With the inaugural Cambridge China Forum just weeks away excitement is building as we look forward to welcoming our delegates and expert speakers. Selected from industry, research and government, among the well-known Cambridge names are Alan Hirzel (Abcam), Dr Stephen Pattison (ARM), Yunming Shao (TusPark), Humayun Sheikh (Fetch.ai), Ray Anderson (Bango), Ting Zhang (Crayfish.io), Martin Rigby (ET Capital), Dr Steve Marsh (GeoSpock), Ian Sandison (Cambridge BID), Professor Chris Lowe (University of Cambridge), Dr Simon Haworth (The Sino-UK Fund) and Dr Derek Long (Cambridge Consultants).
New speakers to the Cambridge scene are: Sunan Jiang (Minister Counsellor for Science and Technology Chinese Embassy), Simone Warren (Alibaba Cloud), Dr Anna Cupani (Imperial College London) and Bo Ji (Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business). Read on to find out more about the impressive combined knowledge and expertise of our speakers.
Ray Anderson
CEO and Founder, Bango
Ray has over 30 years’ experience in starting, growing and selling businesses. He was named ‘Business Person of the Year’ in 2012. Ray co-founded Bango in 1999 after realising that the convergence of the internet with the ubiquity of mobile phones could open up huge opportunities for content and service providers.
Alan Barrell
Alan has worked in Health Care and Medical Research, as Chairman and Chief Executive of large multi-national companies and smaller technology start-ups. He teaches in Universities in UK, Europe, North America and Asia with Professorships in European and Chinese Universities. He has raised and managed a Venture Capital Fund and, is a Business Angel Investor and Trustee of charities. His current work is focused heavily on the development of UK-China Trade and Relationships including cross-continental investment.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-barrell-18a2a63b/
Apolline Blandin
Research Manager, Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Cambridge Judge Business School
Apolline Blandin is a research manager at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF). She is part of the cryptoasset and blockchain research team. She graduated from Peking University and the London School of Economics with a dual masters degree in International Affairs. Her research previously focused on mobile finance and financial inclusion in China.
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/apolline-blandin-337a01bb
Guy Brandon
Founder, Blockworm
Guy Brandon is a communicator and consultant who has been active in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space for five years.
“Among many other areas, cryptocurrencies and tokenisation offer enormous opportunities for the video gaming industry and e-commerce – in both of which China leads the world.”
https://www.linkedin.com/in/guy-brandon-57260916
John Bridge, OBE, DL
Chief Executive, Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce
Since becoming Chief Executive of Cambridgeshire Chambers of Commerce in January 2004 John has enabled the Chamber to develop from strength to strength into a successful, vibrant member-focussed organisation and has enhanced the Chamber’s relationships with many key private and public sector bodies.
In November 2014 John was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant, an honour that will see him assist the Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Mrs Julie Spence OBE QPM, with her work across the county.
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/johnbridgeobe
Alan Hirzel
CEO, Abcam
Alan is passionate about leading and growing mission driven businesses. As CEO of Abcam, he has a keen focus on the consumer, helping Abcam’s strategic vision to be a successful global business by placing the customer at the heart of the business. He is leading the company to become the most influential life science company for researchers worldwide and in leading this change, he has implemented a strategy that focuses on serving needs better and faster than anyone in the life science industry.
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/alanhirzel
Jinzhao Li
Co-Founder and Managing Director, Cambridge China Centre
Jinzhao Li has two decades’ experience in international education, culture and tourism
sectors, including a senior management role with the world’s largest education group – New Oriental Education & Tech Grp (NYSE: EDU). In 2012 she founded the well-respected First UK Education and Tourism Ltd, which delivers regular high-level tours from China to Cambridge.
