Several of us from the Applied Optics Group made the short trip to Discovery Park in Sandwich, East Kent, on 27th February for a Joint Innovation Showcase. The event was organised in collaboration with the Impact Accelerator Accounts (IAAs) that the University holds from both the MRC and BBSRC funding bodies. I’ve had some funding from both of the accounts, and so I offered to give a short talk.
Discovery Park sits on the site of the former huge Pfizer complex, just outside the small town of Sandwich. With Pfizer now gone, it’s become an enterprize zone and the home of a large number of start-ups and small companies, mostly in the biomedical sector. It’s only a 25 minute drive from Canterbury, although historically slightly harder to reach by public transport as getting to Sandwich station requires a long detour via Dover. But the recently opened Thanet Parkway Station and a bookable shuttle bus service has improved the situation.
The event was very well attended, with a good mix of University and industry people. My talk focused on some of our latest work on imaging through optical fibres, including both holographic microscopy and optical coherence tomography. The audience had lots of great questions, and I made a few new contacts in the poster session and facilitated networking events later on in the day.