Milltrust International Group hosted a leading roster of science and technology innovators at Milltrust’s Science & Technology day on the 23rd of January 2019 in London. The event featured fascinating talks in the fields of medical technology, life sciences, flexible-electronics, alternative energy and artificial intelligence sectors by key speakers and representatives from the British Innovation Fund, Attomarker, Pragmatic, Roslin Technologies, and Core Power, Cerracap Ventures, Viome, and Nirveda.
The British Innovation Fund
Speaker: Simon Hopkins, CEO, Milltrust International Group
The British Innovation Fund, advised by Milltrust Agricultural Investments, seeks world-class science and technology in Britain’s top universities, in particular in the realms of medical technology, life sciences, flexible electronics, agri-science and other innovative advancements. BIF nurtures impactful, early-stage companies – helping them reach their full potential and guiding them to worldwide recognition and success. The Fund carefully picks spin-out companies from the established, in-house university commercialisation vehicles which the Fund has invested with.
PragmatIC
Speaker: Scott White, CEO, PragmatIC
PragmatIC, backed by Cambridge Innovation Capital, is a world leader in the manufacturing of ultra low-cost flexible electronics, enabling the potential for trillions of smart objects that can engage with consumers and their environments. PragmatIC’s unique technology platform delivers flexible integrated circuits that are thinner than a human hair and can be easily embedded into everyday objects.
Attomarker
Speaker: Prof Andrew Shaw, Founder & CEO, Attomarker
Attomarker, a spin-out from the University of Exeter, is a digital health technology company which has developed a small, simple-to-use blood-testing device that can perform blood tests from a single pin-prick of blood, with results in around five minutes. This multi-patented technology collects the blood sample on a disposable credit-card sized chip which slots into a fully mobile device, docked to an iPhone. The iPhone camera visualises the blood tests which are then interpreted by the iPhone.
Roslin Technologies
Speaker: Glen Illing, CEO, Roslin Technologies
Roslin Technologies is the technology commercialisation company of the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute. Based at Easter Bush Campus, the largest concentration of animal science expertise in Europe, Roslin Technologies exists to deliver breakthrough commercial solutions in the Animal Health, Breeding/Genetics and Animal Nutrition space based on the expert agricultural research of the Institute.
Newcastle University AgriTech Research
Speaker: Prof Neil Boonham, Chair of Applied Crop Science, Newcastle University
Over the last 5 years Newcastle University has been involved in major regional and national Agri-Tech initiatives. The University is a member of two of the national AgriTech Centres – CHaP and CIEL. Investments have been made in new state-of-the-art research facilities in digital and diagnostic technologies in crop and livestock research respectively at NU’s Research Farms. Our specific expertise in 1) Crop and Soil Science includes: plant-insect & plant microbe interactions, engineering photosynthesis, crop performance, field phenotyping, disease detection, soil health, herbicide selectivity, resistance to agrochemicals and 2) Animal Sciences includes: animal behaviour/health/welfare, animal nutrition and resource efficiency, systems modelling, precision livestock farming.
CORE-POWER
Speaker: Mikal Bøe, Founder & CEO, CORE-POWER
CORE-POWER is spearheading the development of the world’s first 2-fuel Thorium powered marine engines through an exclusive and perpetual license for technology developed by its US partners and the National Labs in the US. The game-changing technology offers safe and sustainable power with zero climate gas emissions and has a $1 billion revenue potential at just 5% market penetration. The market potential is $1 trillion plus. This new Thorium technology is also set to reduce the energy costs of commercial shipping by 5x (compared to fossil fuels) over the lifetime of a vessel (20 years) at a time when environmental regulations will mandate shipping to cut emissions and ‘de-carbonize’ propulsion. Thorium is the Super-fuel of the future for global shipping.
Keynote Speaker: Kirk Sorensen, CEO of Flibe Energy, former NASA scientist and advocate of Thorium as the total solution for the world’s energy requirements.
Kirk Sorensen is the founder of Flibe Energy and currently serves as President and Chief Technologist. Kirk has been a public advocate for thorium energy and liquid-fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) technology since creating the weblog “Energy From Thorium” in 2006. Kirk has a master of science degree (2014) in nuclear engineering from the University of Tennessee and a master of science degree (1999) in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a bachelor’s of science degree (1998) in mechanical engineering from Utah State University. He first learned about thorium and molten-salt reactor technology in March 2000 shortly after joining NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, following his graduation from the Georgia Institute of Technology. After eight years at NASA MSFC, he was detailed to the US Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) beginning in June 2008. In 2010 he joined Teledyne Brown Engineering as their Chief Nuclear Technologist. With encouragement from Teledyne management, he left in spring 2011 to form Flibe Energy. Kirk has been a prominent advocate for thorium energy with regular speaking engagements and media interviews across the world.
Milltrust Cerracap Partnership
Speaker: Saurabh Suri CIO, Cerracap Ventures
Cerracap II is dedicated to early-stage technology investments including Enterprise (B2B) products and solutions in the areas of Healthcare, AI and Cyber Security. The fund strategy uses a single approach since inception; targeting great teams with high growth characteristics. CerraCap makes great companies better by personally introducing Fortune 500 decision makers – Sales and Scale model. The fund is managed by Milltrust in Cayman feeding into a US partnership. CerraCap Ventures is headquartered in California with operations in Tel Aviv, Singapore, and Bangalore. Formerly an in-house venture team at UST Global, their prior track record returned a stellar 9x return over 5 years. CerraCap Ventures boasts a phenomenal advisory board including Vincente Fox, former President of Mexico, John C. Cushman, Chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, Richard P Crane Jr., former member of U.S. Department of Justice, and our own Simon Hopkins.
Viome
Speaker: Deepak Savadatti, President, Viome
Viome offers a direct-to-consumer test kit that returns an in-depth look into your gut – and provides dietary advice to help its customers achieve wellness. It boasts a world-class team, (including a CEO with experience bringing multiple startups to multi-billion dollar IPOs), the most advanced proprietary technology in the field, and a deeply compelling business strategy. The microbiome space is erupting. Scientists have recently (2013) uncovered that the microbiome has an unprecedented impact on health and wellness. Since the discovery, HMP investigators have published over 650 scientific papers that have been cited over 70,000 times. The gut impacts our immune system, mental health, our development of chronic diseases, autoimmune disorders (such as Alzheimers), diabetes, heart problems, and more. Our gut bacteria governs our bodies more than we knew. Through its AI engine, Viome can then generate highly personalized, actionable nutritional recommendations to dramatically improve vitality, wellness and the body’s overall functions.
Nirveda Cognition
Speaker: Jordan Hochenbaum, CTO, Nirveda
Nirveda Cognition is the developer of an enterprise AI platform that brings the benefits of AI to back-office processes. The Company’s platform is capable of augmenting and replacing skilled and semi-skilled labor for repetitive back-office tasks, where improvements can have massive impacts on cost and productivity. According to IDC, 90% of unstructured data is never analyzed. Traditional AI solutions have difficulty processing unstructured information, which represents the vast majority of enterprise data. This leaves employees with the challenging task of manually identifying, locating and interpreting this information that is required for various back-office processes. The Company’s solution harnesses the power of cognitive search, intelligent process automation, and natural language generation into a unique, ground-breaking offering. By combining these capabilities into a single platform, the Company’s solution enables organizations to automate end-to-end content-centric business processes that until now relied on human cognition, while simultaneously eliminating human error. The Nirveda platform uncovers, interprets and transforms unstructured and semi-structured data (“dark data”), automating business processes faster and more efficiently, while its Continuous Learning features ensure process improvements over time.
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