William Tunstall-Pedoe founded Evi (formerly True Knowledge), a Cambridge-based Artificial Intelligence technology business that makes the Evi product. The vision for the business was a world where people could find out any information they needed just by asking naturally for it – the computer would understand them and give them back exactly what they wanted. Founded in 2006 with the core technology and a patent application, the vision has stayed exactly the same, though the business went through multiple pivots to find success. How brilliant does a product need to be to succeed in a crowded market? How do you remain focussed on your vision through multiple pivots? Clearly Evi hit a milestone when Amazon acquired the company in 2012. William is a Cambridge University computer science graduate. Before, during and after his time in Cambridge, he has been an entrepreneur, developing AI applications and marketing them through businesses he has founded. William founded Evi in 2006 after inventing its core technology, and he subsequently lead the business through multiple financing rounds and pivots to its acquisition by Amazon in 2012. Before Evi, his products include a commercial chess-playing program, the first and only program which can solve and explain cryptic crossword clues and the AI anagram-generating software which was used by Dan Brown to create the anagrams that appeared in the Da Vinci Code book and movie. About Enterprise Tuesday: Enterprise Tuesday is a series of FREE evening lectures and networking sessions delivered by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL) which take place from November to the end of February in Cambridge. The programme aims to introduce participants to the world of business, as well as to encourage and inspire individuals to pursue their entrepreneurial ambition. It is the most popular non-assessed programme within the University and the model has been adopted by numerous other academic institutions as well as corporations. Enterprise Tuesday is open to all University of Cambridge staff and students, members of other universities and the local business community. The series is particularly relevant for postgraduate students considering future career paths, those exploring entrepreneurial opportunities and looking to build high quality networks with experts and practitioners.

Lord Karan Bilimoria started and grew the Cobra Beer in a competitive market with 400 brands. His journey was highly innovative and rapidly growing when suddenly the company hit a speed bump! He has now rebuilt the brand within a large corporate environment and, having won many prizes, the company is now gaining market share. His talk is about how to take on the Goliaths in your industry and how to deal with the daily challenges while holding on to your vision and values.

Professor Stelios Kavadias is deeply interested in innovation and growth. He employed his academic and practical insights to interview a panel of entrepreneurs and senior managers (Denis Kaminskiy, CEO of Arcus Global; Emma Ratzer, CEO of Access Community Trust; Jane Dancer, COO of F-star) about how they managed the cross over from having ideas to creating early stage ventures and growing their respective businesses. It is all very well to have ideas and to start a business but how do you sustain the spirit of entrepreneurship through the difficult period of growth when things become more process driven and what processes do you need? Enterprise Tuesday is a series of FREE evening lectures and networking sessions delivered by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL) which take place from November to the end of February in Cambridge. The programme aims to introduce participants to the world of business, as well as to encourage and inspire individuals to pursue their entrepreneurial ambition. It is the most popular non-assessed programme within the University and the model has been adopted by numerous other academic institutions as well as corporations. Enterprise Tuesday is open to all University of Cambridge staff and students, members of other universities and the local business community. The series is particularly relevant for postgraduate students considering future career paths, those exploring entrepreneurial opportunities and looking to build high quality networks with experts and practitioners.

Prof Andy Hopper CBE FRS FREng FIET is the co-founder of over a dozen hugely successful businesses and Dr Hermann Hauser CBE FRS FREng is a serial entrepreneur and leading venture capitalist in the tech sector who has founded and invested in over 60 businesses. Both have very deep experience - from computing, microprocessors and physics - of helping to create businesses based on deep science. They know where the bear traps are that can halt progress, derail the vision and ambition. They also know when and where to find people and money to meet customer needs. Chaired by Dr Shai Vyakarnam, CfEL Director, this talk took place during the 2014/2015 Enterprise Tuesday series. Enterprise Tuesday is a series of FREE evening lectures and networking sessions delivered by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL) which take place from November to the end of February each year in Cambridge. The programme aims to introduce participants to the world of business, as well as to encourage and inspire individuals to pursue their entrepreneurial ambition. It is the most popular non-assessed programme within the University and the model has been adopted by numerous other academic institutions as well as corporations. Enterprise Tuesday is open to all University of Cambridge staff and students, members of other universities and the local business community. The series is particularly relevant for postgraduate students considering future career paths, those exploring entrepreneurial opportunities and looking to build high quality networks with experts and practitioners.

