Cambridge Tech Podcast

This week we uncover a programme within the University of Cambridge – i-Teams Cambridge – that over the last 20 years has unlocked some of our best innovations – from Raspberry Pi to Xampla. Tune in to hear from Programme Director Amy Weatherup who tells us all about it, and about her own personal journey from abandoning a degree and co-founding a startup, to being an angel investor. #CamTechPod

This week we revisit our interview with Eben Upton of Raspberry Pi from 2022. Tune in to hear about: • Eben’s route to Raspberry Pi • Celebrating the people that have been part of the journey • Doing business in the pub (a very Cambridge thing) • From managing a supply chain (please remember numbers and comments are from 2022), to moving into retail • The weird and wonderful uses of a Raspberry Pi (and a challenge for someone to achieve Eben’s desire to get a Pi beyond low earth orbit? #LEO) • Stories of breaking websites and thoughts on office-based working • And of course, floating the company, on which Eben recently said: “Nearly sixteen years ago, in the autumn of 2008, a handful of us set off on this journey together. We were driven by a shared realisation that something had gone badly wrong in young people’s interaction with technology; a shared conviction that we should do something about it; and the beginnings of a shared idea of what that something might be. “In the years since, we’ve accomplished amazing things, as a company, as a Foundation, and as a broader movement. We’ve designed PCBs; written software; taped out chips; published magazines; filed patents; trained teachers; run after-school clubs; and seen our products taken to space, to the bottom of the ocean, and to the ends of the earth. “We’ve sold over sixty million low-cost, high-performance, general-purpose Raspberry Pi computers to the enthusiasts and educators who remain at the heart of the Raspberry Pi movement, and to the industrial and embedded customers who today account for over two-thirds of our sales. “And thanks to the availability and salience of those computers, and to the curriculum reform and teacher training initiatives championed by the Foundation, we have seen a resurgence in interest in computing among young people. In sixteen years, Computer Science has gone from being the easiest subject to get into at Cambridge to the hardest, a change that has been reflected across the UK higher education sector and beyond. We have engineers working for us today who got their first experience of computing on a Raspberry Pi platform.” Find us on your chosen podcast platform to subscribe and listen. Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3P9RegV Google podcast: https://bit.ly/CTPgoogle Spotify: https://lnkd.in/enP_4QVr Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3VHqGGs YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eAg5Wv42 Acast: https://lnkd.in/esg7xgq2 CamTechPod: https://lnkd.in/eB5Aznm6 University of Cambridge, Liz Upton, embedded world Exhibition&Conference, Gordon Hollingworth, Sherry Coutu CBE, David Gammon, Raspberry Pi Foundation, Philip Colligan #CamTechPod

Another bumper edition of the newsletter is out today ⬇

In this week’s episode we revisit our interview with Eben Upton of Raspberry Pi from 2022. In our own little way, it’s a dedicated celebration to last month’s IPO – congratulations! #CamTechPod

From a degree in the Netherlands to the first satellite launch in Costa Rica in 2018, to the UK to launch a space company, we talk to Marco Gomez-Jenkins, Co-Founder and CEO of SuperSharp. Marco talks about his background, going to MBA at Imperial College to learn ‘business’, which led him to Professor Ian Parry at the University of Cambridge who together with George Hawker became co-founders of SuperSharp. SuperSharp is an Earth-imaging company developing unfolding space telescopes to capture high-resolution thermal infrared (TIR) images of the Earth. These images can be used for applications such as tackling climate change, crop monitoring, and maintaining global security, allowing high-quality affordable Earth-imaging solutions to empower the world in responding to global change. With a space launch mid-2026, SuperSharp will have had just over 15 years of R&D funded by the UK Space Agency, Innovate UK, the European Space Agency - ESA, the UK Ministry of Defence Accelerator, plus equity investment from Cambridge Enterprise, and some individual angel investors. Tune in to find out more about the SuperSharp journey and how the Cambridge ecosystem has helped at all stages of its growth: Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3P9RegV Google podcast: https://bit.ly/CTPgoogle Spotify: https://lnkd.in/enP_4QVr Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3VHqGGs YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eAg5Wv42 Acast: https://lnkd.in/esg7xgq2 CamTechPod: https://lnkd.in/eB5Aznm6 Delft University of Technology, Planet Labs, SATLANTIS, Cambridge Judge Business School, #AccelerateCambridge, Cambridge Innovation Parks Ltd #Engineering #SuperSharpTeam #ThermalImaging #Technology #SpaceSustainability #GreenTransformation #Innovation #SmallSats #NewSpace #CamTechPod In this week’s news and updates: Michelle Lambrecht, Cambridge Innovation Capital, impulse, Maxwell Centre, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, #deeptech, ideaSpace, Chris Cleaver, DeepForm, Ismail Sami, Molyon, Molly Haugen, AetoSense, Bill Yost, Cambridge Electric Cement, Jean de La Verpilliere, Echion Technologies, Teja Potocnik, Charlotte Esler, Nanomation, Marc Rodríguez Garcia, Xampla, Christine Martin, Chris Gibbs, #InnovationAlley, Cambridge Tech Week, The Trinity Bradfield Prize, Simon Thorpe, Uber, Bango, Parkwalk Advisors, HutanBio, Paul Beastall 

