In this special Cambridge Tech Week podcast episode we chat to Umaima Ahmad, CEO and co-founder of 52North, a multi-award winning med-tech company focused on reinventing the healthcare journey, starting by transforming cancer care with Neutrocheck®. She shares lessons learned from the early days of Neutrocheck to the company recently being the first ever venture investment of Macmillan Cancer Support.<p>   <p>Hear how Umaima moved from a successful career as a finance lawyer into the world of entrepreneurship and healthcare, via her role in business development at AstraZeneca ..read more

In this latest start-up stories episode we’re talking with Jim McDougall, the co-founder of Outfield Technologies, an exciting start-up making a real impact to the way orchard growers can forecast their fruit yields. Combining innovative machine learning with drone technology, they help farmers manage the lifecycle of fruit in their orchard – making farms more efficient, profitable and sustainable.   Hear how Jim seized on interesting career opportunities, moving from a background in engineering to the world of horticulture start-ups via working on oil rigs! We also cover the early years ..read more

This episode is the next in our Business Basics series and focuses on communication for Start-ups. Simon Hall, a journalist of 25 years' experience, mostly as a News Correspondent with the BBC, and who has worked across TV, radio and online is our guest for this episode. He's also an author of eight novels and a series of non-fiction business communication books. He supports startups and entrepreneurs, particularly with communication skills and packages, including pitching for investment and customers. He spoke to us about all things comms, with a focus on founders and Start-ups. The episode i ..read more

Joe Parry started Cambridge Intelligence, a company building game-changing visualisation tools with applications ranging from fraud detection to cyber security, at his kitchen table over a decade ago. He now has a team of over 60 with customers all over the world.  Joe talks through his entrepreneurial journey, particularly the crucial first years of turning the concept into a reality.  ..read more

We recently spoke to Cambridge Angels, Simon Thorpe and Phil O'Donovan about what they do, what makes a good investment and why Cambridge is a great place to start a business. Simon, chair of Cambridge Angels, has invested in over fifty companies, mainly tech focused and in the UK. Phil founded Cambridge Silicon Radio and joined Cambridge Angels after the company was acquired by Qualcomm.  Both bring a wealth of experience to this week's podcast - the first in our Business Basics series. So take a listen to get some great insights into what makes a pitch great, what to avoid and the one t ..read more

Tristram Norman is co-founder and CTO of Simprints, a non-profit tech start-up building identification tools for the developing world – their mission is to improve the lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens. These tools are reducing the number of people globally without formal identification which is in turn improving healthcare provision in the developing world. We spoke to him about the early days at Simprints, the challenges they’ve faced along the way and his experience of going from start-up to a hugely successful social enterprise ..read more

Matthew Cleevely talks to Ben Hartley about the trials and tribulations of founding a sucessful company. Matthew founded 10to8, a global online appointments and scheduling software used by millions worldwide ..read more

Rosemary Francis is an expert on computer architecture, high-performance computing and analytics. She founded, and spent ten years building, Ellexus, which was subsequently acquired by Altair. Ellexus is a leading input/output (I/O) analysis tool, which helps customers find and address issues quickly, improving speed accuracy and cloud readiness. The software products are used for I/O diagnostics, optimization, and dependency detection by HPC administrators of large enterprises. Rosemary now continues in a technical role as Chief Scientist within the HPC team where the Ellexus tools now r ..read more

Some entrepreneurs give the impression that turning an idea into a successful business is an easy ride. It almost never is. Guy Blaskey, founder of Pooch & Mutt, one of the fastest-growing dog food companies in the UK, spoke at our first Start- up Stories event. Here he discusses some of the lessons he’s learnt from experiencing the good, the bad and the ugly of building his business ..read more

Jason Mellad is a passionate entrepreneur, scientist, and CEO. He's also co-founder of Start Codon - a Cambridge based accelerator which aims to identify, seed-fund and drive the success of the most disruptive healthcare Start-ups worldwide. As an investor in early stage life-science Start-ups, and an entrepreneur himself (not to mention an ideaSpace alumni), Jason has a wealth of experience and knowledge to share with founders who are beginning their Start-up journey.  ..read more