Inventing the Future: Science, Technology and Entrepreneurship at the Royal Institution London

'Inventing the Future: The next generation of science, technology and entrepreneurship' is to be held at the Royal Institution on the evening of Tuesday 27 March. A drinks and networking reception will follow.

Scientific, technological and commercial innovation have together created the modern world. They are also highly dependent on each other: scientific discoveries beget new technologies, which create new commercial opportunities, and many of the resulting products and services then are employed in the further pursuit of science. This interdependence is also key to understanding the world's most successful innovation centres -- from Silicon Valley to Boston and Tel Aviv -- which are founded on potent mixtures of academic excellence, technological prowess and entrepreneurial drive. Yet plenty of places that have these ingredients somehow lack the ineffable spark of world-class success.This meeting will explore what it takes to successfully combine these three worlds, what each can bring to the mix, and what each seeks to gain. It is hosted by Digital Science, a new division of Macmillan Publishers, that creates software tools for science, in large part by funding and nurturing entrepreneurs.

We will be joined by guest speakers Ben Hammersley (the Prime Minister’s Advisor to London's Tech City, and Editor-at-Large at Wired UK), Douglas Kell (Chief Executive of Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) and Stian Westlake (Executive Director of Policy and Research at NESTA), as well as other leading voices from the worlds of science, technology, business, investment, funding and policy. We will also have with us representatives of Digital Science portfolio companies and other startup businesses from the US, Canada, Israel and the UK.

Questions that we seek to address include: How can commercial and academic organisations work together in ways that play to their respective strengths? How can appropriate risk-taking be encouraged, and success rewarded, both in academia and in the commercial world? And how can we nurture the next generation of innovators in science, technology and business?

Please join us for what promises to be a thought-provoking evening. Doors open at 6:30 pm at the Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4. A series of brief presentations will begin at 7:00 pm in the Faraday Theatre, after which an informal drinks reception will follow.

Admission is free but registration is required and places are limited, so please let us know as soon as possible if you intend to join us by following this link.