Hewitsons LLP to Sponser the Centre for Business Innovation (CfBI) Summer Summit

“Hewitsons LLP was pleased to sponsor the Centre for Business Innovation (CfBI) Summer Summit at Trinity Hall, Cambridge in July. This meeting attracted members of CfBI’s consortia from five countries including the USA. Its purpose was to share information about the current portfolio of consortia where blue chip companies share insights around specific areas of technology and business process, and to sow the seeds for future consortia.

CfBI is a Cambridge think-tank which organizes consortia around themes as diverse as ‘Medical Adherence’ (the problem of patients not following their physicans’ instructions, ‘Microfluidics’ (opportunities arising from lab-on- a-chip and artificial organs) and ‘Novel Uses of Social Media’ (in areas as diverse as recruitment/training, targeting of marketing campaigns, and management of customer service responses).

Dr Peter Hewkin, CEO of CfBI’s said ‘We are delighted that our formula has grown strongly over the last seven years and pleased to pick up expressions of interest in expanding it in future into areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Assisted Living and Novel Materials’.

Bill Thatcher of Hewitsons said ’As a law firm long associated with innovative businesses in and around Cambridge and beyond, Hewitsons was delighted to sponsor the CfBI Summer Summit. CfBI has put together and runs a range of consortia that draw in a most unusual way on the combined expertise of diverse businesses and specialists from academia, to mutual benefit. And one of the things that stands out is the participants’ determination to make their efforts count in the real world, to the benefit of society’.

The Summit concluded with a dinner hosted by Professor John Clarkson of the Engineering Design Centre (EDC) at the University of Cambridge which works closely with CfBI’s Inclusive Design Consortium identifying strategic opportunities arising from improved design of user interfaces suitable also for the growing market cohort of elderly consumers.

CfBI’s ‘Open Innovation meets Big Data’ and ‘Nano-Carbon Enhanced Materials’ consortia took advantage of the occasion to hold operating meetings in Cambridge on the following day.

For further information visit www.cfbi.com or contact operations@cfbi.com