---
# System prepended metadata

title: EIG June 6th event

---

# Turing EIG June 6th 2024 event:
## What could/should Entrepreneurship in research & at Turing look like?

- Speakers: Ed, Arielle, Aida, Jen

## Agenda

1. [name=Ed Chalstrey] Introduction to the EIG, how it came about, our plans so far for the Turing 2.0 era including upcoming events, as well as my own interest in Entrepreneurship:
    - Organised the EIG event a while back on [Quaisr](https://www.quaisr.com/), a spin-out from Turing research
    - Participated in [Turing/Crick summer school for data scientists to pair up with biomedical scientists and learn the basic principles of entrepreneurship](https://www.crick.ac.uk/news/2019-09-25_summer-school-inspires-budding-entrepreneur-scientist) organised with [EF](https://www.joinef.com/)
2. [name=Arielle Bennett] [name=Aida Mehonic] [name=Jennifer Ding] On their backgrounds, experiences with Entrepreneurship and thoughts on its place at Turing
5. Discussion
    - What do people think the Turing should be doing as the national institute of AI/DS in this space
    - Suggestions for EIG talks/events
    - Do people on the call want to share their own experiences with entrepreneurship and translating research -> business


## Say hi

- [name=Ed Chalstrey] :wave: 
- [name=Arielle Bennett] (she/her) Tools, Practices & Systems programme manager :wave:
- [name=Harriet McCann] Early Careers Programme Manager :wave:
- [name=Francisco Gomez Medina] Research Application Manager, TPS :wave: 
- [name=Kalle Westerling] Research Application Manager, TPS, `pronouns they/he` :wave: 
- [name= Jules Manser] Applied Skills Programmes Manager, Skills :sunglasses: 
- [name=David Llewellyn-Jones] Research Data Scientist, REG :wave:
- [name=Jon Crowcroft]
- [name=Jen Ding] Research applications / TPS
- [name=Bea] Turing Research Fellow, Health :wave:
- [==who's in the room?==]
    - Bea
    - Harriet
    - Praveen
- [name=Aida] Helloo! Senior Researcher for Research Applications, TPS :ram: 
- 



