CREATING CAMBRIDGE BIG SUMMER BBQ

Where great conversation, inspiration and ideas come together!

CHASE has teamed up with other groups to organise a special summer event - a BBQ for everyone interested in technology, creative ideas, entrepreneurship and the life sciences. We're aiming to get cross pollination and to start interesting conversations.

If you are interested in technology, creative ideas, life sciences and entrepreneurship then join us in Creating Cambridge, on Friday July 16th, 5pm at The Ranch, Histon Road, Cambridge

Unlike most of our events, this one costs money. £10 at early-bird rates covers the cost of your food.

Booking is essential and fewer than 50 of the 200 tickets are left, so book now to avoid missing out! We are not planning to sell tickets on the door.

BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW ON EVENTBRITE !!!

Any proceeds from the event will go to our three named charities: Romsey Mill, Children’s Cambridge Hospice, and Camfed.

This event is brought to you by:

Cambrige Pitch and Mix
CamCreative
CaMedia
CHASE
Connected Cambridge
Software East

Sponsored by
Soft Machinery
PCR
Redgate
Citrix
Mills & Reeve
YourPresenceOnline

The Wayve is a small digital-picture frame sized device, which lets you use a stylus to scribble and send messages. It's intended to be used in homes as an easy way to connect people who talk often - mums & kids, husbands & wives.

Continuing our theme of the interplay between the arts and technology, Peter Taylor will be talking about the process of defining what the Wayve should be, and the sociological and psychological work that went into underpinning it.

Peter Taylor co-founded the Wayve intiative within TTP Group. He initially led the consumer research, marketing and operational design work and now leads all activities.

Emotion AI bring believable emotion to animated characters in real-time.

Until now animating characters with deeply charged facial expressions and body language has taken vast sums and very talented animators and digital artists. Using Emotion AI technology, unskilled users are able to project powerful and subtle emotion.

Ian Wilson is CEO of Emotion AI. He has experience in Artifical Intelligence (AI) based technology including ZuKool, a web recommendation service, Inago, who make artificial interactive personalities for use in embedded devices like satnavs and Katrix Inc who made goal-directed 3D animated characters. Ian holds a degree in AI.

This month we have something quite different.

The Balloon is an free/open-source hardware platform intended for use in embedded devices.

Wookey is a software engineer, working on Free Software. He's been deeply involved in the Balloon project.

When he decided that a hot-water solar panel would make a good addition for his house, and that he wanted to build the system, naturally he used the Balloon as the controller.

He will be talking about the project, his experience and what was involved, from the plumbing, through to the electronics and the software he used.

Jenny will talk about her plans to create a Science Fashion Lab in Cambridge and her Scentsory Design research which exists at the cross-over of three main disciplines; the developing knowledge and utilisation of nanotechnology and miniaturisation, the science of smell and how it affects the human brain, and wearable technologies/sensor networks for therapeutic applications in 'emotional clothing'.

She is a Senior Research Fellow in Fashion at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design and Creative Director of Sensory Design & Technology Ltd which she founded with Professor Andreas Manz (a pioneer of lab-on-a-chip). She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Visiting Scholar in the Institute of Biotechnology, Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of

The e-Go is a novel light aircraft aimed at world markets. Innovation is key in product design, production processes and the business model. The team is developing technology that should provide a step change in performance, costs and environmental impacts.

The e-Go is the brainchild of Giotto Castelli and Tony Bishop, and is being brought to life by them and Roy Twigg, and a small army of volunteers.

Tony will be talking about the e-Go and the project to bring it to market.

Venue: Mills & Reeve - 112 Hills Rd, Cambridge. Doors open 7.30pm. Everyone welcome.

If you have a website, or want a website, you'll probably have heard of Content Management Systems (CMS) - software for managing websites. The aim of most CMSs is to make it easy for anyone to make web pages and put them onto a web server. We'll be looking at several popular CMSs - what makes each unique and why you'd want to use it. We plan to have examples of Drupal, ExpressionEngine, inCharge, Joomla and Wordpress to test drive.

