The Surrey Research Park News - the Surrey Research Park Extranet

The Surrey
Research Park
News
Summer 2011
In this issue:
SSTL open new
state-of-the art
technical facility
Surrey’s worldwide
reputation as a centre
for video game
development
Surrey’s International
Space Innovation
Centre launches
Tenant Companies
picking up awards and
honours for excellence
The Surrey Research Park is based in
Guildford and is owned and managed
by the University of Surrey. It houses
over 110 companies engaged in work
which pushes forward the frontiers of
science, engineering and technology.
The 70-acre (28.5 ha) site offers
highly congenial surroundings
combining attractive architecture
with beautifully landscaped areas
and lakes.
The Park is widely regarded as one
of the most successful in Europe and
several factors have combined to
achieve this:
• Flexible letting policy from
250 sq ft serviced suites on monthly
lets to 20,000 sq ft office complexes
• Excellent communications
only 30 miles from London,
road and rail links to Heathrow
and Gatwick and good links to
motorway network
• Highly-skilled labour force
• Research opportunities with the
University of Surrey, one of the
country’s leading universities
• Quality of life: the busy town
of Guildford offers an enviable
combination of first-rate
educational and recreational
facilities just minutes away from
some of the UK’s most beautiful
countryside.
For enquiries please contact:
The Surrey Research Park Office
30 Frederick Sanger Road
The Surrey Research Park
Guildford, Surrey GU2 7EF
Telephone 01483 579693
Facsimile 01483 568946
[email protected]
www.surrey-research-park.com
www.surrey.ac.uk/stc
Follow us on Twitter: @SurreyRP
The Surrey Research Park News issue no 27
is produced by the Park’s management
office. Compiled and edited by Chaz Brooks
Communications Ltd, Regent House,
12 Ward Street, Guildford, Surrey GU1 4LH.
Telephone 01483 537 890
email [email protected]
www.chazb.com
2 The Surrey Research Park News
then
and now
The Surrey Research Park
part of the University of Surrey’s 120 year long history
T
he University of Surrey is this
year celebrating 120 years of
extraordinary achievements
and sustained success within
higher education. Its origins
date back to 1891 when, as
Battersea Polytechnic Institute, it served
an important role in educating engineers
to serve the high technology industry of
its day, which was based along the south
bank of the River Thames in Battersea.
These links with the country’s economic base
have stayed with the University and, as a
result, the University decided in 1979 to
promote the development of a science park.
The idea began to come to life in 1981,
when the County Council and Borough
Council announced their support for the
idea, and the University took the bold step of
deciding to develop The Surrey Research Park
on its own, using its own resources to recruit
a Director – and then a larger team – from its
own ranks. That team is still in place today,
and continues to drive this exciting project.
The Surrey Technology Centre was initially
conceived as a bio-incubator.
The idea was then sold to Grand
Metropolitan and subsequently built as a
joint venture. The University bought out its
partner in 1986, however, and widened its
entrance criteria to the Technology Centre
to cover all technologies. This and the other
buildings on site are part of an original
Master Plan that provides space for smaller
companies to grow on site, as well as
accommodation for small-to-medium size
companies, offices for specialist parts of
larger companies, and premises for
companies looking to attract investment.
Over the last 27 years, the Park has seen the
international laboratories of Canon, Kobe
Steel, and Mitsubishi established on site, and
it has been privileged to attract a number of
highly successful entrepreneurs that include
Neil Kipling, Peter Molyneux, Dr Bruce Smith,
Dr Tom Black, and Hamish Curran, all of
whom have established companies including
IDBS, Bullfrog and Lionhead Studios, Detica,
and TMO on the site.
Top and centre left: The Surrey tradition flying high
Over 800 others companies have been
established over the years, and many have
grown and left to develop further in Guildford
and the surrounding area, while others have
been acquired for their technology by
multinationals that include Microsoft, Oracle,
SAP and Electronic Arts. The Park has also
been fortunate to attract major anchor
tenants over the years, including BOC, Hyder
and Syngenta, which has further helped to
cement the Park’s well-known status as a
centre of technical excellence.
In other successes, IDBS has attracted R&D
funding from the TSB, and the computer
games cluster in Guildford continues to
thrive, with an early part of its origins
beginning in the Surrey Technology Centre.
