The Tommy Flowers Institute Spring Conference Launches

“Future Organisation – How to build agility and customer focus?”


The Tommy Flowers Institute launched its first conference looking at the Future Organisation. This kicked off the programme of “real-world” conferences.




Prof Tim Whitley, MD of BT Research & Innovation

The Tommy Flowers Institute exists to improve university researchers’ employability, in both industry and academia and thereby enable them to achieve more economic and societal impact – both as individuals and from their research. The Institute is complimentary to what academia can provide, bringing in industrial exposure, opportunities and contacts that just are not available elsewhere – at least not in all one place.

Prof Tim Whitley, MD of BT Research & Innovation said “The Tommy Flowers Institute is focused on the researcher and not just the research. TFI brings together industry and academia to develop the research leaders of the future. These events help galvanize industry to work with world class academic institutions in a new manner, to help generate the research leaders that the nation is going to need”.



Malcom Lowe-Lauri,
Executive Director of the Cambridge University Health Partnership

Major industry players including BT, Huawei, 3M, Intel and Adva united to articulate a clear vision of their future organisations and their future skills requirements. Hosted at BT’s global research headquarters at Adastral Park, 30 industrial sponsored PhD and Post-Doctoral researchers received a once in a life time opportunity to quiz the leaders of our industry.

We were joined by Malcom Lowe-Lauri, Executive Director of the Cambridge University Health Partnership who highlighted the importance of building a tech cluster system. Christiane Gruen, MD of 3M UK and Ireland, discussed the challenges of ethically coordinating a global technology initiative.



Christiane Gruen, MD of 3M UK and Ireland

Innovation Martlesham (IM) companies including Rokker; Coderus and Oxems provided the unique viewpoint of smaller and medium sized enterprises. They value being part of the Tech Cluster at Adastral Park, as it provides good opportunities to network. They also value the opportunity to offer projects to students to help them with business challenges. Engaging with TFI gives smaller companies access to bright minds and a great collaboration opportunity.

Industrial case studies were presented by experienced industry practitioners and were analysed in depth by the post grad researchers and academics. This included discussing the challenges of reskilling teams as a result of adopting new technology which dramatically transforms the organisation. Trust and the role of management during change was also discussed.

Attendees workshopped new approaches to business processes in the context of considering “The Employee Experience in a Future Organisation”. Head of Employee Experience, Sue Hessey, said “there was incredible output from such a short session, underlining the brain-power and engagement of the attendees”.

Specific post grad opportunities were highlighted by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), The Operational Research Society and European opportunities from EIT Digital. The clear message highlighted the necessity to network; build knowledge; broaden your mind and enjoy it! EPSRC’s Associate Director for Business discussed Skills for Innovation and business inspired training.

The culmination of the event was the post grad researchers taking a leadership role themselves and detailing a clear programme of future conferences, online collaboration, newsletters and journals with enhanced networking opportunities to share research interests and challenges.

BT’s Head of University Partnerships, Fraser Burton said “This conference has been a spectacular success. It’s brought together local and central government, local and global businesses. Plus the very best postgraduate researchers and academics.”

Downloads:

Conference brochure (pdf)
Communication brief (pdf)
Photos 

Presentation downloads (pdf):

• 3M Keynote - 'The challenge of ethically coordinating a global technology initiative', Christiane Gruen
• EIT Digital - 'Driving Europe's Digital Transformation', Dennis Moynihan
• EPSRC - Skills for Innovation - Kedar Pandya

• 3M
• Adastral Park
• Adva
• BT
• Cambridge University Health Partners (CUHP)
• Coderus
• EIT Digital
• EPSRC
• Huawei
• Innovation Martlesham
• Intel
• National Physical Laboratory (NPL)
• The Operational Research Society
• Oxems
Rokker
Tommy Flowers Institute Media - video, brochures, images

Spring 2017 Conference - So chuffed!

A big 'Thank You!' to everybody who made our first conference such a success. We will have a proper and more formal write up with all the respective mentions once we will have fully digested the impact of this event.

What three days it has been! We only just closed the venue doors behind us and I - that is Rika - feel that a rather personal account, taken freshly right after the event, might reflect, and preserve, the atmosphere for a bit longer. And a great atmosphere it was thanks to all your engagement and contributions.

We had the most amazing keynote speakers and panelists spurring on fantastic discussions. We had such a strong feedback through our breakout sessions, encouraged through the variety of people of different professions. I have to admit that throughout the planning stage there was a little niggling feeling that this might be a risky approach: Would we be able to do justice to all of you, give all of you a voice, and an opportunity to feed back and to make a point? What a relief that all the feedback we reviewed so far tells us that this was one of the best features of the conference.  We are well chuffed!

So, we will have a couple of slower days now, during which we will tidy up our boxes and clear our desks and then we will go straight back at it again.

Our next conference will be 13th-15th June 2017 and be called the 'Summer Conference on Converged Customer Experience'. Given the nature of Tommy Flowers Institute it will be an invite only conference, but do get in touch if you wish to learn more.

The Tommy Flowers Institute launch first Conference

 Future Organisation – how to build agility and customer focus?

 

The Tommy Flowers Institute, who’s aim is to develop ICT researchers for leadership excellence, launched their first conference “Future Organisation – how to build agility and customer focus?” at the end of February 2017. It was attended by sponsored PhD students, UK Academia and members from the ICT Industry.  

The questions investigated included:

• What will successful organisations look like in the future?
• How will the best organisations create and present a more human face to their customers and employees?
• How will they make smart decisions fast enough and co-ordinate their activities better, internally and operating in a network of partners?
• What is the best way to balance speed of response with risk?
• What will the relationship between humans and machines?

Key speakers include BT’s Prof Tim Whitley; Christiane Guen, MD of 3M UK and Ireland; Malcolm Lowe-Lauri, Executive Director, Cambridge Health Partnership; Dr Alison Wall, EPSRC Associate Director and BT’s Tim Shaw, MD Future Voice.

Comms Brief of 'The Future Organisation' conference (download PDF)

Conference Brochure of 'The Future Organisation' conference
Images of 'The Future Organisation' conference
Slides of 'The Future Organisation' conference ( (PDF)

• Skills for Innovation, Kedar Pandya, EPSRC
• Keynote: The challenge of ethically coordinating a global technology initiative, Christiane Gruen, 3M
• Driving Europe's Digital Transformation, Dennis Moynihan, EIT Digital