With roots in both Cambridge and China, and a deep and sympathetic understanding of both British and Chinese cultures, Jinzhao Li, together with co-founders Sophie Yang, Jiajin Wang and Weimin Li, founded Cambridge China Centre, with great passion and mission to facilitate cross-cultural communication and drive mutually prosperous Cambridge-China business relationships.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jinzhao-li-4a2b2076/
Derek Long
Head of Telcoms and Mobile, Cambridge Consultants
As head of telecoms and mobile at Cambridge Consultants, Derek leads the company’s collaboration within the sector. Central to Derek’s role at Cambridge Consultants is helping create breakthrough innovation that transforms the delivery of high-performance communication for their partners; from mobile carriers and ISPs, to vendors and component manufacturers. Derek has over 20 years’ experience in mobile technology.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/derek-long-65a2b4/
Professor C R Lowe, OBE, FREng, FInstP, FRSC
Founder Director, Institute of Biotechnology, University of Cambridge
Professor Christopher R Lowe was founder Director of the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge and conducts research in both diagnostics and therapeutics in the healthcare biotechnology sector. He is a fellow of the Royal Academy of
Engineering, the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-r-lowe-b8062813/
Sylvia Lu
Senior Engineer, Cellular Technology; UK5G Advisory Board Member; Board Director of CW
Sylvia is an award-winning Engineer with over 10 years’ industry experience in wireless communications R&D, cellular modem developments, global standards, technology strategy and innovation.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylvialu/
Martin Rigby
Managing Director, ET Capital Limited
Martin Rigby, is managing director of ET Capital Limited. He has been a venture capital investor for over 25 years making and managing investments in over 40 innovative technology businesses, principally in network services, software and hardware.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinprigby/
Dr Yumnimg Shao
Vice President and Head of Investment, TusPark Holdings (UK) Limited
Dr Yunming Shao joined the parent company, TusHoldings, as a senior investment manager in 2015. TusHoldings manages the world’s biggest university science park and incubator network, and controls multiple listed and private technological and healthcare companies.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yunming-shao-66279732/
Humayun Sheikh
Co-founder and CEO – Fetch.ai
Humayun is the founder, backer and CEO of Fetch which provides the next-generation, digital trading platform where ‘autonomous agents’ representing individuals and their assets, product manufacturers and service providers can find each other, interact and execute unsupervised economic transactions. Humayun is a true entrepreneur and visionary. Humayun studied nanotechnology at Cranfield University and considers blockchain, AI and machine learning as his key focus areas.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/humayun-sheikh-4530246a/
Dr Li Su
Principle Investigator, Computational Psychiatry Theme, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge
Dr Li Su is a Principle Investigator leading the Computational Psychiatry theme in the Old Age Psychiatry Group in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and an affiliated member of the EPSRC Centre for Mathematical Imaging in Healthcare. He is a research Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge. He leads the NeuroTechnology Core Facility in the Institute for Neuroscience. He is also a visiting professor and the founding director for the China-UK Centre for Cognition and Ageing Research in Southwest University in Chongqing, China. He also leads neuroimaging research in PREVENT-dementia, a multi-centre international consortium
https://www.linkedin.com/in/li-su-abb8aa7a/?originalSubdomain=uk
Dr Wei Sun
Lead Software Engineer, Beweb Direct limited, Chairman of the Cambridge Chinese Community Centre
Dr Wei Sun is a lead Software Engineer in a local company, also the Chairman of the Cambridge Chinese Community Centre and an Overseas Committee member of All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese. Cambridge Chinese Community Centre is a very active Chinese organisation that runs many activities weekly and big events annually.
Dr Xiangyu Sheng
Technical Director, Capita
With over 25 years’ experience in environment and climate change sector, Dr Xiangyu Sheng is currently a Technical Director at Capita.
“After decades of growth, China faces a major challenge of environmental damage. It is now the crucial time that UK & China, recognise the urgent need to address the environmental damage and climate change, one of the biggest threats to humanity, in the context of sustainable development through cooperation, brings together the best of UK and Chinese expertise to tackle and build capacity to respond to global challenges.”
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-xiangyu-sheng-900b5015/
Ting Zhang
Founder and Director, Crayfish.io
Known as one of leading China business experts in the UK, Ting has 20+ years experience of UK-China international business, trade and investment. In her continuous pursuit for a more efficient and affordable way to facilitate international trade with China, Ting launched Crayfish.io in 2017, the first online platform dedicated to English-Chinese bilingual business services.