Innovate UK
Innovate UK and the leading Formula-One and advanced engineering company Williams have joined forces to showcase how cross-industry collaboration can accelerate innovation.
Representatives from corporations, small businesses, start-ups and investors will gather for an invitation-only event on 10 March at the Williams headquarters in Wantage, Oxfordshire.
Among the speakers will be Craig Wilson, managing director of Williams Advanced Engineering, who will explain how the company is transferring its Formula-One technology to other sectors.
Also speaking are Kevin Baughan, director of technology and innovation at Innovate UK, on how Innovate UK is enabling cross-industry collaboration, and Tom Whitehouse, of the London Environmental Investment Forum, on financing for accelerated innovation.
Event showcases the success of British businesses
The success of many companies in transferring their technology across sectors will be showcased at the event.
Bindatex: from bookbinding to precision-cutting composites
The successful companies include Bindatex, which won support from Innovate UK to help it transfer the technologies it was using for bookbinding materials to the precision-cutting of composites for industry.
Bindatex has grown its turnover from 70,000 in 2012 to a projected 540,000 in 2015 and is expected to have a 1.5 million-to-2 million turnover in the next 3-to-5 years.
Bladon Jets: from a micro jet engine to powering mobile communications
Other companies featured include Bladon Jets, set up in 2002, to develop and market a micro jet engine.
While working on an Innovate UK-funded project to apply its technology as a range extender for hybrid electric cars, it realised there was an opportunity for the turbine to power telecommunications masts for mobile phones in developing countries.
The business is about to begin manufacturing thousands of units for telecommunications masts this year.
Intelligent textiles: traditional weaving methods enabling electronics to be woven into soldiers uniforms
Intelligent Textiles has adapted traditional weaving and electronics technologies to create state-of-the-art uniforms that soldiers will soon be using out in the field.
The business was set up by fabric designer Asha Peta Thompson and Dr Stan Swallow, a lecturer at Brunel University with a background in electrical engineering, when they realised they could combine their skills to make a fabric switch.
The electronics are woven into fabric in order to create a flexible circuit board that connects together all of the soldiers equipment, substitutes lots of batteries with one power source and removes heavy cabling.
Williams has strong record on transferring F1 technology from the track to other industries
Williams has a strong track record in the transfer of F1 technology into broader industries as evidenced by the related developments at automotive design and engineering company Gordon Murray Design.