There is also a growing contribution to clean
technologies by many of the Park’s tenants.
All these achievements, although achieved
locally, are linked with international markets
and contribute to the UK’s overall economy.
It is impossible to measure how many
technological breakthroughs,
innovative designs and groundbreaking research studies have been
formed on the Park over the years, but
here are some of the major milestones:
•140 tenant companies on site that are making a significant contribution to national innovation strategies.
•The Park now contributes over £500m to the regional economy each year
•Brought in significant levels of direct foreign investment to the region by attracting nearly 25% of its occupiers from overseas.
•Founding member of the UK Science Park association formed in 1984
•One of the few UK science parks owned and managed by its host university alone
•Become through SSTL, an important part of the UK’s growing space and satellite industry (responsible for nearly 70,000 UK jobs and contributes £6 billion to the economy)
- from advanced electrical engineering at Battersea
Polytechnic circa late 1920s (from the University of
Surrey Archive) to building satellites in the SSTL clean
room. Below left: The Surrey Research Park July 2011.
Above: The Surrey Technology Centre, 1984 to 2011.
The Surrey Research Park continues to build
an endowment for the University whilst also
helping to raise its profile. However, even
more importantly, it has kept the tradition of
the University of Surrey alive by of working
with enterprises to drive innovation.
As such, The Surrey Research
Park is now firmly part of
the University’s future,
as it continues to
extend the influence
of the University of
Surrey as a leading
UK university that
has a global focus.
Dr Malcolm Parry OBE.
Director, The Surrey Research
Park, Chairman UK Science
Park Association
www.surrey-research-park.com 3
news
from Surrey
Surrey Research Park’s
International Space
Innovation Centre set to
boost UK’s space industry
A new innovation centre has opened at the Surrey Technology Centre
to provide business, technical and facilities support to the UK’s space
related industry.
T
he International Space Innovation
Centre - Surrey (ISIC-Surrey) aims
to attract £25 million worth of
investment to the industry and
the facilities enable companies to work
together on projects and build relationships
with those in similar fields. ISIC also
provides tenants with the opportunity to
network online, with a social networking
development to help them communicate
ideas with others.
The BBC’s Science Correspondent Jonathan
Amos was the Master of Ceremonies at the
ISIC-Surrey launch event. As the first spoke
of the £40 million central ISIC Hub, a space
innovation centre based at Harwell Science
Campus in Oxfordshire that launched the
same day, the event at Surrey included a
live-link to Harwell’s centre, where HRH
Duke of York unveiled the plaque.
www.isic-surrey.co.uk
Gestalt Technology
accredited as a
SAFEcontractor
Gestalt Technology, a specialist
in risk assessments, system
designs, installations, commissioning
and the diligent maintenance of security
systems, has again been accredited as
a SAFEcontractor. The SAFEcontractor
scheme is designed to review and audit the
health and safety policies, procedures and
documentation of contractors.
Gestalt Technology offers security
consultancy, risk assessment and
planning, expert installations and first-rate
maintenance routines. The company also
supplies and installs intruder alarm systems
for business use, biometric systems that
remember and recognise fingerprints or
retina scans (eye-prints), as well as many
other security-related services.
When deciding on accreditation,
SAFEcontractor’s auditors consider the
applicant’s profession, industry sector and
business size, and provide tailored safety
audits that help identify whether there is
suitable and sufficient health and safety
compliance within a business. Once the
auditing process has been successfully
completed, accredited contractors can use
the SAFEcontractor certificate as a means of
demonstrating their level of health and safety
compliance to clients and potential clients.
www.gtggestalt.co.uk
Professor Christopher Snowden, Vice-Chancellor and
Chief Executive, University of Surrey (left), Jonathan
Amos, BBC, and Sir Martin Sweeting, Chairman SSTL
4 The Surrey Research Park News
Gold-i signs new global distribution deals
G
old-i, a market leader in retail
trading systems integration, has
extended its global reach with the
appointment of two new distributors. As
such, the company will now have enhanced
sales and support facilities in the Nordic
region, Germany and Japan. Both new
distributors will be able to offer their clients
the full Gold-i portfolio.