Imsense have developed algorithms for camera and video images to automatically correct exposure so as to best reproduce the appearance of the original scene, without affecting colour balance or applying artificial correction.

Phillipe Dewost, CEO of imsense will be discussing the technology and the company.

Philippe has experience in telecommunication and internet services as a co-founder of Orange France Telecom's Wanadoo internet operations and in startup environments as VP Business Development with Ukibi, Inc., and in larger business operations in the consumer market for Orange France Telecom Devices Business Unit.

Visual Planet are manufacturers of large format touch technology. Their touchscreens are used in digital signage, kiosks and sense through non-metallic surfaces. The technology allows ordinary windows to be turned into touch screens, making shop windows into interactive displays.

Vernon Spencer will be talking about touchscreen technologies, demonstrating the Visual Planet technology, and the discussing direction of the company.

Everybody welcome. Entrance free. Doors open 7.30pm.

Venue: ARM Conference Centre, 110 Fulbourn Rd, Cambridge.

At the last talk I announced the venue of the next pubmeet as the Geldart. It turns out that it will be closed on the 15th. An email announcement about the meeting hasn't gone out, but I hear the Geldart is good, and I'd like to include it on the extended pubcrawl. So rather than change the venue, for this time only, we'll have an odd date - Wed 24th June. Apparently the food is good too,

8pm at d'Arry's, 2 - 4 King St, Cambridge, CB1 1LN. Look at their Contact page for a map.

Join us to discuss business, what's new, what's hot, and what's not. If you haven't been before, it's a chance to relax over food, with people interested in the same things that interest you. We typically discuss the problems of running a startup.

Entrance free but you pay the restaurant for what you consume. I'll need to know if you are coming so that I can book a table. Email me using the contact form. Everyone welcome.

Peter Clark is the co-founder of the startup, Broadersheet an online newspaper which will learn what topics, sources and authors you like as you interact with it, to deliver your daily bespoke newspaper.

By ensuring your newspaper is available on a multitude of devices, Broadersheet aims to be the future of reading news for busy people.

Peter's background is in design, creating websites for businesses, and bringing businesses into the "social web era".

In this discussion, Peter will explain how Broadersheet came about, where they are at, where they're headed and what value they can add to consumers, and news publishers.

Venue: Mills & Reeve. 112 Hills Rd Cambridge. Everyone welcome. Entrance free. No registration required.

Kindly organised by Mohammad Al-Ubaydli of Patients Know Best. Thank you.

THIS MEETING IS ON. We're expecting a few more centimeters of snow this afternoon, but that it will have cleared up by this evening. 11:20am, 2nd Feb.

Mohammad Al-Ubaydli is the the founder of Patients Know Best, a Cambridge-based company working on Personal Health Records (PHRs). Mohammad is a researcher at UCL’s Centre for Health Informatics and Multiprofessional Education. He trained as a doctor at the University of Cambridge and a programmer at Anglia Ruskin University. His most recent book deals with use of PHRs by hospitals in the USA.

Mohammad will be discussing health records and the benefits of open systems and protocols for doctors and patients, and the opportunities in the area.

6pm 3rd Nov - I've just found out that Matthew Brazil can't make it. I'm trying to find an alternative speaker. Whatever happens, we'll still be at Mills & Reeve. At worst we'll hold an impromptu drinks.

6Consulting are a specialist in Social Media Monitoring and Engagement. They work with with organisations to help them listen, monitor, measure and engage in social conversations.

Matthew Brazil, CEO, will be discussing the various social media, and how companies can participate to their benefit, driving perception and profit.

BoldOak provides coaching and training in customer facing roles, including sales and sales management. Babs Moore has a background in the electronic component industry with over 20 years experience predominantly in business-to-business sales and marketing roles.

She will be talking about the the sales process for b2b sales, giving hints and tips, with an emphasis on understanding the sales pipeline.

Venue: ARM conference centre, 110 Fulbourn Rd, Cambridge. 7.30pm for 8pm start. Everyone welcome. Entrance free.

