The implementation and delivery of EPSRC’s strategies for engagement with key business and university partners;
• The private office of the EPSRC Chief Executive
• A range of strategic projects and programmes in both EPSRC and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

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Amanda will be joined at the panel by

• Joseph Spear, MVINE
• Idris Eckley, Lancaster University
• John Drake, University of Leicester
• Russell Beck, ImagineThinkDo

Dr Andrew Bourne, EPSRC – UKRI, Director Partnerships

Conference Talk!

At our TFNetworkSpring21 conference on "Creating Value for Economies: Collaborate - Innovate - Educate". 

Dr Andrew Bourne is Director Partnerships of Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council - UK Research and Innovation (EPSRC-UKRI).

Andrew leads EPSRC’s strategic interactions with key partners within the university, business, regional and international sectors to ensure that the EPSRC progresses its Delivery Plan Priority Framework and its desired outcomes. Andrew also leads EPSRC Impact and Public Engagement activities.

Andrew is a member of the EPSRC Executive Board and currently the Project Director for the Rosalind Franklin Institute.

Previously Andrew has led:

• The University Relationship portfolio as Deputy Director
• The Physical Sciences Capability theme commissioning research and training within the fundamental chemistry, physics, and materials portfolio

Andrew's presentation title is: "EPSRC: Creating Value for Businesses"

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Russell Beck, ImagineThinkDo: Sponsor of the 2021 Spring conference and TFNetwork Supporter

Conference Talk!

At our TFNetworkSpring21 conference on "Creating Value for Economies: Collaborate - Innovate - Educate". 

Russell Beck, Director of ImagineThinkDo, has become a strong source of inspiration for the TFNetwork team. In his Thought Leadership talk he tied together a rainbow of viewpoints about the "Future of Work" covering "Work Nomads", "Technology", "Women", "Future Skills", "Be the Best", "Brand" and "Networking". And if you ever wanted to see a great 'About' page on a website: check this out!

He now is back and exploring if "Meaning is the new Money!". Please join him at the conference on 23rd March, at 11:10 AM. Ask your questions in chat and for the panel from 11:40, where he will be joined by speakers from EPSRC, MVINE, and universities of Lancaster and Leicester.

Russell is a thought leader. He is a catalyst who is great at using research and insight to challenge preconceptions. 

His clients say he is a passionate presenter who joins the dots to make things real. 

Russell brings broad experience from a diverse career having held many top roles including working as an engineer managing large-scale international projects, leading a £120m talent management business and growing a successful consulting operation from scratch.

Synopsis: We have been talking for over a decade that we should ‘start with why’ yet now, more than ever, more and more people are questioning “what is the point?” People who find meaning in their work are more productive, more motivated, more innovative, healthier and have longer tenure. This is the challenge and the opportunity. ‘Meaning is the new money’ and to unlock the potential we need to do more than just know why, we need to really embed it. This session will show you why this is so important and how to start.

ImagineThinkDo is a people strategy consultancy whose purpose is to inspire, challenge and enable leaders to unlock the value of their people. We do this through delivering research-led thought leadership, expertly facilitated workshops and powerful one-to-one coaching sessions.

We have helped leaders embed purpose-led leadership; define and live their values; effectively manage remote teams; embrace and then enable cultural change; understand and unlock the benefits of the generations; how to plan for the future of work. Through this, we help organisations increase productivity, hire and retain the right people and enhance engagement.

We work with a broad mix of clients of different sizes and from different industries. What they all have in common is an appetite to improve and a curiosity to step beyond traditional leadership development. Some want us to inspire and challenge their people, some want us to help them take that further to enable lasting change. All want to invest in their people as they know they are their most important asset.

ImagineThinkDo Website
Russell Beck LinkedIn

Dr Gilbert Owusu, Head of Service & Operational Transformation Research, BT

Conference Panel!

At our TFNetworkSpring21 conference on "Creating Value for Economies: Collaborate - Innovate - Educate". 

Dr Gilbert Owusu heads the Service and Operational Transformation Research in BT. He has a strong track record in applying AI, production management and operations modelling technologies to service operations which have led to significant customer service improvements and OPEX reduction in BT's operations.

Gilbert's research on applying AI technologies for transforming service operations have been published widely in book chapters, conferences and journals, He is the co-editor of two books on service production management. Gilbert is a visiting professor at University of Essex, a member of the UK Operational Research Society's General Council and an executive member of the British Computer Society's Specialist Group on AI.

LinkedIn

Creating Value for Economies: Collaborate - Innovate - Educate

Panel discussion

Wednesday 24th March, 13:05 - 13:40

Gilbert will be joined by his academic partners and former postgraduate researcher for a panel discussion at our conference providing case studies about the impact of collaboration. 

Hani Hagras, University of Essex

Rupal Rana, Loughborough University

Ken Reid, Michigan State University

Kyle Martin, Robert Gordon University