## Notes

1. Introduction to the EIG, how it came about, our plans so far for the Turing 2.0 era including upcoming events, as well as my own interest in Entrepreneurship
    - Interest Group has existed for a few years: Develop entrepreneurship mostly, but also some research (?) on the area
    - 2.0 What now? WIP
        - Talk series (experiences with entrepreneurship, spinning out/starting up, working in accelerators)
        - organise other events? drop-ins for spinouts, brainstorming, hackathons/designathons.
    - ![image](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/ByTVbI1rC.png)
        - For context: the original proposal was driven by Christine Foster and then Joe & Giulia took over running it. Maybe it would be interesting to get Christine talk at a meeting / get her both insider and external view on Turing & entrepreneurship?
        - Great idea, Mishka! Would be great to learn more about the history of entrepreneurship at Turing and hear from more folks in the Turing community with their startup experiences (incl external speakers)
    - Turing should be a natural home for spin-outs in DS/AI
        - [name=Jon Crowcroft (in chat)] A big barrier to startups before turing 2.0 was the founding 5university governance model meant the turing inherited the most obstructive model for exploiting anything at all :-)
        - [name=Jon Crowcroft (in chat)] The other cool thing the turing had a link with which involved a lot of startup types is CogX
    - Join `#entrepreneurship-interest-group` on Slack
2. Arielle, Aida, Jennifer on their backgrounds, experiences with Entrepreneurship and thoughts on its place at Turing
    - [name=Jen] First job was start up founder! Turned undergrad engineering project into a start up
        - Built out a prototype for monitoring outdoor parking lots, enough interest to justify (and the IP was mine)
        - Lots of accelerators, pitch competitions etc, interviewed with Y Combinator
        - Raised a lot of money through pitch competitions - $72,000 from 60 secs pitch!
        - Was eventually acqui-hired by next start up 
        - What are the opportunities in the UK space? How do we make sure we're connected up for them? 
        - Visas! Tech nation visa for people with tech and start up backgrounds, good for alumni network as well (could also present from community manager) 
            - TechNation visa = Tier 1 Exceptional Talent Visa, I think is the “technical” name of the visa: https://technation.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Tech-Nation-Visa-GUIDE-04-2019-1.pdf
        - Rob Blackwell - founded 3 companies, then went to PhD 
    - [name=Arielle] Covering biotech (Theranos) startups for three years, then into bio-tech (cancer) start-up. Building capacity in-house at Turng, would be great. More than one way to be an entrepreneur -- raising funds and pitching to VCs is difficult now, so many other ways of doing it... what are the alternative funding models to VC?
        - Q: What would be the best way of doing it (if Tech Transfers isn't the way to do it)?
            - New layout of IP. Guidelines. Investment (terms of equity) = no mechanisms like that. Even very basic ones. Advisors who you could talk to?
            - What are the pathways for spinning out?
            - Someone should be able to sit down with you to advise you/chat with you about
            - Bea: who can I talk to at Turing about my contract if I want to start a startup? Can this info be available on Mathison?
                - This becomes a roadblock and I'm stuck
                - EWOR 6 month training programme for academics
    - [name=Aida] 
        - Friends from PhD founded startup in 2015: Faculty
        - Wasn't able to join at first because of visa
        - Consulting is an easier route than productisation
        - Product market fit is hard and you'll have to pivot many times
        - Turing projects should explore PMF with communities of users before incorporating/launching
        - Ed: how about software as a service business model
3. Discussion
    - Let's get Rob Blackwell to give a talk
    - Does Jon Crowcroft want to give a talk?
        - [name=Jon in chat] I can tell a tale of woe about Docker sometime - was amazing (at peak, the CEO managed to turn down a £500M acquisition offer from Microsoft…. And then..
        - [name=Jon in chat] Recent experience at Imperial (2 friends in IX) was positive (this after big changes there in equity rules, done by the provost, Nick Jennings a couple of years back…) - could maybe get them to talk about how they did things …
    - EIG Storytime (new idea of EIG event) - the good, the awesome and the ugly :wink: 
    - It's very standard to have an IP term in your contract but the enforcement is somewhat variable at different orgs
    - For some people it may depend on the research funding contracts as well I suppose.
    - we did switch to "Turing owns everything but we'll give you a license" for some contracts
    - Speaker idea: Ben Steer from Pometry
- Group business brainstorming/therapy
    - Bea is keen

Harriet comments added after meeting
* Senior sponsor for this group? E.g. Nico / Donna? My view is that entrepreneurship TIG needs to have scope to do its own thing but most powerful if good arising work can be baked in paid staff workplans.
* Used to get a lot of questions about entreprenurship training (especially from CDT Directors). Where host resources / these events etc as slack isn't external
* Mapping the ecosystem. Surely there are previous examples?
* TechNation visa - if a discussion comes up on this make sure that HR contact comes to help with attracting and retaining talent. Links with - https://mathison.turing.ac.uk/page/3247?SearchId=461517)
*  Suggestion - do some info gathering on Turing current plans and thinking then, host a design event to design what it should look like given boundary conditions.
*  Basic guidelines on spinning out to be developed (suggested by Arielle but +1)
*  Royal Society offer 'entrepreneurship' training to Fellows. This page for brief overview of components they cover. https://royalsociety.org/grants/training-mentoring-partnership-schemes/innovation-course/



### Links shared

- https://www.conceptionx.org/
- https://www.ewor.com/
- Tech Nation Visa: https://technation.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Tech-Nation-Visa-GUIDE-04-2019-1.pdf
- Tech Nation visa ambassadors/application guide: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/technationhq_global-talent-visa-ambassadors-2024-activity-7202306037574447104-flUP/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
- Building AI Startup-Industry Partnerships Workshop
Who should attend? Researchers exploring collaboration models to translate AI research into industry applications https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/events/building-ai-startup-industry-partnerships-workshop
https://www.linkedin.com/company/techstars/