Name: Cambridge in London
Start: 2025-09-10T18:30:00+01:00
End: 2025-09-10T20:30:00+01:00

In-person

Location: The Loading Bay at Techspace Shoreditch, 25 Luke Street, London. More location information

Please note this event has been cancelled due to the planned tube strikes on Wednesday 10 September. We’re currently exploring options to reschedule and will keep you updated as soon as we have more details.

Over the course of the evening, our panel of artificial intelligence (AI) experts, Dr Jason Mellad, Professor Amanda Prorok and Professor Nic Lane, will discuss the research taking place within the University to pioneer AI systems that impact real-world situations.

We will then open the floor to a handful of early-career entrepreneurs who have been able to take advantage of the Cambridge innovation ecosystem and sector-leading teaching to develop startups with AI at the heart of their vision.

With Dr Mellad bringing his expertise supporting innovative startups, as well as Professors Prorok and Lane’s own entrepreneurial ventures, join us for what will be a stimulating discussion into the impact AI at Cambridge is having on our world today.

Programme:

6.30pm Welcome reception
7.00pm Panel discussion and Q&A
7.45pm Networking reception with canapes
8.30pm Close

Dress code:

Smart casual

Speakers

Dr Jason Mellad

Clare, 2004

Host

Dr Jason Mellad is Co-Founder and CEO of OtoImmune, a precision immunology company focused on revolutionising the early detection and management of autoimmune and other inflammatory diseases. Previously he was Co-Founder and CEO of Start Codon, a UK-based accelerator that supports innovative startups with funding, facilities and extensive coaching to help founders translate their innovations into successful ventures.

Jason formerly served as CEO of Cambridge Epigenetix (now Biomodal) and Business Development Manager for Horizon Discovery’s diagnostics division. He also served as an associate for Cambridge Enterprise, the technology transfer office of the University of Cambridge.

Originally from Louisiana, Jason was awarded a Marshall Scholarship to complete his PhD in Medicine at the University of Cambridge (Clare College) after graduating Summa Cum Laude from Tulane University with a BSc in Molecular Biology and Chemistry. He lives in Cambridge with his husband and two sons.

Professor Amanda Prorok

Amanda Prorok is Professor of Collective Intelligence and Robotics in the Department of Computer Science and Technology, and a Fellow of Pembroke College, at the University of Cambridge.

In her work, she pioneered differentiable communications methods for multi-agent systems, with applications to multi-robot perception and control.

Amanda has given invited keynotes at TEDx and ICRA, and has been honoured by numerous research awards, including a prestigious ERC Starting Grant. Amanda is an IEEE Senior Member, serves as Associate Editor for Autonomous Robots (AURO) and was the Chair of the 2021 IEEE International Symposium on Multi-Robot and Multi-Agent Systems. Her PhD thesis was awarded the Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) prize for the best thesis at EPFL in Computer Science.

Professor Nic Lane

Nic Lane is Professor of Machine Learning Systems in the Department of Computer Science and Technology, holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Decentralized AI, and is a Fellow of St. John's College, at the University of Cambridge. Nic also leads the Cambridge Machine Learning Systems Lab.

Alongside his academic appointments, he is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Flower Labs, a venture-backed AI company (YCW23) behind the Flower framework. Flower is now the most popular open-source framework in the world for training AI on distributed data, used by industry leaders such as Mozilla, Owkin, Banking Circle, Temenos and Samsung.

Until March 2023, Nic was the Lab Director at Samsung AI in Cambridge. He was responsible for the technical direction of this 50-person lab to advance AI in service of future Samsung products and services, and distributed and on-device forms of learning.