Show Notes 193: Cambridge's Life Sciences Boom: Why Now is the Time to Pay Attention

The latest episode of the Cambridge Tech Podcast reveals a sector firing on all cylinders. In a conversation between Faye Holland and Prashant Shah, the pair unpack why life sciences is experiencing genuine momentum heading into summer 2026—and why Cambridge is at the epicentre of it all.

The Big Picture: Life Sciences is Back

After months of global travel to Boston, New York, Paris, Mumbai, and Davos, Prashant brings back genuinely encouraging news from the life sciences sector. The macroeconomic indicators are pointing upwards across multiple fronts:

Key developments:

• The biotech IPO market is opening up and the aftermarket looks healthier

• M&A deal activity is accelerating, with larger deals happening more frequently

• AI is driving significant cost efficiencies in drug research—potentially reversing decades of rising R&D costs

• New modalities in genetics, RNA, protein degradation, and antibody drug conjugates are maturing simultaneously

As Prashant notes: "I'm seeing some encouragement. It's not all plain sailing. There's some bad news out there too, but increasingly I'm seeing that the good news is beginning to outweigh the bad news."

This isn't hype. This is someone who's spent the last few months talking to the global life sciences community, and the consensus is clear: there's momentum.

Cambridge's Innovation Ecosystem is Expanding

Beyond the sector-wide optimism, Cambridge itself is experiencing tangible growth. The news roundup highlights three major developments:

• Cambridge Science Park is nearly tripling in size. Trinity College's 30-year expansion plan will grow capacity from 7,500 to 20,000 jobs, with vertical building and improved parking efficiency creating space for the next generation of innovation.

• Circuit Hub has secured $28M in funding to onshore electronics manufacturing and expand across Europe. The American company's Cambridge-based R&D team is hiring around 100 new roles over the next couple of years—solid inward investment in high-tech talent.

• Cubatech and Norfolk Biotech raised £3.4M for sustainable natural rubber production using engineered dandelions. Yes, you read that right. It's precisely this kind of transformative engineering biology that's attracting serious venture backing.

Cambridge Wide Open Week: Your June Agenda

But here's where it gets really interesting for founders and investors. Cambridge Wide Open Week is expanding beyond Cambridge itself—now spanning Oxford, London, and Cambridge across two weeks in June (11th–19th).

The format includes:

• Venture tours showcasing leading funds and their portfolio companies

• Keynote sessions from figures like Wolf Reich (Altos Labs) discussing aging and longevity science

• Innovation ecosystem panels featuring partners across the UK's connected innovation hubs

• A garden party with the mayor and community leaders

• Live podcast interviews conducted from a Polestar car as our hosts carpool between venues

Faye captures the energy perfectly: "It's just some of the best time that you're going to spend in June."

The Bigger Story: Looking North

Perhaps most intriguingly, there's momentum to extend this collaborative model northward to Manchester. The Cambridge Manchester Partnership is actively building bridges between the two regions, recognising that UK innovation increasingly operates as a joined-up ecosystem spanning London, Oxford, Cambridge, and beyond.

Ready to dive deeper? Listen to the full episode to hear Prashant and Faye discuss Form the Future (supporting 40,000 young people into STEM careers), global connectivity in life sciences, and why the UK's innovation ecosystem has genuine reasons for optimism.

Subscribe to the Cambridge Tech Podcast to stay ahead of the curve.

AI Generated Transcript

00:00

Voiceover

Thinking about switching to electric, but not sure where to start. Head to the Holden Group's Electrify youy drive event from the 4th to 6th of June at the Gridserve Electric Forecourt in Norwich. Test drive over 20 electric vehicles from leading brands all in one place. Whether you're ev curious or ready to make the switch, this is your chance to experience electric properly. Book your slot now@electrifyyourdrive.co.uk.

00:33

Voiceover

Welcome to the Cambridge tech podcast, talking all things technology from the heart of the UK's tech capital. Here are your hosts, Faye Holland and James Parton.

00:58

Faye Holland

I'm Faye.

00:59

Prashant Shah

And I'm Prashant.