Richard Atkinson studied Computer Science and Electronic Engineering at Churchill College, and worked in industry and academia for two years before starting his training in intellectual property. In 2007 he set up a company Atkinsoft Ltd to provide consultancy services in both intellectual property and software / electronics. Richard will be discussing the development of the synthesizer, from its roots in analogue technology, through to digital technologies such as sampling and FM synthesis, and the recent resurgence in interest in analogue synthesis.

Venue: Mills & Reeve, 112 Hills Rd, Cambridge. 7.30pm for 8pm start. Everybody welcome. Entrance free.

Please note the change of date - this was originally planned for the 7th July.

A panel discussion with Judith Elliott from el:consulting, Martin Contantinides from ECM Selection, and Brett Husbands from Business Web Software, with a focus on on designing, recruiting & building effective teams.

Judith runs el:consulting. She is experienced in training and coaching managers and teams: it's one of the principal activities of her company. Her book 'Leadership Scaffolding' addresses the day-to-day needs of managers aiming to get things done.

Martin is a Director of ECM Selection. ECM are high-tech recruitment specialists. They focus on the very top end of the high-tech sector, on roles and candidates where a strong technical background is key.

Brett is a Director of Business Web Software. They specialise in software that integrates into Microsoft communication products and helps to connect customers, employees and information.

Send your questions for the panel. We'll gather the best ones and the themes and ask you to put them to the panel.

7.30pm for 8pm start. Venue: Mills & Reeve. 112 Hills Road, Cambridge. Everybody welcome. Entrance free.

We'll be meeting in a local restaurant. We're going to try something different, to see how it works, setting a formal discussion topic. The topic under discussion is 'Meeting the needs of angel investment.'

CB2 Restaurant Cafe. 8pm. 5/7, Norfolk St, Cambridge, CB1 2LD.

Snacky tapas kindly provided by Mills & Reeve

Join CHASE for a lively discussion about the state of entrepreneurship and business in Cambridge and the wider region.

David Gill of ET Capital, Jenny Chapman from Cambridge Evening News, Nicholas Miles from Oxford to Cambridge Arc and Billy Boyle from Owlstone make up our panel. They will be accepting questions from the floor for discussion on such diverse topics as where Cambridge lies in the rankings of technology hotspots, who the competitors are, where we should be aiming, and our advantages and disadvantages.

Food at this event has kindly been sponsored by La Playa: Insurance with Intelligence. La Playa are a Cambridge-based company, offering a personal service and excellent experience in the science and technology fields.

Jenny Chapman is Business Editor of the Cambridge Evening News. With her long-term interest in Cambridge, Jenny has a good overview of both technology and other businesses, and has reported on the fortunes of Cambridge's most interesting businesses.

David Gill is a joint MD of ET Capital. ET Capital are based in Cambridge and have invested in many of the most interesting Cambridge ventures. David is co-author of a series of reports on the funding of technology based business overseas and in the UK. David is a visiting lecturer at the Cambridge University Institute for Manufacturing, and in 2004-2005, before joining ET Capital, was a Sloan Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Billy Boyle is one of the founders of Owlstone. Owlstone has developed a solid-state chemical detection system which is able to react to a wide range of chemical agents, even when present in extremely small quantities. Billy has been responsible for business development and implementation. Billy and teh other Owlstone founders were were researchers in Cambridge University when they teamed up, but Owlstone is headquartered in the USA.

Nicolas Miles is Director of the Oxford to Cambridge Arc, a joint Development Agency funded organisation dedicated to promoting and accelerating the development of educational, research and business assets and activities that characterise the arc. One of the functions of O2C is to compare Cambridge against similar international areas, and consequently Nicholas has a good overview of our competitive position.

Doors open 7.30pm for 8pm start. CHASE events are free and open to all. Registration is essential to ensure a place for this event.