“We are a rapidly growing company and
needed to find the right distributors to play
a key part in our global expansion,” says
Tom Higgins (pictured right), CEO of Gold-i.
“[These new partners] have the same
values as Gold-i, an in-depth understanding
of the industry, and a commitment to
offering exemplary levels of service and
support.”
Since representing The Surrey Research
Park (and being named a winner) at the
Global Entrepreneurship Competition at
HiT Barcelona last year, Gold-i’s business
has continued to grow rapidly. As part of
its expansion, the company plans to work
closely with the University of Surrey to offer
internships to undergraduates, and to forge
strong, long-term links with the university
community.
www.gold-i.com
Thomson
Ecology
doubles in size
T
homson Ecology, the UK’s biggest
ecology consultancy, began 2011
with another round of graduate
recruitment, building on two previous
rounds of graduate intakes. 11 new
graduate ecologists have joined the
Guildford-based consultancy, which also has
offices in Leeds, Letchworth and Cardiff.
Three more consultants have also recently
joined the company: two arboriculturalists
and a licensed bat specialist.
The 14 new members of staff bring the
total number employed by Thomson
Ecology, sister company Thomson
Habitats (ecological contractors) and
recently acquired Thomson Unicomarine
(marine ecology specialists) to over 100.
With just over 50 staff at the beginning
of 2010, Thomson has doubled its
headcount in one year.
“Our aim from the start has been to offer
a friendly, supportive and happy work
environment and to invest significantly in
the whole team’s personal and professional
development,” says Nancy Thomson,
the company’s Managing Director. “This
means that we offer the highest quality
service to our clients in all ecosystems:
terrestrial, freshwater and marine. We
were delighted to acquire Unicomarine
last year and are pleased to be expanding
our arboricultural and terrestrial ecological
consultancy teams. All of our new recruits
have settled in well.”
www.thomsonecology.com
One Net communication
solution launched
A
ccess Communications has recently
announced the availability of
Vodafone One Net, a flexible service
that ‘unifies’ desk phones and mobiles
into one communications solution, so that
businesses never need to miss an important
call. With One Net, a user simply needs to
pick up one phone – whether the customer
had dialled the individual’s office or mobile
number – and pays just one flat rate.
By offering this level of flexibility, Vodafone
One Net enables individuals to remain
connected when in the office, working
from home or on the move. The service
provides customers with all the benefits
traditionally associated with an office call
management and switchboard system, but
without the hassle or cost of installing a
complicated solution.
Businesses can even add local landline
numbers from across the UK to support
local advertising, no matter where they
are based. The service also includes a
centralised voicemail feature.
Access Communications is also offering
Vodafone One Net Express, which uses a
similar approach to provide individuals with
multiple landlines – without the need for a
desk or even a landline phone.
www.accesscommunications.co.uk
www.surrey-research-park.com 5
Stingray Geophysical announces
high-profile acquisition
G
eophysical company TGS has
entered into an agreement to
acquire 100% of the shares of
Surrey Research Park resident
Stingray Geophysical. The agreement will
provide TGS with a strong position in the
rapidly growing market for Permanent
Reservoir Monitoring (PRM) solutions, and will
substantially increase TGS’ addressable market
through access to production seismic spending
from large international oil companies as
well as national oil companies (NOCs).
“TGS brings complementary capabilities,
a global organisation, established seismic
project management skills and financial
strength to Stingray,” says Martin Bett,
Managing Director of Stingray. “As a part
of TGS, Stingray is now well positioned to
deliver innovative PRM solutions that will
assist our clients to increase production and
reserves whilst decreasing risk and costs of
their Enhanced Oil Recovery programmes.”
Founded in March 2006, Stingray possesses
unique and patented fibre-optic sensing
technology for seismic PRM and other oil
and gas applications. The core technology
for Stingray’s fibre-optic sensing
system was originally developed in
the mid-1980s for anti-submarine
defence applications.
Since its incorporation in 2006,
Stingray has been backed by a
consortium led by the venturecapitalist firms Energy Ventures,
Chevron Technology Ventures, Energy
Capital Management/Statoil Venture
and Cody Gate Ventures. Including
the defence investment, more than
USD 80 million has been invested in
the technology to date.
www.stingraygeo.com
Stingray’s FosarFocus® system is designed to
help oil and gas operating companies meet a
broad range of targeted well zone monitoring
requirements.
