Please register here.

Started in Cambridge in 2010 by a core team coming out of CSR, Neul aims to unify the fragmented world of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications, with the world's first white space radio system and a new, open M2M communications standard; Neul technology dramatically cuts the cost of the spectrum, base stations and the terminals needed to set up a wide area wireless network by using white space radio.

It takes advantage of TV channels that are no longer used as we switch from analogue TV to digital TV. This change frees up to 150MHz of high quality spectrum; signals in this space can travel for long distances and penetrate walls. For comparison, typical nationwide 3G networks have to make do with only 30MHz of spectrum, and while 3G spectrum cost $bn, white space radio spectrum is available free of charge.

The technology lets people build networks and applications that offer completely new kinds of devices, services and business models - 'an internet of everything'.

Luke D'Arcy their VP Marketing will be talking about Neul and the challenges they face. Prior to joinging Neul, Luke was a senior manager at Cambridge Consultants running their business in Cognitive radio, including white space radio. Previously Luke worked at CSR with responsibility for their wireless audio and DSP businesses.

7.30pm for 8pm start. ARM1 Training Rooom, 110 Fulbourn Rd, Cambridge CB1 9NJ. ARM1 is the large ARM building. Everybody welcome. Entrance is free. Please register here.

Here are the dates and locations for CHASE meetings in 2012.

6 February, ARM3 Lecture theatre
5 March, ARM1 Training room
2 April, Mills & Reeve
14 May, ARM1 Training room
4 June 18th June, Mills & Reeve
2 July, Mills & Reeve
6 August, ARM1 Training room
3 September, Mills & Reeve
1 October, ARM1 Training room
5 November, Mills & Reeve
3 December, ARM1 Training room

The address for ARM is: 110 Fulbourn Rd, Cambridge CB1 9NJ

And for Mills & Reeve: Francis House, 112 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 1PH

Dr Jim Haseloff, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge.

What is it? Who needs it? What is happening in the field and where’s it headed? Are there inherent dangers or ethical concerns - and what’s in it for humanity?

Biological systems are characterised by highly complex genetic and cellular networks that are locked together by feedback interactions that give rise to properties of self-organisation, repair and reproduction. They are capable of assembling functional structures that are many orders of magnitude more complex than the most sophisticated man-made artefacts, and they do this in a renewable fashion and cheaply.

Synthetic Biology is an emerging field that employs engineering principles to reprogram living systems. Recent scientific advances allow us to use imaging techniques to monitor activities within living organisms, and to precisely reconstruct cellular dynamics, in order to re-design biological circuits, in a way that has become routine in other fields of engineering.

These scientific advances are contributing to a new wave of opportunities for improved sustainability and production of biomass, fuels, food, polymers and drugs, and are already finding uses in the biotechnology sector.

Our talk will focus on the prospects for this potentially disruptive technology and its anticipated impact on the field of biotechnology.

Dr Jim Haseloff, is a plant biologist working at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. His scientific interests are focused on the engineering of plant morphogenesis, using microscopy, molecular genetic, computational and synthetic biology techniques (www.haseloff-lab.org). As well as running a research lab, Jim teaches Synthetic Biology and promotes its wider potential as a tool for engineering biological systems and underpinning sustainable technologies. (www.synbio.org.uk)

Date: Monday, February 6th, 2012
Time: 7.30 pm for 8.00 pm start

Venue: ARM plc,
First Floor Lecture Theatre, Building 3, 110 Fulbourn Rd, Cambridge CB1 9NJ
(Building 3 is the first ARM HQ building on the left after leaving Fulbourn Road).

All interested are welcome, including those who are not yet members of CHASE.
Please note: we don’t issue name/affiliation badges but you are encouraged to bring your own to aid networking.

The Raspberry Pi is a ultra-low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. It's cheap - $25 or $35 - and the aim is to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming.

Eben Upton, Eben is a founder and trustee of the Raspberry Pi foundation, and is responsible for the overall software and hardware architecture of the device. In his day job, he works for Broadcom as an ASIC architect.

Eben will be talking about the Raspberry Pi, the journey (they are soon to release version 1), and the the hope that Raspberry Pi can generate a resurgence of interest in fun programming amongst kids.

Sponsored by Equity Fingerprint - a business plan resource about using equity to build global technology companies.

Please sign up here to attend.

Venue: ARM plc
Building 1, 110 Fulbourn Rd, Cambridge CB1 9NJ
(Building 1 is the main ARM HQ building - not the first on the left after leaving Fulbourn Road).

7.30 pm for 8pm start

All interested are welcome, including those who are not yet members of CHASE. Free entry.

Please note: we don’t issue name/affiliation badges but you are encouraged to bring your own to aid networking

Please register here to attend.

With a career background as a freelance designer and agronomist with a series of royalty-earning product innovations to his credit, in 1998 Phillip Bevan decided to change career direction and form a company to concentrate on his first love - the automobile sector.

