‘Hugely rewarding’ Cambridge Tech Week gravitates to centre of city

A triumphant second outing for Cambridge Tech Week brought thousands of delegates to venues around the city for discussions, events and workshops, with explorations and displays of the ingenuity that showcased the Cambridge hub.

The week-long event was the brainchild of Ann Fisher, co-founder of Bailey Fisher Executive Search, during lockdown. Organised by Cambridge Wireless, with 42 sponsors including Cambridge Consultants, PwC, Cambridge Management Consultants and HSBC, the week brought 5,000 visitors to Cambridge’s tech and cultural hotspots – compared with last year’s 900.

What they got were days divided into themes, with Monday being a welcome day at The Bradfield Centre, Tuesday focusing on innovation, then two days of deep dives – AI and quantum on Wednesday, semiconductor and cleantech on Thursday – and Tech Futures Day showcase on Friday, organised by Form the Future. Venues included Cambridge Union, St John’s Innovation Centre, Cambridge Science Park, Pembroke College, Guildhall and the Corn Exchange.

The result was, according to Cambridge Wireless, an astonishing 5,000-plus attendees, 500-plus companies represented, 150-plus expert speakers, 24-plus hours of networking and attendees from 20-plus countries including the US, Brazil, Chile, Africa, China and Japan.

Speaking at The Bradfield Centre’s showcase for tech education on the Friday, Michaela Eschbach, CEO of Cambridge Wireless since May, was delighted.

“We’ve fivefolded the numbers across all events including the fringe events, so we were just totally gobsmacked when we looked at the numbers.”

What do you put that down to, more organisation, the success of the first one, the wider success of Cambridge?

“So I think it’s a combination of all of that – the support we have, the network we’ve been working with, the fact that we’ve literally leveraged the entire tech ecosystem and also we’ve been quite precise – because we themed each day, we could very specifically target particular audiences for those days.

“The Monday, with the international delegations participating, was super well-attended. I think the locality made a big difference to last year as well. I had a lot of delegates saying ‘it’s so great we’re in Cambridge, it’s amazing’. That proximity attracted a lot of people because they could experience Cambridge rather than being on the outskirts.

“We had different capacities on each day but the two days that were absolutely packed were the two tech days with AI/Quantum on the one and semiconductors and cleantech on the other. The AI Quantum day was absolutely heaving, to the point that we didn’t quite know where to put people. It was the same actually for the innovation landscape day on Tuesday – we had the innovation talks and panels in the morning and Innovation Alley in the afternoon. The whole day was absolutely packed and what we found was many more investors attending so we could really bring innovation and investment together, so those for me were the two days that showed where the interest is.

“We’re trying to encompass the priority areas around international and British technology.”

Also at the Bradfield on Friday was Gary Brotman, CEO of Secondmind, who was on an AI and quantum day panel discussing ‘The Stages of Adoption from R&D and Spin-outs to Enterprise’.

“The number one thing right off the bat is the location,” said Gary, a Californian who joined Secondmind as VP of product and marketing in 2019. “Having it local meant I got to see the interior of colleges I hadn’t previously seen so it was a great experience. And the delegates included high-calibre folks from across the ecosystem both local and from afar.

“The panel I was on was about R&D and spin-outs into enterprise, and the consensus was that AI means different things to different people, and a lot of the discussion that is taking place is without grounding and reality. AI is an enabler not a product. The technology is efficient but it’s not the first focus – the first focus is what the problem in the business is, and then you can ask how can AI help it?

“Really it’s new software, and all the hyperbole and fear around AI takes the discussion away from the practical. It was refreshing to people – it’s best to be pragmatic and not get caught up in the hype.”

Gary doesn’t deny the transformative potential of AI.

“In enterprise, even the most advanced companies are grappling with what is effectively a shift to a different type of compute paradigm. Everyone in the discussion agreed that the latest wave is impactful and will change everything we do.”

What would legislation for AI look like given that the technology is advancing rapidly?

“It’s evolving even faster now,” notes Gary. “There’s a variety of different approaches but we need guardrails not handcuffs, so you go through checks and balances. The challenges we face pre-existed the technology and some have regulation and some don’t – I’d love to see meaningful investment on how to put guardrails together.”

Secondmind is reimagining a software-designed vehicle. Also in the mix for a new type of automotive engine is Munumo, whose CTO Jaroslaw Rzepecki was a panel guest on another session about the UK’s AI and quantum roadmap.

“Whether it’s Monumo, Beyond Math, us or others in Cambridge,” Gary says, “machine learning-based opportunities for automotive in Cambridge is proving fertile ground for a new breed of auto design, to move away from fossil fuels but also shift to a more software-based and more agile model.

“It’s a complete transformation of how a vehicle is conceived, designed, built and experienced – and we seem to be at the forefront of it in Cambridge.