Many new ventures never use venture capital. So how do they get the money to start and grow their business? The answer lies with the customers. Michael Dell, Bill Gates and Banana Republic′s Mel and Patricia Ziegler all used customers to develop their iconic companies. In this session, Dr John Mullins talks about his pragmatic thinking on business and what entrepreneurs need in the early stages of a venture. John is one of the foremost business academics and practitioners in the field of entrepreneurship. He has 20 years of executive experience in high-growth retailing firms including two ventures he founded and one he took public. John's first trade book, The New Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Executives Should Do Before Launching a Lean Start-Up (now 4e, London: Prentice-Hall/FT 2013), has become the definitive work on the assessment and shaping of entrepreneurial opportunities and is widely used by investors and entrepreneurs and in university courses worldwide. About John Mullins: John Mullins is an Associate Professor of Management Practice at London Business School. He earned his MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and his PhD at the University of Minnesota. An award-winning teacher and scholar, John brings to his teaching and research 20 years of executive experience in high-growth retailing firms including two ventures he founded and one he took public. Since becoming an entrepreneurship professor in 1992, John has published four books, numerous cases and more than 40 articles in a variety of outlets, including Harvard Business Review, the MIT Sloan Management Review, and The Wall Street Journal. His research has won national and international awards from the Marketing Science Institute, the American Marketing Association, and the Richard D. Irwin Foundation. He is a frequent speaker to audiences in entrepreneurship and venture capital. John's first trade book, The New Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Executives Should Do Before Launching a Lean Start-Up (now 4e, London: Prentice-Hall/FT 2013), has become the definitive work on the assessment and shaping of entrepreneurial opportunities and is widely used by investors and entrepreneurs and in university courses worldwide. His second book, the critically acclaimed Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model (Boston: Harvard Business Press 2009), co-authored with Randy Komisar, a partner at the esteemed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, was named to "Best Books of 2009" lists by BusinessWeek and INC Magazine. John's newest book, The Customer-Funded Business: Start, Finance or Grow Your Business with Your Customers' Cash, was published by Wiley in August 2014. John has done executive education on five continents for a variety of organisations both large and small, including the Young Presidents Organization, Endeavor, the Entrepreneurs' Organization, Kenya Airways, Merck-Serono, the European and African Venture Capital Associations, and the IFC, among numerous others. He has served on the boards of fast-growing entrepreneurial companies in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia. About Enterprise Tuesday: Enterprise Tuesday is a series of FREE evening lectures and networking sessions delivered by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL) which take place from November to the end of February in Cambridge. The programme aims to introduce participants to the world of business, as well as to encourage and inspire individuals to pursue their entrepreneurial ambition. It is the most popular non-assessed programme within the University and the model has been adopted by numerous other academic institutions as well as corporations. Enterprise Tuesday is open to all University of Cambridge staff and students, members of other universities and the local business community. The series is particularly relevant for postgraduate students considering future career paths, those exploring entrepreneurial opportunities and looking to build high quality networks with experts and practitioners.

Dr David Cleevely knows a thing or two about building businesses. A serial entrepreneur and investor, he has worked at the heart of the Cambridge Cluster on numerous ventures including telecoms consultancy Analysys, web based antibody company Abcam (ABC.L); and G femto base station company, 3WayNetworks. Abcam, which he co-founded in 1998 and was Chairman of until 2009, currently has a $1.5bn valuation - not bad for a company that starting selling antibodies door-to-door on a bike! David is the guest speaker at the launch session of the 2014/15 Enterprise Tuesday series on 4 November at the University of Cambridge's Department of Engineering. He will focus on telling the Abcam story but also look at other billion dollar companies that have come out of Cambridge. It's a good opportunity for those working in or contemplating a future in entrepreneurship to learn more about growing successful businesses. Read more about David Cleevely » http://www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/enterprisetuesday/programme/speakers/cleevelyd.html Find out more about Abcam » http://www.abcam.com/ Without passion you cannot succeed! Listen to this podcast with Dr David Cleevely » http://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1122496 Recognising opportunities … Watch video of Dr David Cleevely and Dr Andy Richards here » http://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/726139 Enterprise Tuesday is a series of FREE evening lectures and networking sessions delivered by the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL) which take place from November to the end of February in Cambridge. The programme aims to introduce participants to the world of business, as well as to encourage and inspire individuals to pursue their entrepreneurial ambition. It is the most popular non-assessed programme within the University and the model has been adopted by numerous other academic institutions as well as corporations. Enterprise Tuesday is open to all University of Cambridge staff and students, members of other universities and the local business community. The series is particularly relevant for postgraduate students considering future career paths, those exploring entrepreneurial opportunities and looking to build high quality networks with experts and practitioners. Find out more about Enterprise Tuesday at http://www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/enterprisetuesday/index.html