Deciding initially to design and develop a mid-price sports car for the masses, Phil soon realised that this was just too crowded a market sector where competition was fierce and margins unacceptably thin. He therefore decided to start again with a fundamentally different business focus.

Please register here to attend.

Functional fluids and tomorrow’s world of inkjet technology.

Rob Harvey of Atomjet

Rob Harvey is CEO of inkjet technology consultancy AtomJet Ltd. Rob has worked in the inkjet field since 1988, having been a founder member of Xaar plc., where in several senior technical roles he added some 65 inkjet patents to his CV. Before that he spent two years as a design engineer working on a broad range of projects with Cambridge Consultants (from where the Xaar technology originated). Rob’s early career was spent designing industrial and scientific instrumentation, including the world’s first commercial acoustic microscope.

Cambridge’s industrial heritage includes several progressive companies which have pushed the boundaries of ink-jet technology into markets with ever more demanding graphics printing requirements - from Domino Printing Sciences (a pull-out from CCL under Graeme Minto’s entrepreneurial leadership), to Elmjet, Xaar and Inca, to name just a few. All were founded on the fundamental innovation that digitally-controlled ink-jet technology for the first time enabled variable-image text and graphics to be automatically and economically printed onto all kinds of 2-D and 3-D surfaces - in ‘print-runs’ as low as a single impression.

Rob’s talk will concentrate on current and prospective uses of inkjet for non-graphical applications. The range of possibilities is endless, so prepare to be amazed!

Please register here to attend.

Date: Monday, 3rd Oct - 7.30pm for 8pm start.
Venue: ARM plc,
Building 1, 110 Fulbourn Rd, Cambridge CB1 9NJ

(Building 1 is the main ARM HQ building - not the first on the left after leaving Fulbourn Road).

All interested are welcome, including those who are not yet members of CHASE.

Please note: we don’t issue name/affiliation badges but you are encouraged to bring your own to aid networking

Please register here to attend.

Dr Christopher van Essen, MA, DPhil, CEng, FIET, has degrees from both Cambridge and Oxford Universities. He worked in university and Government laboratories, then in 1974 joined PA Technology, then known as 'Patscentre', when it comprised about 35 people.

In 1988 he was one of the original 25 founders of The Technology Partnership (TTP), and in 1998 was co-founder with David Connell, of TTP Ventures, a Euro 55M early-stage venture fund, where he was a director until 2005. He says that since 1988 he has been an investor/shareholder in 27 technology companies, of which about half have failed, and a director in 3 of them - all of which failed - so he is not promoting himself as a non-exec!

This talk was originally prepared for an audience in Finland, where the Government seeks to learn from the Cambridge Phenomenon. Christopher says: “That subject is worth a long book, which is finally in preparation.”

As the title suggests, Christopher’s talk is a personal view – attendees at the meeting are invited contribute their own observations - and to draw their own conclusions.

Please register here to attend.

Venue and timing:
Mills & Reeve LLP,
Francis House, 112 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 1PH
Monday, September 5th, 7.30 for 8.00pm
All are welcome.
Please note: we don’t issue badges, but you are welcome to bring your own to aid networking.

Please sign up for this talk here.

The world faces an ever-growing problem in the generation and supply of energy for the 21st Century and beyond. Conventional sources of power are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive and the need to provide clean and abundant alternatives - without at the same time warming the planet - is a pressing priority. The problem extends all the way from generation, through transmission and distribution, to final usage.

Dr. Tim Coombs is Director of Magnifye Ltd., and a Senior Lecturer in Cambridge University’s Engineering Department. Twenty years of experience in superconductivity have given Dr Coombs a unique perspective on the situation, as well as (potentially, at least) part of the solution. In his talk, Dr Coombs will highlight the problems and the role which superconductors (and especially superstrong superconducting magnets) can take in providing a solution.

Date: Monday, 4th July

Time: 7.30 pm for 8.00 pm start

Venue: Mills & Reeve LLP, 112 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 1PH

Please sign up for this talk here.

Please note that we don't issue name/affiliation badges, but you are most welcome to bring your own.
If you choose to do this, you are advised to learn from the myopic (;o) mistakes of many business groups and make your badge legible from rather more than 30 cm away.

Please sign up here

After 15 years as an engineer in innovative companies in the UK and California, in 1998 Pilgrim returned to Cambridge and made the leap from employee to founder. He has now started three companies, which have collectively raised more than £50m: The first failed (activeRF), the second is now profitable (Antenova), and the third is a work in progress (AlertMe).

He's lost some money, made some money, and he's had the privilege of working with many interesting people. During that time he says he's learned a lot of lessons about things not to do, and plans to take us through a "warts and all" exposé in the hope that his experiences will help those planning to start their own companies.