Connect 2 Innovation Ltd helps local
businesses leverage £100m investment
C
onnect 2 Innovation Ltd (C2I),
who delivered the SEEDA funded
Innovation & Growth Team (IGT)
in W Surrey and NE Hampshire,
has helped local businesses to leverage over
£100m to accelerate growth.
The C2I board, led by Chair Dato Dr Kim
Tan and Deputy Chair Dr Malcolm Parry
OBE, set out to build a world-leading
Community of Innovation and deliver
services that enable local businesses to
thrive globally, competing at the forefront
of innovation. In just two years, Anne
Crean, CEO, and her team of experienced
coaches have built a dynamic business
network of over 500 entrepreneurs,
6 The Surrey Research Park News
innovators, high growth SME firms, big
businesses and investors, and have provided
intensive support to many different
organisations, helping them to typically
achieve 20% turnover growth per annum.
“Nancy Thomson (the CEO of Thomson
Ecology, thomsonecology.com) and I have
utilised C2I’s High Growth Coaching
services for the last 12 months, and have
found them instrumental in determining
the future direction and marketing
strategy for the company,” according to
Richard Arnold, Technical Director,
Thomson Ecology. He added, “Nancy and
I agree that to have an impartial and
experienced coach helping us has been
extremely valuable.”
To find out how Connect 2 Innovation Ltd
can help you accelerate your business
growth, telephone 01483 685232 or
email [email protected]
Basemap reveals the business
benefits of ‘digital mapping’
B
Optegra appoints
new Hospital
Manager
Following a year of nationwide expansion
for Optegra, Farzam Jafari has been
appointed as Hospital Manager
to lead the Optegra Surrey Eye Hospital
team. Farzam joins Optegra from The
Lister Hospital, where he took
up the role of Pharmacy Manager and
worked as a Clinical Project Leader.
The Optegra Surrey Eye Hospital opened
its doors at The Surrey Research Park in
2008 as one of the UK’s first ‘total eye
care’ hospitals. The company continually
invests in the latest technology, medical
expertise and state-of-the-art surgical
equipment to provide patients with a
total eye-care service, including laser
vision correction, refractive lens exchange,
surgical procedures for cataracts, glaucoma
and other eye conditions, in addition to
cosmetic procedures.
asemap, a specialist in IT and
digital mapping solutions,
has developed a new desktop
geographical analysis application
known as Basemap Core. Basemap Core
takes advantage of the free mapping
provided by Ordnance Survey, and then uses
inbuilt geo-coders that allow users to plot
locations on the map by post code, town
name, village name and (with paid data) even
a full address. This information can then be
combined with data already held within an
organisation to provide a totally unique view
of important business information, such as
where website hits are coming from, delivery
locations ranked by the value of the order,
and even travel time to the office.
The system has been designed to be
intuitive and aims to enhance the user
experience by utilising the latest Microsoft®
technology to provide users with a familiar
environment, and to allow people with no
previous experience of mapping software
to start creating maps quickly. Also, unlike
other mapping tools, Basemap Core users
are allowed to use any of its outputs for any
business purpose, providing the relevant
mapping disclaimer is displayed.
sales staff to sell advertising on bus routes
throughout the UK by using a unique
mapping application. “CBS busmapper”,
the first application of its type, incorporates
every bus route in the UK and its
corresponding audience broken down by
demographics.
“One of the greatest strengths of bus
advertising is its mobility,” says Basemap’s
Simon Court. “A number of visibility
research studies – as well as consumers
themselves – have told us that as buses
move, they capture the public’s attention.