Sarah Coleman's biography: Sarah works across the UK and internationally as a business consultant and coach. She specialises in high growth businesses across a range of industry sectors, helping develop capability and capacity to meet her clients' growth ambitions and translating strategy into real, sustainable organisational performance improvement. She also has a particular passion for developing the next generation of business leaders. Sarah's background is in Information & Telecommunications Technology (ICT) working with global corporates and leading multi-million pound high profile and complex ICT programmes. She is also a qualified and experienced project and programme manager. Throughout her career, she has worked with medium and large sized national and international organisations in the engineering, financial services, insurance, health, telecommunications, computing, media, food & drink and professional services sectors. Sarah holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management and is Visiting Senior Fellow at Lincoln University (Organisational Strategy & Business Growth). She is also a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management. She holds a number of executive and non-executive director appointments in a range of sectors and is a guest lecturer for various MBA programmes, a guest speaker at events and conferences, facilitator, blogger and contributor to various books and publications.

Biography of Dr Neil Stott Neil Stott is Chief Executive of Keystone Development Trust. Keystone is one of the largest development trusts in the country delivering, community development, social enterprises and property development. Previously Neil was Head of Community Development at Canterbury City Council, Principal Officer (Community) at Cambridge City Council and a youth and community worker for a number of children's charities including Mencap, Elfrida Rathbone and Contact-a-Family in London. Neil graduated from Bradford University with a BA (Hons) in Peace Studies (1983). More recently Neil completed a Post-Graduate Certificate in Sociology at Anglia Ruskin University in 2003, a Masters in Community Enterprise at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School in 2005 and a Doctorate in Professional Studies at Middlesex University (2012). Neil is a Senior Associate of Locality's consultancy. Neil is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), Senior Fellow of the Institute of Place Management (SFIPM) and Visiting Fellow of Anglia Ruskin University. Neil has contributed to numerous policy and academic publications as well as mentoring and lecturing at Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Cambridge.

Dr Shima Barakat, Research & Teaching Fellow in Enterprise at the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL), Cambridge Judge Business School, features in a Cambridge book The Meaning of Success and on the accompanying website at http://www.cam.ac.uk/women-at-cambridge, speaking about her career and philosophy of success. The book brings together the stories of women from across the University of Cambridge and examines what success means to them as they share the individual life journeys that have led them to Cambridge. In interviews with twenty-six women connected with the University, along with contributions from a hundred more, it makes a compelling case for a more inclusive definition of success. The Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz said: “By exploring these inspirational stories, this book reminds the reader that talent and excellence can be found across the University and in every walk of life. It provides an opportunity to reflect on how success is recognised and rewarded, giving us scope to redefine and extend the qualities and attributes we associate with being successful.” In this podcast interview, Shima talks about her own experiences as a women engineer and academic as well as her research specifically into women in entrepreneurship. She cites the importance of encouraging women to be more enterprising and to overcome traditional challenges as a result of gender dynamics. Shima has direct experience as a woman engineer of workplace chauvinism and prejudice but has always sought to challenge and change attitudes and practices. As a young engineer working on the construction of the Cairo Metro with 400 men, she was given a key to a toilet that was three streets away. So, she commandeered the onsite men’s toilet when needed putting up a sign stating ‘occupied for feminine use’. In her academic work, she has found evidence showing that a founding team or company board with a better gender balance tends to use 30% less resources, return 12% more and fair better in times of adversity. There’s also evidence of women doing things differently and that this diversity can be beneficial to the organization. And yet there are very few women on company boards and a shortage of women in senior positions in academia. Shima advocates a review of structural and organizational issues that break down stereotypes and forge new pathways for success both in companies and academia.

