One-day conference: “The power of ideas”

Caroline is CEO and founder of Elasmogen, a company that discovers and develops soloMER biologics for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and cancer. She has successfully led teams at Wyeth and Pfizer in Global Bio-therapeutic Technologies progressing early platform technologies to late-stage clinical development. She has been awarded a prestigious Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowship, is a doctoral graduate from the University of Aberdeen in Biochemistry and an MBA (distinction) from Robert Gordon’s University, Business School. Caroline is a member of the Opportunity North East Life Sciences Board, a member of the GVV board committed to investing in women’s health, a member of the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre advisory Board, sits on the Royal Society’s Science and Industry Translation Committee and an honorary Professor at Queen’s University Belfast. She also sits on the BBSRC FoF and UKRI FLF review panels and is a former Entrepreneur in Residence for Queen’s University Belfast. 

Dr Dave Hughes, a high-growth entrepreneur and physicist, has over 12 years’ experience researching ultrasound for medical, dental, and industrial applications. During his time as a Research Fellow at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), Dave invented Novosound’s core IP which led to the creation of Novosound in April 2018 – the first spin-out company to emerge from UWS. Dave Hughes has developed from an academic to a successful company director, overseeing the technical direction and vision of Novosound. Under his leadership, Novosound has grown rapidly to become an award-winning global business, working across diverse industry sectors and markets including oil & gas, aerospace, energy and medical. Dave holds a visiting professorship at UWS and was named the Institute of Directors (IoD) Scotland ‘Director of the Year 2020’ in the start-up category. Since 2018 Novosound has grown from six people to 30+. Key customers have included international energy company Uniper and, in the aerospace sector, BAE Systems and GE Aviation. More recently, Novosound has doubled revenues for the last three consecutive years and taken exciting steps in the wearable and healthcare sector with work in the dental imaging market and a digital healthcare R&D project with a Nasdaq-listed tech group. 

Following his completion of a PhD in 3D modeling and human face recognition at the University of Bradford, Eyad Elyan joined Robert Gordon University School of Computing as a lecturer in 2009. He then progressed to be a Senior Lecturer in 2015 and a Reader in 2018. In 2020, he was promoted to the rank of full Professor in Machine Learning and Computer Vision. Eyad established and heads the Interactive Machine Vision research group, dedicated to crafting intelligent, data-driven applications in Scotland and beyond.

His research is focused on applied computer vision, deep learning, and machine learning. He collaborates extensively with various industries across Scotland, actively contributing to the creation of state-of-the-art AI solutions to optimise and digitally transform their operations. With a track record encompassing over 100 publications in AI and Machine Learning, supervision of 12 successful PhD completions, and leadership on more than 30 innovative industry projects, he was recognised with the Knowledge Transfer Partnership Academic of the Year award in 2023 and as a finalist for the 2024 Scottish Knowledge Exchange Award. 

Professor Mark Parsons is the Director of EPCC, the supercomputing centre at the University of Edinburgh. EPCC is known internationally for the breadth and scale of its large-scale computing and data science activities. EPCC hosts a wide variety of large-scale computing systems including the ARCHER2 National HPC Service and the Edinburgh International Data Facility, which is designed to support AI and Data Science projects in the Edinburgh City Region. Professor Parsons is also the Technical Director of the UK Exascale Supercomputer project which will be hosted at EPCC. 

Professor Trish Connolly FREng FRSE FIET CEng has worked across Europe in the medical industry and academia, researching and developing medical devices. Her work took her to Italy where she was head of research for Byk Gulden Italia (Altana Pharma), Milan and Switzerland where she served as Technical Director for Nycomed Amersham before resettling in her native Glasgow on her appointment as Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Strathclyde. She is currently Director of the Strathcyde Institute of Medical Devices (SIMD) and the CEO of Ohmedics Ltd, a spin-out of the University formed to commercialise her work on a pioneering wound moisture monitor and other wearable diagnostic devices. She is Deputy Associate Principal for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University and co-leads the University's Healthtech Cluster.

David is an environmental scientist, entrepreneur and senior leader with over 18 years' experience in the international energy sector working in start-ups, major service companies and operators. 

Through his career David has led and delivered transformational strategies across technical and non-technical disciplines resulting in global change, innovation and new technology deployment with great success. 

Up until December 2020 he was responsible for designing and delivering the award winning TechX accelerator at the Net Zero Technology Centre (Formerly OGTC) in Aberdeen.

In December 2021 David joined the Hydro Nation Chair Research and Innovation programme where he leads the development and delivery of a unique technology support programme for exciting start-ups looking to support Scottish Water’s drive beyond Net Zero by 2040.