As such, CBS Outdoor’s proprietary bus
mapping tool now provides significant
accountability by visually demonstrating
the coverage delivered by an individual
campaign – on a national and/or local
level. Not only does it help businesses to
plan their bus-based advertising, but it can
also be used to tailor outdoor advertising
campaigns according to their proximity
to Tube, National Rail and Tram stations,
and can be easily adapted to provide local,
regional, national, tactical, point of sale
and/or demographics-based campaigns.”
www.basemap.co.uk
Over the last two years, Basemap has been
using this technology with its client CBS
Outdoor, the leading outdoor advertising
agency in the UK, to enable CBS Outdoor’s
www.optegra.com
www.surrey-research-park.com 7
satellites
at Surrey
SSTL moves from strength to
strength with new £10m technical
facility and new £110m contract
Surrey Satellite Technology
Ltd (SSTL) has moved its
technical operations into
The Kepler Building, a
new £10 million state-ofthe-art technical facility,
providing assembly, testing
and integration of satellites
platforms and payloads for
SSTL’s global customers in
a single location.
T
he new facility provides
significant new capacity that will
increase throughput for multisatellite contracts. The Kepler
Building will house approximately 40
permanent staff and anything up to
100 further project specific staff from
across the company at peak test and
integration periods. An integral part of
the new facility are the world-class test
halls that provide two 125 cubic metre
walk-in thermal chambers, a seismic test
platform, 15,000kg & 3,200kg monorail
cranes, 10,000kg & 8,000kg gantry
cranes, and reinforced floors, providing
the greatest possible flexibility for
integration and testing of both small
and larger spacecraft.
SSTL has also signed a £110m contract
with satellite imaging provider DMC
International Imaging (DMCii) to provide
three SSTL-300S1 satellites to Chinese
company 21AT, and the agreement was
witnessed by David Cameron and the
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao during his
visit in June. The new smallsat design
provides unparalleled 1 metre high
resolution imagery with high speed
downlink and 45 degrees off-pointing.
The three satellites will form a new
constellation, DMC3, with enormous
imaging potential made possible by recent
innovations in satellite design. Until now,
the physical demands of high resolution
imaging from space have required a
large satellite but, by re-engineering its
heritage imaging payloads and adapting
the existing SSTL-300 satellite design used
on NigeriaSat-2, SSTL has introduced a
highly capable sub-metre resolution small
satellite for a fraction of the cost of a
conventional Earth observation mission.
www.sstl.co.uk
8 The Surrey Research Park News
Mme Wu Shuang of Beijing-based company 21AT and DMCii executive Chairman Professor Sir Martin Sweeting
sign landmark agreement to provide access to high-resolution satellite imagery for its customers.
World’s first SmartPhone
Nanosatellite launched
S
pace researchers at the
University of Surrey and SSTL
have developed STRaND-1,
a nanosatellite containing a
smartphone payload that will be launched
into orbit around the Earth. STRaND-1
is being built on a rapid timescale and
using advanced commercial off-the-shelf
components, which fits perfectly with SSTL’s
innovation and low-cost philosophies. It
is planned that STRaND-1 will be the first
of many collaborative STRaND satellites
between the University and SSTL.
“What we’re hoping to get out of this is
some experience of using the cheap but
very capable mobile phone technology
used in space,” says Shaun Kenyon,
Project Manager for STRaND-1. “Mobile
phones pack lots of components used in
satellites - sensors, cameras, GPS, batteries,
accelerometers, compasses, data storage
- but at a fraction of the size, weight
and cost. What would be cool would be
to show that all of this capability when
squeezed into something as small as a
phone can still work in space.”
The phone will run on Android’s opensource operating system. A powerful
computer, built at the Surrey Space Centre,
will test the vital statistics of the phone
once in space. The computer will check
which components of the phone are
working normally and will relay images and
messages back to Earth via a radio system.
Once all the tests are complete, the plan is
to switch off the micro computer and the
smartphone will be used to operate parts
of the satellite. The smartphone avionics
suite is only one of the many technological
advances packed into this 4kg satellite,
however. In order to precisely point and
manoeuvre, the satellite also incorporates
advanced guidance, navigation and control
systems.
Surrey Satellite
Technology
Limited (SSTL)
is the world’s leading small
satellite company, delivering
operational space missions for a
range of applications including
Earth observation, science and
communications. The company
designs, manufactures and operates
high performance satellites and
ground systems for a fraction of the
price normally associated with space
missions, with over 350 staff working
on turnkey satellite platforms, spaceproven satellite subsystems and
optical instruments.
Since 1981 SSTL has built and
launched 34 satellites – as well as
providing training and development
programmes, consultancy services,
and mission studies for ESA, NASA,
international governments and
commercial customers, with its
innovative approach that is changing
the economics of space.
