Imperial academics, staff and startups featured in a range of events as part of this year's London Tech Week.
Professor Mary Ryan, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise), featured in a panel event hosted by Rio Tinto on unlocking innovation through partnerships. She spotlighted the crucial role of critical minerals in the global clean energy transition and innovation partnership in action with the recently launched Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials at Imperial.
The new Centre, backed by an investment of $150 million from Rio Tinto over the next 10 years, will connect some of the world's best researchers with the capability and commitment of industry to help transform the way materials are sourced, processed, used and recycled to make them more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable.
Global Innovation Exchanges
Imperial's Enterprise Lab and the British High Commission in India held an event to explore the future of global entrepreneurship, innovation, and cross-border collaboration. Dr Elena Dieckmann, Academic Co-Director of Imperial Global India, led a panel discussion on scaling ventures between India and the UK. She spoke about Imperial's Global India hub in Bengaluru, which will foster new scientific, education and innovation partnerships between Imperial and leading universities and institutes in India.
The event also highlighted the Commonwealth Startup Fellowship, a new six-month programme which supports and elevates high-potential startups from low and middle-income countries across the Commonwealth. The landmark initiative has been developed by the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission (CSC) in partnership with Imperial Enterprise Lab and Imperial Global Ghana.
Nurturing Entrepreneurship in an Innovation Ecosystem
Nexus, a partnership between Imperial and Hammersmith & Fulham Council, hosted a panel event at London Tech Week on 'Scaling Smarter: The Power of Ecosystem & Serendipity.' The session explored how founders can leverage their immediate ecosystem to accelerate growth, access capital, and build a strong local talent pipeline.
Antoinette Nothomb, Co-Founder of Cyanoskin, spoke about her entrepreneurial journey in co-founding the company as a student at Imperial Business School. Cyanoskin are developing a new carbon capture technology utilising an algae based-coating designed to transform buildings into carbon dioxide-absorbing structures, reducing emissions and addressing urban pollution.
Cyanoskin has grown within Imperial's thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem at White City, benefitting from Undaunted, Imperial's climate innovation hub, and their accelerator programmes, The Greenhouse and the Better Future Retrofit Accelerator. The company is also a White City Incubator resident, gaining access to specialist facilities and technical expertise as well as being part of a vibrant entrepreneurial community.
Cllr Stephen Cowan, Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council, praised the industrial strategy partnership between Imperial and the Council in driving the White City Innovation District to become a global hotspot in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and the creative industries.
Accelerating Health and MedTech Innovation
Empowering innovators to develop impactful medical technologies was a major theme across London Tech Week with Imperial involved in a number of events.
The Healthcare Technologies Capability Connector showcased a range of innovative healthcare startups which have received funding, mentorship and commercialisation support from Imperial, the University of Hertfordshire and Cranfield University. The programme offers SMEs access to facilities and expertise across the three institutions, enabling them to develop innovative technologies that could improve patients' lives more quickly into clinical use.
Hiten Thakrar, Head of MedTech Superconnector, joined AI, MedTech and TechBio leaders at a panel event hosted by British Land, exploring how artificial intelligence is transforming the future of healthcare. The event brought together the ecosystem to discuss AI's impact in health, funding pathways for BioTech, and MedTech collaboration models. Led by Imperial, the MedTech SuperConnector supports early career researchers across London to translate lab discoveries into impactful startup companies, providing innovative healthcare solutions.