Biographies of the speakers: Chair: John Snyder, CEO Grapeshot and CfEL Entrepreneur in Residence Currently John is CEO of the new generation search software company Grapeshot, with offices in Cambridge and London. In 1992, he and Dr Martin Porter spun out the Muscat search technology from the University and as CEO, John built Muscat into a profitable enterprise software business servicing international clients including Reuters, Nokia, the BBC and the Telegraph. Muscat was sold to Dialog in 1997 with John continuing as its chairman and launching Webtop, a new subsidiary of Dialog. He was a founder member of Cambridge Angels, and a founder Director of Enterprise Accelerator, which partnered with NESTA and the DTI to accelerate start-ups. He was also a board member of the East of England Development Agency for five years until 2008. Speaker: Glenn Collinson Co-Founder and former Director of CSR Plc and Co-Founder of Neul Ltd In 1998 Glenn Collinson co-founded Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR Plc) as a start-up project and was a member of the board of directors that managed the growth of CSR through its listing as a public company in 2004 and up until 2007, serving first as marketing director and then as sales director. Prior to CSR, Glenn held positions including senior engineer and then marketing manager at Cambridge Consultants Ltd from 1996 to 1998 and held positions as a design engineer and marketing manager at Texas Instruments Ltd and GmbH from 1989 to 1996. He also worked as a design engineer for Motorola UK Ltd and Racal Research Ltd from 1985 to 1989. Speaker: Joep van Beurden: Chief Executive Officer, CSR Plc Joep van Beurden, Chief Executive Officer, was appointed Chief Executive Officer on 1 November 2007. He has over 15 years of experience in managing technology companies in the US and Europe. Prior to joining CSR, Mr van Beurden was Chief Executive of NexWave Inc., a provider of embedded software solutions for the consumer electronics market based in France. Prior to joining CSR, Mr van Beurden was Chief Executive of NexWave Inc., a provider of embedded software solutions for the consumer electronics market based in France. Before joining NexWave, Mr van Beurden held senior positions at Canesta Inc., a fabless semiconductor company in San Jose, California and Philips Components also in San Jose.

The Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL) talked to Dr Helen Lee, Director of Research, Department of Haematology, University of Cambridge and Founder Diagnostics for the Real World about her very considerable experiences in diagnostics, founding companies, and the need to develop usable products for people in the developing world. Helen received her PhD from Cornell University and MSc from Oxford University. After post-doctoral training at Churchill Hospital in Oxford, the University of Geneva and St Louis Hospital in Paris, she began her career in diagnostics at the Centre National de Transfusion Sanguine in Paris where she was responsible for developing monoclonal blood typing reagents, the first widely used liquid blood typing reagents in Paris. Another major accomplishment of her group was one of the first monoclonal antibody based assays for hepatitis B surface antigen, which was subsequently licensed to the Pasteur Institute as the MONLISA HBsAg assay and is still on the market today. She then joined Abbott Laboratories to be responsible for Research & Development, and was promoted to General Manager of the Probe Diagnostics Business Unit where she managed over 100 people and an annual budget of >$20 million. She was also responsible for production of instruments as well as chemistry, marketing, quality and regulatory affairs of the product line. After leaving Abbott she founded a biotech company, Sentinel Biosciences Inc. in Palo Alto, CA, developing technologies for virus discovery. The company was successfully sold to one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. In 1996, she left industry for the University of Cambridge in order to focus on the development of technology and diagnostic assay for resource-poor settings. To commercialise the technologies developed at Cambridge, she founded the spin off company, Diagnostics for the Real World Ltd (DRW), in 2002. Awards: Dr Lee chaired the Diagnostic Steering Committee at the World Health Organization (WHO). She is the recipient of the 2005 Lord Lloyd Kilgerran Award, the 2006 British Female Inventor in Industry Award, the 2006 European Women of Achievement Award and the 2007 Asian Women of Achievement Award (presentation as pdf). The products and technologies developed by DDU scientists received the Medical Futures Innovation Award (UK) for its innovative sample collection device and more recently, the 2007 Tech Museum Innovation Award (US) for innovation in the Health Category, in recognition of the Signal Amplification technology, which greatly improves the sensitivity of rapid test for the detection of infectious diseases (see video interview) (hear audio interview). The unit has filed 12 families of patent applications, with 20 granted or allowed national patents, detailing inventions that improve the performance of rapid diagnostic test.