Based on The Surrey Research Park,
SSTL is owned by EADS Astrium NV.
www.sstl.co.uk
www.surrey-research-park.com 9
green
technology
Is ‘Green’ technology the
future for Science Parks?
As concerns over climate change intensify, the need for environmentally
friendly technologies, solutions and initiatives that will help to address
the world energy crisis has become very clear. However, addressing such
a powerful combination of environmental and social issues can present
significant challenges for modern businesses.
A
s such, various energyrelated markets have begun
merging with the technology
sector, as more and more
companies begin to focus
on supplying clean, secure, reliable and
economical energy to meet the emerging
needs of the global economy.
At The Surrey Research Park, this shift
towards so-called “envirotech” is already
evident. Modern Water, for example,
is taking great strides in this area with a
number of innovative water treatment
and management technologies, including
the development of hydro-osmotic power
that is capable of generating energy by
combining water with different levels of
salinity.
The company is mainly engaged in sourcing,
developing, and deploying technologybased solutions to address problems of
the availability of fresh water, and the
treatment and disposal of wastewater.
As such, it is leading the way in the
development of technologies for complete
desalination, industrial applications and
wastewater treatment, and currently
utilises manipulated osmotic desalination
technology for converting seawater to
drinking water.
Surrey Research Park resident PPA Energy,
one of the UK’s leading energy and
management consultants, is making inroads
in this important area by providing technoeconomic consultancy services to the energy
sector, with a special focus on sustainability.
10 The Surrey Research Park News
PPA Energy is well aware that the energy
sector needs to be environmentally
sustainable, as well as economically
sustainable. The company’s key pillars of
sustainability include energy efficiency,
the integration of renewable energy and
green energy technologies, the awareness
and management of carbon emissions and
carbon reduction, and – in many regions
of the world – the fundamental issue of
providing affordable access to electrical
energy to all social groups, and to areas
without access to a public electricity supply.
PPA Energy currently advises a wide range
of international clients on all of these topics,
as well as biofuels/bioenergy, hydro and
mini-hydro schemes, wind and photovoltaic
technologies, and mini and micro grid
solutions. The company is driven by the belief
that a commercially successful energy sector is
the best guarantee of overall sustainability.
C-Cure Solutions, the latest spin-out
company launched from the University of
Surrey by academic researchers, and in
partnership with Forest Research – part of
the Forestry commission – has been formed
to provide more efficient methods of
remediating polluted land, air and water by
utilising specialist charcoals.
With the help of the University’s Business
Incubation Centre, SETsquared, based in
the Surrey Technology Centre (STC), C-Cure
Solutions has been able to commercialise its
charcoal-based products in order to provide
a cost-effective way of reducing pollution
in areas contaminated with heavy metal or
organic pollutants. A number of successful
trials using C-Cure’s specialist charcoals have
already attracted a great deal of attention,
particularly from the mining and waste
industries, both in the UK and abroad.
The charcoal in C-Cure’s products essentially
immobilises the contaminants and
encourages the degradation of organics,
resulting in the breaking down of pollutantreceptor linkages, and therefore can be
used to address the problem of sites that are
polluted with mixed pollutants such as heavy
metal and hydrocarbons.
ANGLE Technology, another Park resident,
is promoting the envirotech movement by
acting as a delivery partner for the Carbon
Trust Entrepreneurs Fast Track, an initiative that
helps to stimulate investment in early-stage
cleantech companies. ANGLE Technology has
proven expertise in many different aspects of
cleantech, including wind and marine power,
fuel cells, PV, solar thermal, smart metering/
grid, building materials and more.
For cleantech companies with a novel,
protectable technology that has the
potential to significantly reduce CO2
emissions, the Entrepreneurs Fast Track
offers practical advice on patenting and
intellectual property strategies, building
capable management teams, help with
finding customers, partners and investors,
and more. Over the last five years, ANGLE
has provided support to more than 30
different cleantech companies that have
gone on to raise over £42 million of private
investment funding, as well as one IPO.