01:00

Faye Holland

So, yeah, we're going rogue. There's no James today, he's gone on holiday, so I have just riotously replaced him with our guest for this week. So, Prashant, how are you?

01:12

Prashant Shah

Well, I'm not too bad and I'm happy to be on the show, thank you very much.

01:16

Faye Holland

Yeah, I mean, usually in the past my job has been to get you talking on the radio and things like that. So it's really nice to actually have you being the host with me at the start of this episode. Cause I know you're good at newsreads and things like that. But let's talk about last week first of all, because we kind of bumped into each other and were at similar types of events as well. So let's mix things up and find out from you. How was your week last week, Prashant?

01:45

Prashant Shah

Well, I really enjoyed my time at UK Reef, which is where I saw you, and really exciting energy there, as always. A lot of cool people there doing cool things. I think that was the key highlight of my week last week.

01:58

Faye Holland

And you weren't actually really wearing. I mean, you obviously wear multiple hats all the time, but you were wearing the form the Future hat really at UK Reef, weren't you? So how did that come about?

02:09

Prashant Shah

That's right. So I'm the chair of form the Future and it's an organization which helps young people into careers that they love. It's about giving them opportunities of awareness of what careers they don't know about, give them exposure to it. And that exposure comes in the form of work experiences or people from. From business and industry coming into school and telling them about their work. It's also about understanding and connectivity to those organizations and it really helps open up their eyes. I mean, you can't be what you can't see and that's what form the Future are really good at. It's a Tough environment for funding for all such organizations. So I was out there doing my bit, talking to various authorities about what we can do to keep form the Future going and allowing it to do all the brilliant work that it does.

02:56

Prashant Shah

I mean, it helps and supports nearly kind of 40 kids a year across 160 different schools. So it's a really immense amount of work that it does.

03:07

Faye Holland

I think that's why it's important, isn't it, to get more funding? Because that's a lot of people. But that's not the entirety of the school systems in certainly our region. And, you know, I guess there's opportunities for broader regions as well. So. Yeah, your job was out there to try and drum up some interest for future funding.

03:29

Prashant Shah

Yeah, I was talking to the mayor, I've been talking to the super Cluster board, I've been talking across the region to different kind of authority heads. And then there's also the Cambridge Growth Company. So these are all people which do work in their territory. So it's important for them to understand what work is going on and how we can work together to keep the good work going.

03:50

Faye Holland

Yeah. And still on UK Reef, I saw you as I was doing my first outing, if you like, for the Cambridge Manchester Partnership on the Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority booth, and I saw your radiant face smiling up at me from. In the, in the audience. So. So how did you find that reception?

04:10

Prashant Shah

Well, firstly, I thought, wow, Faye, what are you doing there? So I didn't know you were kind of a partnership director of Manchester and Cambridge Partners. So, firstly, that beam was a kind of joy and pride, I think, and a bit of surprise in my eyes. But I was delighted to see you putting kind of Grady through his paces. And I thought, and I enjoyed that. And he mentioned he was more terrified about being in front of you than he was being in front of the Parliamentary Select Committee. The thing is, I think he knows and can prepare for his aides and his team can prepare him for the Parliamentary Select Committee. But with you, he's got no idea what you can ask him. So I think he was absolutely terrified. But it was a, it was a great double actor. And Sean, obviously.

04:53

Prashant Shah

Yeah.

04:53

Faye Holland

And it wasn't. Honestly, listeners, it really wasn't that bad. You're not gonna do me any favors here for getting guests on the podcast if you're, you're suggesting it's a terrifying experience being interviewed by me. Anyway, so the partnership, I can't believe that you've missed the fact that's My job, I've been doing it now for nearly three months. But it was. We've kind of come out of now that getting everything set up mode and starting to talk about things. So it was great to like you talk to investors, officials, you know we talked to Sean, Caroline Simpson from Greater Manchester Combined Authority Merpole Bristow as well. So yeah, that was really good. It was my first outing to UK Reef which was definitely a little bit of an experience. But I walked in and I'm like, I don't know, I'm not gonna know anybody here.

