Congratulations to Dr John Batchelor for “inspiring” industrial attendees at Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise event

More than 50 businesses across the South East now have a greater understanding of the University of Kent’s approach to innovation and enterprise and how they can collaborate with them thanks to an ICE (Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise) event held at the University of Kent’s Canterbury campus. ICE is a specialist network designed to connect local, regional, national and international businesses with the latest innovation and expertise from the University.

Hosted by Kent Innovation and Enterprise (KIE) and titled ‘Innovate for the Future’, the event showcased the University’s latest innovations and technologies to demonstrate its approach to supporting and developing projects with external partners. These included, amongst others, humanoid robots from the School of Engineering and Digital Arts.

Topics explored cyber security, and the use of radio-frequency identification (RFID), design thinking, presented by Dr John Batchelor from EDA. John’s session, entitled ‘Creative use of RFID’ outlined recent research using RFID technologies in innovative ways such as transfer tattoos and sensing food labels that could, for instance, enable food packaging to detect when the contents need consuming. Such research will help to address the pressing problem of food security and wastage. Work is funded by the EPSRC and is in collaboration with materials scientists at the University of Kent and inkjet experts at the University of Manchester.

Congratulations to John whose presentation has now been declared by industrial attendees as the most inspiring experience at the event. John wins a prize for his achievement.