Another well-established company in
the envirotech arena, Surrey Research
Park resident TMO Renewables, has
successfully developed a new strain of
bacteria that can break down straw and
agricultural plant waste, domestic hedge
clippings, garden trimmings and cardboard,
wood chippings, and other municipal
rubbish to convert them all into useful
renewable fuels for the transport industry.
The bioethanol produced in the company’s
process can be blended with existing
gasoline to reduce overall greenhouse gas
emissions, help tackle global warming,
reduce dependence upon foreign oil and
help meet national and international targets
for renewable energy. According to some
estimates, the ability to use the bacteria found
in compost heaps to convert waste plant fibre
into ethanol could eventually provide up to
10% of the UK’s transport fuel needs.
In addition, scientists estimate that
some seven million tons of surplus
straw is available in the UK every
year, and that turning it into ethanol
could replace 10% of the gasoline fuel
currently being used in this country.
Plus, because TMO Renewables’ process
uses agricultural waste materials such
as straw, wood, paper, plants and other
cellulosic fibre from domestic and municipal
waste, it provides significantly greater
environmental and economic benefits than
crop-derived biofuels, which some believe
have contributed to the higher food prices in
many countries.
The low carbon economy
comes a step closer
SRP resident BOC has launched a new
lightweight hydrogen cylinder containing
the same amount of energy as 10 car
batteries. It will provide the energy source for
the Hymera fuel cell generator which was
launched last year by BOC, a member of The
Linde Group. Hymera is used in an array of
low energy, high efficiency applications.
“Hydrogen has long been vaunted as
the fuel source of the future. Now, with
products like Hymera and the new cylinder,
BOC is making the hydrogen economy
a reality. Hymera is already being used in
commercially viable applications for the
rail, construction and security industries.
The launch of the new cylinder brings
widespread application a step closer,”
says Stewart Dow, Packaged Energy
Manager at BOC.
Hymera, the world’s first
commercially-available hydrogen
fuel cell portable power source
is already being used in a
range of off-grid applications
such as construction and
railway maintenance – and
increasingly in lighting
projects.
David Isherwood, Hire & Technical Director
of the White Light Ltd, one of the UK’s
largest live event lighting companies, has
been offering Hymera to customers over
the last year.
“We have been using a number of Hymera
fuel cell power generators built into a
self-contained off-grid lighting system.
It is easy to set up and operate and the
units have performed very well. Our
customer base has responded positively to
the innovative technology, finding many
applications for it.”
The new cylinder could keep a modern
laptop powered for almost a week of
continuous usage.
www.BOConline.co.uk
PPA Energy announces further expansion
D
espite the challenging economic
climate, PPA Energy (formerly
Power Planning Associates) has
announced that it is expanding
into a second unit on The Surrey Research
Park in order to cater for its growing team.
The company has recently reported very
strong sales growth in both the UK and
overseas, including a number of cutting
edge projects being conducted by its South
African subsidiary.
PPA Energy is a niche consultant specialising
in advising clients in the developed and
developing worlds on strategic issues
relating to electricity projects. The company
is currently working with UK Power
Networks (formerly EDF Energy Networks)
on a major research project looking at novel
ways of using data from monitoring systems
installed in the power distribution network,
and is also assisting the electricity regulator
in Thailand to develop key standards for the
electricity industry there.
In addition, the company is currently advising
the gas and electricity regulator Ofgem
and the Department of Energy and Climate
Change (DECC) on the policy framework
for the coordination of construction of
offshore electricity infrastructure around the
UK, and is also playing a key role as part
of the technical team supporting Ofgem
with the assessment of the investment
plans for National Grid, Scottish Power and
Scottish Hydro in the electricity transmission
infrastructure for Great Britain.
used in South Africa and approximately
45% of the electricity used in Africa.
With so many exciting projects currently
underway, the extra space on The Surrey
Research Park will allow PPA Energy to grow
both its consulting and sales teams, and
also allow the company to continue to
expand its expertise in issues around Smart
Networks, electricity policy and regulation.
www.ppaenergy.co.uk
In another high profile project, PPA
Energy has recently taken on a major
assignment to assess the viability of the
commercial arrangements for construction
of a new 154 MW Hydro Electric power
station in Guyana, as well as an assignment
from Eskom in South Africa to run a testing
and training programme to improve
technical performance of five of their
largest power stations. Eskom generates
approximately 95% of the electricity
www.surrey-research-park.com 11
video
games
Despite the wide variety of research, design and
development activities being carried out on The Surrey
Research Park, one market in particular seems to
have captured the public’s imagination: video games.