05:46

Faye Holland

I walked into this massive Royal Armouries section of Leeds and immediately Richard Broadbent went Fay Holland. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding. This is like. It's totally ridiculous, isn't it?

05:59

Prashant Shah

It's home from home. It's uncanny how we all travel from all over the country and we kind of all seem to know each other and especially in the Cambridge and Peterborough pavilion and the other one that's home from home is the Oxford Cambridge Pavilion and most of us from Cambridge kind of oscillate between the two and it's very intimate gathering of really interesting people who are doing very relevant work and you can have really meaningful conversations about your day to day activities and have three or four of you there all at once, all the key decision makers. So I think it's a brilliant conference and I like what you're doing with a Cambridge Manchester Partnership. You know, historically we've always looked south to London primarily and we're beginning to look west now with East West Rail to Oxford and through the arc.

06:49

Prashant Shah

We've never really looked north too much. So I think this is a great way to kind of address that gap. And you've got some great people involved in this partnership that's got a lot of energy.

06:59

Faye Holland

Well, when we do eventually get onto the episode of Cambridge Wide open week, then maybe we should have that conversation about it expanding up north as well.

07:08

Prashant Shah

Yeah, well we definitely got one eye. There's momentum for doing this in Manchester and there's definitely been conversations around extending SEAW to Manchester. What a thought.

07:21

Faye Holland

Yeah, yeah, indeed. Full domination. But let's come back to that. So I believe that UK REEF wasn't your only outing. Last week you phoned yourself in London at a Singapore trade event, I believe.

07:34

Prashant Shah

Yeah, I was chit chatting to some people from the British Chambers of Commerce and they're doing a joint program with Singapore and the UK government and George Freeman was there as a special envoy and they're Doing some really interesting work to bring together the two life science communities. And I ran into Charlotte and I was chit chatting with her and she goes, faye's my chair. I said, which Fae is your chair? She goes, faye Holland. I go, are you sure? This is the second time in the week that you've surprised me with a new position and I had to kind of check your LinkedIn profile to. To check this as it wasn't a joke. Actually, I actually did that because I was just so surprised that you were chair of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce and I didn't know about this either.

08:27

Faye Holland

We need a proper catch up, Prashant. I mean, you just. There's so many things that I've just got to update you on here, I.

08:33

Prashant Shah

Think, but you're mounting a takeover of some sort. I think you're getting involved in everything. This is brilliant. Well, it's good because I know you well, so hopefully this will be. I'll follow in your glorious slipstream.

08:47

Faye Holland

We all work together, don't we, like you just said, which is great. But actually it was quite a big week for the British Chambers as well. I went with Charlotte to the House of Lords for the BCC President's lunch. So Andy Haldane, who's the new President, held this lovely lunch. We were there with Michael Heyman, the new chair, Siobhan Havilland. All the chairs and CEOs of 51 national chambers were there and quite a lot the international chambers too. So that was a pretty significant event. And actually the message was really interesting from it. It was about resolute optimism about UK plc, but with a very firm call for businesses not to have a duvet day, but to step up and lead.

09:35

Faye Holland

And I think going back to what you're doing with cy, what we're doing in the partnership, that's very much the kind of momentum that I think we need because, you know, the level of perma pressure that's out there is not going to change. So I think we've just got to crack on, haven't we?

09:53

Prashant Shah

I think that's right. I think we've actually got cause for optimism because the reason probably why I'm not sure about all these amazing things that you've been recently doing and have added to your work, is that I've been out and about in Boston, New York, Paris, Bombay, Ahmedabad, in Davos as well over these last few months in San Diego. So I've got a real good sense of what's kind of going on in the life science scene and looking at the macroeconomic picture, we're seeing, I think, encouragement on a number of fronts across the life sciences industry, but primarily the IPO market is opening up for biotech and the aftermarket is looking healthier. We're seeing a lot more M and A deals happening and bigger ones happening.