“At Secondmind we’ve been in commercial deployment for three or four years. There’s a fair amount of overlap with Monumo but they’re in the simulation market. We have a system design solution that sits adjacent to simulations, so that engineers can make better designs.”

The city and environs were indeed thriving, as attendees to the Big Tech Debate (11 September) testified.

The mid-week session addressed ‘Government Policy on Creating Global Winners: Intervene or Enable’. The chair was Mike Rigby, chief executive of Eastern Promise, who thanked Big Tech Debate speakers Peter Stephens, Arm director of government partnerships (UK), angel investor and advisor/mentor Stan Boland, fomer DCMS undersecretary Matt Warman, and chief executive at Cambridge Ahead Dan Thorp, and noted that “our fantastically savvy and engaged audience from across the globe were keen to join in when the debate opened to the floor”.

Mike added: “My Cambridge Tech Week has been about celebrating the high premium that it places on partnerships rooted in shared values, and the thrilling realisation that I’ve only just scratched the surface – there’s so much of the Cambridge ecosystem still to explore.

“The determination of Chris Bruce and the Cambridge Wireless team to make the wider East of England a key part of the week has been very welcome, a call answered by the University of East Anglia with its enthusiastic sponsorship of Tuesday’s Innovation Alley.”

One of the demonstrations at Innovation Alley in the Corn Exchange showed how a 5G Open RAN mobile network could cope with high data demand environments.

The Cambridgeshire Open RAN Ecosystem (CORE) project, led by Connecting Cambridgeshire on behalf of Cambridgeshire County Council, was created to improve mobile capacity in high-density, high data-usage locations such as city centres and concert venues which don’t have access to high-performing mobile networks that can handle data-heavy apps or a large number of simultaneous users. CORE brings together a consortium of telecoms, data and use-case experts to deliver and test a cutting-edge, multi-vendor 5G Open RAN platform to improve mobile capacity in such settings.

Cambridge city centre was chosen by the project as the urban location to demonstrate CORE’s high demand density applications due to its high footfall streets. The Corn Exchange, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2025, was decided as a key venue to trial this innovative solution.

Cllr Lorna Dupré, chair of Cambridgeshire County Council’s environment and green investment committee, which oversees the Connecting Cambridgeshire programme, said: “We all know how frustrating it can be when mobile networks struggle in busy venues or crowded areas, making it difficult to use apps or even make a call. That’s why we’re excited to have given Cambridge Tech Week delegates a preview of how we’re attempting to tackle this challenge with cutting-edge 5G Open RAN technology.

“Open RAN is a new way of building mobile networks that allows different companies to collaborate more easily, which in turn reduces costs and speeds up innovation. By trialling this technology here in Cambridge city centre, the CORE project aims to create and trial a network that can handle the growing demand for data, ensuring reliable connectivity in even the busiest locations.”

The audiences for this year’s tech week ensured the event was a success, says James Parton, managing director of The Bradfield centre and one half of Cambridge Tech Podcast with cofinitive founder Faye Holland.

“We had the first day and last day here at The Bradfield Centre – two full days of the main conference programme – and also hosted fringe events here as well,” said James. “We also showcased our members – there’s 120 in the Bradfield now – at the Corn Exchange event. Then on Thursday, I hosted a live podcast with Faye in the Student Union that included Ray Anderson of Bango and Mark Rodrigues of Xampla.

“People really engaged with Q&A – there were cheers from the audience, it was a great live crowd reaction. It’s been really good.”

David Moore, CEO of Pragmatic Semiconductor, said: “Events like Cambridge Tech Week offer a fantastic opportunity to place a lens onto Cambridge, bringing outside people in forces to piece together a common universe.”

Pam Garside, chair of Cambridge Angels, said: “It’s so important to have founders and investors in one space, Cambridge Tech Week offers a great platform for this.”

Amelia Armour, who joined Amadeus Capital Partners in 2009 and is a partner in the Early Stage Fund, said: “The organisers did a great job in attracting many national and international visitors to Cambridge. The overseas delegates I met with were keen to learn about new innovations and how these might impact their existing business.

“Cambridge Tech Week provided them with exposure to many disruptive startups which they were excited to discuss. I particularly enjoyed the Innovation Alley in the Corn Exchange which was an excellent way to showcase Cambridge tech companies.”

Chris Bruce, chair of the CTW steering committee, called it “a great mix of innovators, investors, industry participants and young people seeking a future career in tech”.

Ann Fisher, founder of Cambridge Tech Week, said: “I’m delighted to see the energy and collaborations created last week and can’t wait for CTW25!”

Cambridge Tech Week’s gold and silver sponsors are Cambridge Consultants, PwC, Cambridge Management Consulting, HSBC, Cambridge Enterprise, UKTIN, Mills & Reeve and the University of East Anglia.