Thank you to Rathbones Group Plc for supporting #CamTechPod. Rathbones is a leading provider of individual wealth management, asset management and related services to private clients, charities, trustees and professional partners.

We’re off to space this week with Marco Gomez-Jenkins, CEO of SuperSharp. Having studied in the Netherlands, launched the first satellite in Costa Rica, and an MBA in London, Marco found himself in Cambridge co-founding a company that wants to be the market leader of resolution unfolding optics with their infrared thermal telescope. Subscribe on your chosen podcast platform to listen to the next episode. #Engineering #SuperSharpTeam #ThermalImaging #Technology #SpaceSustainability #GreenTransformation #Innovation #SmallSats #NewSpace #CamTechPod

Subscribe to #CamTechPod, the official podcast partner of Cambridge Tech Week, and keep up to date with all the latest news! Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3P9RegV Google podcast: https://bit.ly/CTPgoogle Spotify: https://lnkd.in/enP_4QVr Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3VHqGGs YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eAg5Wv42 Acast: https://lnkd.in/esg7xgq2 CamTechPod: https://lnkd.in/eB5Aznm6 #CamTechWeek

Today we hear about how a business grew from research in the lab, to creating material samples for academic collaborators as customers, to a complete pivot in industry sector. Post his PhD, Ruizhi Wang then realised he had a hammer, so started looking for a nail! He found a gap in manufacturing where a quick turnaround device was required and where his analytical instrument had a role – and Abselion was born. Funded through grants and awards, and a bit of bootstrapping we hear about Ruizhi’s own entrepreneurial journey from prototype to the formal launch this month, his fundraising and acquisition goals, and not listening to advice. Find us on your chosen podcast platform to subscribe and listen. Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3P9RegV Google podcast: https://bit.ly/CTPgoogle Spotify: https://lnkd.in/enP_4QVr Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3VHqGGs YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eAg5Wv42 Acast: https://lnkd.in/esg7xgq2 CamTechPod: https://lnkd.in/eB5Aznm6 #CamTechPod #biotech #antibodies #preclinicalresearch University of Cambridge, Cambridge Enterprise, #21toWatch In this week's news and updates: Cambridge Science Centre, Aline Charpentier, Bruntwood SciTech, #AI Cambridge Cognition, Wave Photonics, UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund, Cambridge Enterprise, Redstone, QAI Ventures, Kyra Ventures, Deeptech Labs, CCDC - The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Jürgen Harter Cambridge Enterprise Ventures

#TBT to our episode with John Stenhouse FIOEE, Business Support Manager at the University of Essex, who manages the Angels@Essex programme whose purpose is to bring innovative ideas and clever founders to the investment network. To date, the programme has worked with over 500 businesses over four years and has reached investors from all over the world. During the INVEST IN INNOVATION Spring 2024 pitching event, eight businesses from all sectors presented, including Haroon Shaikh of KERB-E, Jarred Henderson of VermiCulture, and Mary-Jo Hill of Yakbit. We talked to the three winners: 💻 Best Pitch Peter Schwabach – Industrial Robotic Solutions Ltd – assemble meals with robots and vision software. 💡 Best Idea – Mark Thomas Appnalysis – SaaS product for mobile app developers to help them build better apps and better roadmaps. 🧑🤝🧑 Audience Choice – James Dunce BravelyCultured – Novel marine bacteria to produce green chemicals. Tune in to hear about the experiences of pitching, being serial entrepreneurs, engaging with a coach/mentor, and what is happening next for the winners. If you want to know more about Angels@Essex, please do email uez@essex.ac.uk Tune in on your chosen podcast platform to subscribe and listen. Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3P9RegV Google podcast: https://bit.ly/CTPgoogle Spotify: https://lnkd.in/enP_4QVr Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3VHqGGs YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eAg5Wv42 Acast: https://lnkd.in/esg7xgq2 CamTechPod: https://lnkd.in/eB5Aznm6 #CamTechPod