10:40

Prashant Shah

So a lot of the GLP cash is beginning to filter through into new deals, bigger deals, more research, more development work. So that's encouraging. I think. We're also beginning to see a very strong effect of AI. So we're seeing cost efficiencies coming in, things happening more quickly and that potentially means more medicines at lower cost and inexorably cost of doing drug research has been going up. This is one way in which we can reverse that. And if you look at the explosion of different modalities, which are all maturing, where you're working across genetics, RNA protein degradation and a lot of stuff happening in antibody drug conjugates, peptides, a lot of new ways of doing things and some of these even in combination.

11:27

Prashant Shah

There's lots of places in which you can invest in life sciences and a lot of people are beginning to come back to life sciences. So I'm seeing some encouragement. It's not all plain sailing. There's some bad news out there too, but increasingly I'm seeing that the good news is beginning to outweigh the bad news. And it really does feel as if we've got some momentum coming into the summer in the life science sector.

11:50

Faye Holland

Yeah, that's really good to hear. I know certainly we take the news feed from our friends at Business Weekly every week and there's always something going on life sciences and biotech, but like you say, some of it is not always that positive. I mean, we had last week, Bitbio had been bought out of administration for £160,000. You know, that in itself was quite a shock, I think, for a lot of people that whole journey.

12:20

Prashant Shah

Well, Bitbuy has been a star of our economy, the Cambridge economy, for some years. And when you look at the technology and what it does, it kind of actually an engineering biology plane, which you actually reprogram the cells to do a different activity. I mean, it's just kind of mind blowing. And I've seen Mark Cotter present it's literally mind blowing. So I'm glad to see that it's going to have a second lease. He's a brilliant entrepreneur and sometimes it's about timing and getting the right opportunities and hopefully there'll be a Strong second lease of life for the incredible work that has gone on there.

13:00

Faye Holland

Yeah. And I think if we, you know, you just said you spent some time over in the us actually, that could be the best learning for bitbio as they move forward. So it's not always bad news, it's another opportunity, isn't it?

13:14

Prashant Shah

Yeah, well, drug discovery is truly a global game and as I've been out and about on the planet over the last few months, I've run into people from Cambridge in every corner of the planet doing things and it is truly global and a lot of the conversations with the community about how much more we need to do to build those global connections. So yes, Cambridge is looking to oxcam, London, Manchester, but increasingly look at what the work of Tony and one nucleus building that bridge to Boston, for example, or the work we did in showcasing JP Morgan. And a lot of the Cambridge community came together to showcase the best Companies at the J.P. morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.

14:01

Faye Holland

Yep. Okay, so let's move on. I'm going to see how good you are at reading the news now, Prashant, because you're literally taking the full roll here. So we've got three pieces of news and because I'm such a charitable lovely person, I'm giving you two. So do you want to take us away with the first piece of news?

14:23

Prashant Shah

Well, the first bit of news is another delightful bit of news from the science parks in Cambridge and the work of Jamie and Jane who I ran into last week. They were cock a hoop at the expansion of the Cambridge Science park and Trinity College, who have been doing that work, were really delighted to announce almost kind of threefold extension of the UK's most important and first science park. And there'll be 20,000 new jobs coming there and they're going vertical a little bit more and they're making their car park more efficient and they're expanding a little bit as well. But what a great opportunity for next generation of innovation to come to this amazing science park.

15:10

Faye Holland

Yeah, and I think it's a 30 year plan, isn't it? So they're jumping from seven and a half thousand to 20,000 over that 30 year plan. So it's going to be really exciting to see that unfold. So I'll do a piece of news as well. This is from Circuit Hub, an American business whose R and D team is based in Cambridge. They've raised $28 million in a round led by Plural to help onshore electronics manufacturing in the west and make it as fast and accessible as software. Circuit Hub produces electronics in days rather than months thanks to its first of a kind automated manufacturing system.

15:47

Faye Holland

And it's already delivered over 2 million boards across sectors, including self driving cars and satellites, and has become the fastest growing electronics manufacturer in the U.S. the company has suggested that the new funding will lead to more factories being built across Europe and growing its engineering team on both sides of the Atlantic. And just so people know, because it is a US company, they have around 20 people in Cambridge, but they're looking at hiring around another hundred roles in R and D over the next couple of years. So there's some good opportunities there for people looking for, you know, that kind of employment in Cambridge.

