Time: 11:00 to 12:00

"How on earth did I end up doing this?"

BT has a healthy and engaging relationship with the University of Cambridge – particularly with Pembroke College and the Cavendish Lab. Join us for this meander through Prof Mike Payne’s fascinating career when we will hear how he never intended to end up doing what he does now and find out some of the lessons he has learnt along the way.

Mike will discuss the what, how and who behind the development of his quantum mechanical simulation code CASTEP, which revolutionised this research field between 1985 and 1991. During this time the capability to make predictions of physical and chemical properties of atomistic systems rapidly advanced from two atoms of silicon to hundreds of atoms of whatever you like. This task, which would have required a billion-fold increase in compute power, was achieved with just a 100 fold increase in hardware capability.

Mike will describe the commercialisation of CASTEP and reflect on how attitudes to the exploitation of IP within academia have changed over the last thirty years. He will talk about his involvement with Cambridge Enterprise, where he advises academics about technology transfer, and explain how Pembroke College - an early adopter in industry-academic partnerships - has made its Corporate Partnership scheme a success.

Mike will close the event by briefly describing current and future work with BT on surface waves and quantum cryptography

The event will be held on Microsoft Teams.