Hausers Vision For Cambridge Tech Supremacy
Five Cambridge visionaries have formed a new influencer group designed to elevate
the UKs premier technology cluster to the level of global exemplar Silicon Valley.
Serial entrepreneur and VC Hermann Hauser has been joined by Cambridge Network CEO Claire Ruskin, Professor Lynn Gladden (the universitys Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research), Tony Raven CEO of Cambridge Enterprise, the universitys commercialisation arm and Peter Taylor, CEO of tech design consultancy TTP Group plc.
Dr Hauser said the objective was to ensure that Cambridge as a community combining corporate and academic interests raised its game to the greatest possible heights.
He said the Vision Group, as it is informally called, would identify the missing ingredients and work towards improvements in the knowledge-based infrastructure.
In an exclusive interview with Business Weekly, Dr Hauser said one clear gap in Cambridges CV was the lack of several really large companies routinely getting involved in corporate venturing.
He said: This is definitely one essential that Silicon Valley has that we havent. We need to drive much better relationships with large companies. Its really important that we improve our track record in corporate venturing.
We need companies of size to work with smaller enterprises and the university on an ongoing basis. Large pharma companies, such as Pfizer, have set the ball rolling and are beginning to move us forward in this regard.
I think we will see a lot of exciting spin-outs from their initiative to drive the UK life science agenda from Cambridge. But we need a lot more to follow their example across major industry segments.
Dr Hauser was speaking in support of a Business Weekly campaign to nurture new generations of Cambridge entrepreneurs to protect the long term sustainability of the cluster and maintain its innovation edge.
He revealed that there was buy-in from a whole new breed of serial entrepreneurs who were massively swelling the ranks of Cambridge Angels.
There are so many new angels on the scene that the Cambridge Angels group has been forced to spin out Cambridge Angels II, he disclosed.
Dr Hauser said: I was at a meeting of Cambridge Angels last night and its a very active group. One of the problems is that we had so many credible would-be angels wanting to join that we have had to start a new category of associate members. We simply couldnt fit everyone round the table.
Thats an extremely encouraging sign for your campaign, which I support wholeheartedly. Nurturing the next generation of enterprise champions is utterly essential for the health of the Cambridge Tech Cluster going forward. And entrepreneurial success is happening.
One of the main reasons us old fogeys have such a high profile is that we have been around for such a long time. Now we have people like Billy Boyle of Owlstone building up a reputation for his wider efforts in enterprise and Adam Twiss is one of our most successful younger serial entrepreneurs. There are a number of young Turks coming through and we need to promote them.
Dr Hauser would like to see more woman executives and entrepreneurs in the mix. There is a clear gender gap and it is a real problem, he told me.
But it is a problem worldwide. Silicon Valley fares better but not that much better. We need to do all we can to encourage talented women to push for senior roles and help them smash the glass ceiling that most definitely exists. Perhaps it requires an all-round change in attitude.
There are role models everywhere you look in our major networks - the CEOs of Cambridge Network (Claire Ruskin), Cambridge Wireless (Soraya Jones) and One Nucleus (Harriet Fear) are obvious ones, as is Ruth McKernan, who is heading up Pfizers regenerative medicine drive in Cambridge. But these exemplars need to be replicated in more of our boardrooms.
Dr Hauser believes that the University is showing a greater willingness to act as a global thought leader and developing a sharper commercial edge on multi-levels of activity.
Besides Lynn Gladden and Tony Ravens involvement in the new Vision Group, the universitys Vice-Chancellor, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, the Chancellor David Sainsbury, Christoph Loch, director at Judge Business School, and Shai Vyakarnam at CfEL, all take technology seriously. I believe we are about to really start seeing some action at Judge with Christoph at the helm and the work Shais team is doing at events like Enterprise Tuesday is fantastic.
Dr Hauser said commercial savvy was also being driven further down and across the university to young and budding entrepreneurs. The students are lucky to have entrepreneurs like Andy Hopper, Chris Lowe, Steve Young and others guiding their star.
Even the projects and initiatives bubbling away under the surface in the various labs are more commercially focused these days. Look at the solar car initiative in the engineering lab.
The young students involved have immersed themselves in the project and learned how to organise themselves, to get that car to Australia every two years to race. Its a good discipline for young students and the experience they are gaining all the while means they are not 100 miles away from having a real company.
by: Claire Allen
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