16:31

Prashant Shah

That's very welcome news. Inward investment from high tech companies. Most welcome. And I don't know if you know about dandelions, but this one's about dandelions. Faye. Absolutely fascinating. Engineered dandelions. Cubatech and Norfolk Biotech is developing a sustainable natural rubber, especially from engineered dandelions. Engineered dandelions, Faye, can you believe that? As a new way of generating sustainable rubber. I had to read that three times to be sure I got that correct. They've raised 3.4 million in combination grant and equity funding and they're accelerating development of its engineering biology platform and scale commercial operations in the uk. The funding is from the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund managed by Future Planet. And I know Oliver and he was very excited about that. I ran into him yesterday at the BIA and the Sustainable Ventures Fund and both of them are backing CUBATECH's engineering biology platform.

17:32

Prashant Shah

And they've got deep expertise in plant biology, genome editing and transformative technologies which hope will move their lab to commercial reality.

17:42

Faye Holland

Bravo. And I love the extra addition of a few name drops and meetings that you've had in there as well. So it's great. Puts a bit of substance on it. So let's get on with today's episode now because actually, although this has been a wonderful chat and update with you, we've actually got you on here for a reason, not just to replace James for an episode. What we wanted to do was talk to you about Cambridge Wide Open Week, which is now fast approaching. So let's start with the basics. First of all, when is it taking place?

18:20

Prashant Shah

It's spread over two weeks now and it's in June and we're starting in Oxford this year on June 11th. On June 12th, Friday we're in London and then we're in Cambridge from June 15th to 19th so you've kind of.

18:39

Faye Holland

Gone the other way. A lot of these tech weeks and week activities tend to end up being like actually three or four days, not even an entire week. And now you're making a week last for two weeks.

18:51

Prashant Shah

Well, we've really enjoyed being a week of life sciences at the Home of Life Sciences last year and it felt kind of in line with our conversation earlier about connectivity to different ecosystems, innovation ecosystems in the UK and beyond that. But it felt natural to kind of add Oxford and London to what were doing. And there's amazing innovation happening there. Of course there is. And our Life Sciences week in Cambridge, Oxford and London are very much part of that extended story of how life science operates and works. It's a very joined up ecosystem.

19:28

Faye Holland

Yeah. So what's going to happen? Is it the same format in Oxford and London?

19:32

Prashant Shah

We're picking out one part of what were doing in Cambridge, which was the Venture Tour. This is where we get the most prominent local venture funds to showcase their best companies. And we hop around different bits of the city and see what's going on. And we start with a breakfast, entail it with a reception. So that's the format which we're taking from the Cambridge Venture Tour and rolling that into London and Oxford. And we're at some amazing venues in London like the London Stock Exchange and the Francis Crick and Victoria House and similarly in Oxford where we've got some great venues, some iconic venues in and around the city and the most important funds in Oxford as well, which are supporting innovation and their leading companies. So they'll be really looking forward to it.

20:22

Faye Holland

So have you got any names that you can drop in those sessions? Prashant, just to help put a bit of context in. So the format is it'll be one of the venture funds and three or four of the companies presenting something like that.

20:36

Prashant Shah

That's correct. And then an opportunity for venture capitalists and then ecosystem operators to come in and we even allow a few space for members of the public to join in as well. It's about being open to all sections of the community and for people to see what's going on and experience the excitement of life sciences. But in terms of the Oxford Day, we've got Oxford Science Enterprises, Oxford University Innovation, Longwall Ventures, Oxford Technology Management, Oxford Venture Angels. We've got the hardcore ecosystem of Oxford coming together to support. Well, it's called Cambridge Wide Open Week, but we now kind of beginning to call it Combined Ways of Working. And that's more of the kind of energy that we want to bring to the week.

21:23

Faye Holland

So you're then going to run that same format in Cambridge. Is that over the Monday and Tuesday?

