Entrepreneurship Conference 2020 Inspires Students, Entrepreneurs and Professionals

On Wednesday 26th February  2020 more than 65 students, professionals and entrepreneurs gathered at Henley Business School to meet successful entrepreneurs, discuss the latest trends in entrepreneurship, learn about starting a business, exchange knowledge and launch relationships and collaborations at the 2020 Entrepreneurship Conference event hosted by Reading Entrepreneurs and Henley Centre for Entrepreneurship.

The event was opened by Julia Kala, the President of Reading Entrepreneurs, Founder of Brighter Future Project and Digital Marketing Executive, followed by an opening talk delivered by Jurek Sikorski, Executive Director of Henley Centre for Entrepreneurship.  Jurek highlighted the theme of the event ‘New Business Environment – New Opportunities for Entrepreneurs’ and emphasis on an excellent opportunity to get engaged and become part of the local entrepreneurship community around the Thames Valley.

During the conference, attendees had the opportunity to listen to a variety of different talks delivered by successful local entrepreneurs:

• The ‘Beyond Start-Up’ talk was a one on one with Nick Coleman, co-founder of Snaffling Pig. Nick shared his insights into the ambition start-up companies needed to have, responding to changes, challenges and opportunities quickly to grow their business.

• Dr Mark Powell led the ‘Redefining Performance’ talk. Mark drew on his experience as a business writer, consultant and entrepreneur, getting the audience to think about the ways in which high performance could be identified and achieved in business.

• The ‘Impact of Technology’ panel generated some lively discussions on how new technologies are transforming the business landscape and opening up new horizons. The panel consisted of Rhian Burrel, Director & Head of Strategy at Osokey, Toju Raine, Special Projects Lead at KYMIRA, Weerada Sucharitkul, CEO of FilmDoo, and Brian Heinen, founder of Blockchain in Europe. It was chaired by Jurek, who outlined eight technology trends that all businesses should be paying attention to artificial intelligence, the 5G mobile network, autonomous driving, personalised medicine, computer vision, extended reality, graphene, and blockchain.

• Another panel was held on ‘Applications of Artificial Intelligence’. This panel featured Sara El-Hanfy, Innovation Lead for Machine Learning and Data at Innovate UK, David Snelling, Program Director of Artificial Intelligence at Fujitsu, Charlie Robinson, Head of Startup Programmes at PwC UK, and Tim Ebenezer, Chief Digital Officer at Foundation SP.

• The final talk was led by Ross Murphy, Investment Associate at SEEDRS. Ross’ talk was on the topic of ‘Crowdfunding 101’ and he broke down the key steps that any business considering crowdfunding should consider.

• The event was concluded by keynote speaker Yasmina Siadatan, a past winner of the BBC TV series The Apprentice. Yasmina shared her journey after winning The Apprentice and what plans she has for her career in the future.

The 2020 Entrepreneurship Conference was both a practical and a scholarly event featuring speakers sharing their experience of entrepreneurship with a focus on the future, the role of technology, and the benefits for society, economy, and the environment. Besides, each talk and panel were open to attendees for questions that stroked up conversations that explored these topics after the session. The event has been highlighted with a networking session at the end which allowed attendees to practice their networking skills and make connections with entrepreneurs’ guests from the event over food and drink.

This Conference was our flagship conference which has launched and makes this an annual event. Therefore, we would like to kindly invite everyone for our 2021 Entrepreneurship Conference. Please note further announcements with date and speakers will be released soon.

In the end, we would like to thank all the people and organisations who have contributed and collaborated with us this year in order to make this first edition a success.

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Attendees and panel members were extremely positive about their experiences of the Entrepreneurship Conference. Here is what some of them had to say:

‘It was a learning event, as well as a networking event
and It was interesting to hear from a diverse set of companies from the food industry to blockchain.’

Susan Elliot, Independent business Adviser

‘People have been really open and honest about their own journeys.’

Elena Dimova, Student at Henley Business School

‘I found it extremely rewarding on many levels to help me wrap my mind around how to improve connecting entrepreneurship and academia and to look for real solutions.’

Brian Heinen, Founder of Blockchain in Europe

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