Michael Pritchard invented the LIFESAVER bottle after watching the unfolding events following the tsunami of December 2004 and hurricane Katrina in 2005. Despite the vast amount of water involved in both disasters, there was a desperate lack of fresh, clean water.

The LIFESAVER bottle is the world’s first all-in-one ultra filtration water bottle. It removes bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi and all other microbiological waterborne pathogens without using chemicals. The bottle produces filtered sterile drinking water quickly and easily from contaminated water, making the large-scale delivery of drinking water to emergency hit areas practical.

Michael will talk about the technology in the bottle and the problems that his company, Lifesaver Systems has had to overcome in bringing the bottle to market.

Venue: ARM Conference Centre, 110 Fulbourn Rd, Cambridge, CB1 9NJ. Doors open 7.30pm for 8pm start. Free and open to all. No need to pre-register.

The Sensebulb is an intelligent lightbulb designed to act as an alarm for elderly or disabled people. It fits into an ordinary light socket but uses LEDs to emit light. Four heat sensors, embedded in the bulb, can monitor a room for unusual activity: a cooker left on; temperature increase in the bathroom at an unusual time; or perhaps a waving hand. Based on this, the bulb can alert a carer.

Lyndsay has a history as an researcher and electronic engineer. At Microsoft, amongst other things, she was responsible for the SenseCam, a device to help Alzheimer's patients cope with memory loss. Before Microsoft, she was a Senior Research Fellow at BT Labs, where she invented some of the technology now found in the Apple iPhone. In 2007 she left Microsoft to found Girton Labs, which dedicates itself to novel image sensors and non-visual object recognition, computers to reduce global warming, and smarthome systems for care of the elderly.

Venue: ARM Conference Centre, 110 Fulbourne Rd, Cambridge. Doors open 7.30pm, talk starts at 8pm. Everybody is welcome and entrance is free.

Please note that this talk takes place on a MONDAY.

We celebrated CHASE's 20th Anniversary with an Open Meeting. Much of the detail can be found here.

Everybody is welcome at our pubmeets and restaurant meetings. Meet at a CB2 Restaurant Cafe for an evening with other like-minded people involved in or with small enterprises in the hi-tech arena. No need to register. No fee.

We'll in the library. That's the room towards the back, upstairs.

If you haven't been to CB2 before, it's at 5-7 Norfolk St, Cambridge, which is very close to our normal meeting place, The Free Press. There's a map here.

CB2 have a range of light meals and snacks as well as bigger dishes at reasonable prices.

Matters under discussion:

• A better tagline for CHASE
• Is Tuesday still the best day for CHASE events?
• Does the 20th Anniversary warrant a larger scale event? And if so, then what topics are worth exploring in depth?

Christopher van Essen will be discussing the art of presenting your ideas to VCs.

[Updated: Attached a copy of Christopher's presentation.]

Christopher was a founder of TTP in 1988 and of TTP Ventures in 1998. TTP Venture Fund raised £35M from banks, pension funds and corporate investors. The Fund received thousands of business plans and invested in 23 companies – Cambridge-based ones included Element-14, Azuro, CamSemi and TeraView. Christopher served as Chairman, Board member or board observer on four of the portfolio companies. He retired from TTP Ventures in April 2005, but retains personal shareholdings in all of them. He was chair of judges for the Oxford University Business Plan Competition (run by the Said Business School) in 2005 and 2006.

Aubrey is the initiator of Strategies for Engineered Negligable Senescence (SENS) which aims to map out a cure for aging by treating the problem as an engineering project. Medicine has indicicated that aging is a set of progressive changes in body composition, at the molecular and cellular level, which are side-effects of essential metabolic processes. Many of these changes are eventually bad for us -- they are an accumulation of damage, which becomes pathogenic above a certain threshold of abundance. SENS aims to understand how to repair or obviate the accumulating damage and thereby indefinitely postpone the age at which it reaches pathogenic levels.

Aubrey will talk about SENS, the problems, possible solutions, progress, including the Methusalah Mouse Prize, and more.

Venue: Mills & Reeve, 112 Hills Rd, Cambridge.