21:30

Prashant Shah

Yeah, we've got two days in Cambridge for the venture tour across Monday and Tuesday. That's correct.

21:36

Faye Holland

I take it you've got the same type of support from the venture funds in Cambridge as you have had last year?

21:43

Prashant Shah

That's right. We've got Amadeus, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Cambridge Angels park walk, Cambridge Enterprise, O2H Ventures, Meltwich, the Cambridge Judge, Babraham and various others are all getting in behind the venture tour. So everyone who was in it last year is coming again and we've got one or two good additions as well.

22:00

Faye Holland

Yeah. And it really is just for listeners who haven't attended. You could literally sit there all day and have your mind completely blown by all of these startups and emerging ideas coming through, can't you?

22:13

Prashant Shah

Absolutely. And we've got Cancer Research Horizons is also joining the gang of investors here and they're doing some incredible work and I've got some incredible portfolio companies which we're happy to hear about the latest research that they're working on in Cancer Research Horizons.

22:30

Faye Holland

Okay, so I'm going to deliberately ignore Wednesday and come back to that. So what else is happening on Thursday and Friday?

22:37

Prashant Shah

On Thursday we've got the BIA Tech Bio X. So they're bringing their panel and insights about what's going on in Tech Bio. We're doing it at the Discovery center and then AstraZeneca have their signature exchange program in there in which we get to understand some of the latest research from their lead scientists in terms of AstraZeneca. And they're also bringing in some interesting people from the community and debating the future of science in Cambridge and beyond that. So that's really always a very exciting day on the Thursday that's all happening at the AstraZeneca this.

23:16

Faye Holland

Yeah. And just as a heads up, Prashant, so that you don't get shocked again, the AstraZeneca event's also running a session on innovation ecosystems and I will be on the stage talking for the partnership. Just, I'm just giving you a heads up. So, you know, I'm going to be there.

23:30

Prashant Shah

You're everywhere, Faye. So I'm not now. I'm not surprised.

23:33

Faye Holland

Funny, funny. So let's get back to Cambridge. Wide Open Day. I mean, that is a highlight, that one single day bringing together everybody and you know, entirely across the community as well, not just them, life sciences, biotech, space. So tell us what's going on across Cambridge on the Wednesday. And also what's happening at Hauxton House?

23:57

Prashant Shah

Well, we've got an amazing array of speakers and venues at Granta Park. We've got Wolf Reich, who's from Altos Labs, and if you never heard him speak about science, aging, he's extremely charismatic. At Oxen House, we've kind of got talks by Foremost at Union Campus. Welcome Campus are all joining in. Stevenage Biocatalyst, we've got Pete Freeman, We've got a venture tour at Merlin Place. The Female Founders Network is coming in. We've got Deborah Prentice from the Cambridge University. We've got Julian Tett, who's a beautifully enigmatic speaker. We've got Harriet Fear doing her talk, an interview session on a punt at Hawkeston House. We've got a giant garden party as which is open to all, so we enjoy hosting that. The mayor will be dropping in as well. We've got a tour at Babraham by Louise Jopling.

25:01

Prashant Shah

There's so much going on and everything is going to be on the website. We're going to have a digital calendar as well and a digital PDF to make it easier to navigate. So we're beginning to kind of post all that on the website. If you're registered, you'll get those details automatically. You can also register and hear the updates of what's coming up on LinkedIn. Cambridge wide open Week.

25:26

Faye Holland

Perfect. So I'm now going to do a scoop, right? So James won't be happy that I'm actually announcing this without him, but I remember year one, I got in the car with Tabitha Goldstob, who was then Innovate Cambridge director, and she wanted to know more about Cambridge. And I'm like, we're going to get in the car and drive around Cambridge and go and see all of these different things happening during Cambridge Wide Open Day. So. So this year we're going to do something different from the podcast point of view, because our main sponsor, Holden from Bury St Edmunds, they are going to actually issue us a polestar car for a day and we are going to carpool between locations, chauffeuring people around, asking them what they've found out, who they've spoken to, what they've learned, what they've heard.

26:19

Faye Holland

And so that's going to be our little bit of fun and a different way of seeing Cambridge Wide Open Week. So, two questions. Number one, what do you think to our rather random idea? And number two, will you be our first passenger?

26:36

Prashant Shah

I think your idea is Brilliant. And I hope it catches on of car pooling in funky vehicles with cool people and then showcasing and then highlighting what's going on. I think that's exactly the kind of vibe that we're looking for. I would be delighted to be your first passenger and to help join in some of the energy of Seawow because it is wonderful seeing people crisscross the city and walking across the street and saying, oh, I've just been here. Are you going there? Hello. You know, Cambridge suddenly has this open house vibe for Life Sciences during the day, so I really do enjoy the buzz of the day.

27:11

Faye Holland

Yeah, well, I will be at the breakfast with you, so I will frog march you out and get you in the car and then we can find out how things are going. So you just mentioned everything's online so people can just go to the website and register.

27:26

Prashant Shah

That's correct. And I really want to highlight some of our sponsors as well, if I may. Donna from Mills and Reeve has been astonishing from the very beginning. They've been title sponsors all the way through. We've also got John Kelty as premier sponsors and Amrajit from Appleyard. They've been really key, I would say cofinitive. A Cambridge management consultant, obviously yourselves. Cambridge tech podcast. Lorna has been really helpful, has joined in the gang this year. Laura Zyme for PR and media communications. We've got Deloitte and Innovate. Cambridge for venues and space, the Crick Osc inventor Victoria House and so on. But I really want to also thank you, Faye.

28:08

Prashant Shah

You have, from the very first moment we had the idea, you reached out and you've been the first person who gave me the confidence that this could be something and you got involved, you shaped it, you didn't ask for anything. You are just such a genuine behind the scenes but really effective supporter to myself and Ajit as were shaping the very first version of this on every front. And you're absolutely on it. So I can't thank you enough. It's got your hallmarks and your energy in this. I thank you so much.

28:42

Faye Holland

Bless you. Thank you. That's very sweet of you. And I reiterate the shout out to the O2H team. The work that they put in to this event is absolutely incredible each and every year, so well done.

28:55

Prashant Shah

Can I also say I'm kind of here doing this podcast. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to talk about Cambridge Wide Open Week, but this year, more than the other years, if I were to slight aside, if you look at a lot of products these days and you pick up anything from your desk. On the reverse of it says made in China. But this Cambridge Wide Open Week has largely been made by Ajit sitting india and the team there. So just as a little aside, this Cambridge Wide Open Week, Made india with Ajit and a bit of French Francois. Yeah. But this is the engine room of who's been doing the work and pulling it all together and coordinating everything with all the venues and all the speakers and all the sponsors and so on.

29:43

Prashant Shah

So thank you very much to Ajit and his team and his events and marketing team have done a really good job and have allowed me to do a number of other things as well and not only work on Cambridge Wide Open Week.

29:57

Faye Holland

Yeah, bravo. And what I would suggest to listeners is follow on LinkedIn as well, because all of the updates all happen over LinkedIn. So, you know, get yourself some tickets, make sure you take part. Honestly, it's just some of the best time that you're going to spend in June. So, Prashant, thanks very much. You've been such a good sport today doing the updates and the news read and telling us all about Cambridge Wide Open Week or combined ways of working. So. So thank you so much and I'll see you soon. No doubt, no doubt.

30:29

Prashant Shah

I'm going to run into you soon by design and also by accident quite a bit over the next few days.

30:35

Faye Holland

Excellent.

30:35

Prashant Shah

Thanks so much, Faye. Take care.

30:42

Voiceover

Today's show was produced by Carl Homer of Cambridge TV and supported by our media partner, Business Weekly. The Cambridge Tech Podcast is available on all major podcast platforms and on cambridgetechpodcast.com. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please give it a five star review. It'll really help others discover the show.

Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/

To listen and subscribe, search for ‘Cambridge Tech Podcast’ on your favourite podcasting platform or visit cambridgetechpodcast.com.