This fast-growing industry now employs over 28,000
people and contributes £1 billion to the UK economy.
Surrey earns a worldwide reputat
leading centre for video game de
A
t the beginning of the year,
the Daily Telegraph reported
that UK game sales alone
had reached a staggering
£1.73 billion, beating the total film spend
of £1.19 billion which included cinema
admissions, as well as Blu-Ray and DVD
sales. Statistics like these are good news
for the video game industry and also good
news for the UK, especially as the country
continues to struggle with a weak economy.
It is also good news for Surrey and The
Surrey Research Park, which has become an
international hub for some of the world’s
most successful companies in this sector.
“Impressive figures like these provide
incontrovertible evidence that the video games
market has come of age and transformed
itself into a mainstream form of entertainment
for millions of families in Britain,” says
Malcolm Parry, Director, The Surrey Research
Park. “This industry has matured significantly
over the last decade, and businesses in and
around The Surrey Research Park have played
a major part in this positive trend.”
One the best known companies in this
sector, Surrey Research Park resident
Lionhead Studios, has its roots in another
great British developer (and former Park
resident), Bullfrog Productions. Founded in
1987 by Peter Molyneux and Les Edgar,
Bullfrog Productions quickly became one
of Britain’s most successful and wellknown developers.
12 The Surrey Research Park News
In fact, Bullfrog went on to create a
string of hit games whilst at The Surrey
Research Park, the first of which – a
game called Populous – sold over 4
million copies, and was later credited
with creating a brand new genre,
known as “the god game”, in which
the player takes on the role of a virtual
deity that has influence over other
characters’ actions. Subsequent releases
from Bullfrog – including Theme Park,
Syndicate and Dungeon Keeper – were
also hailed as being hugely innovative, as
well as commercially successful.
In 1995, Molyneux and Edgar decided
to sell Bullfrog to Electronic Arts. At this
point, Bullfrog Productions had sold well
over 10 million copies of its games, which
meant that many of Bullfrog’s employees
had all the talent and connections that
they needed to start their own companies
– and Molyneux was no exception.
In early 1997, Molyneux announced he
was leaving Bullfrog to set up a new
venture with colleagues Mark Webley,
Tim Rance and Steve Jackson. This
new company, called Lionhead Studios,
attracted massive press and consumer
interest from the moment it was
launched on The Surrey Research Park. Its
first game – called Black & White – also
achieved huge worldwide press exposure
and widespread critical acclaim, attracting
some of the highest review scores ever
achieved by a software program.
IKinema brings its
revolutionary approach to
video game animation to
The Surrey Research Park
tion as a
evelopment
Less than two years later, the interactive
entertainment industry’s leading trade
magazine, Edge, was already claiming
that Guildford was “stuffed” with game
developers. “Nowhere else in the UK”, the
magazine proclaimed, “will you find 300
game developers working in such close
proximity.”
S
characters at the same time. The software
is also fully portable, and can run from
low-spec handheld consoles to highpowered game consoles, and from
iPhones to a PS3 consoles.
IKinema’s technology is powerful enough
to animate any skeleton, from humans
and quadrupeds to multi-headed dragons,
monsters and/or user-defined creatures.
Bones can be manipulated at every frame
to produce natural, lifelike motion that is
distributed automatically over the full body
of each character.
The Royal Academy of Engineering
awarded its Entrepreneur Award to
IKinema’s founder, Dr Alexandre Pechev,
in recognition of IKinema’s innovative
use of technology in this area. Before
launching IKinema, Dr Pechev was
working at the Surrey Space Centre at the
University of Surrey. Although Dr Pechev’s
original research was on satellite control
systems, he soon realised that it had
also the potential to have a far-reaching
impact on robotics and computer games,
and therefore on the UK economy as a
whole.
urrey Research Park resident
IKinema has developed a unique
approach to animation that allows
games developers to achieve an
amazingly natural and organic motion for
video game characters during game play.
IKinema’s revolutionary new technology
animates the whole body of any character
or creature, and automatically takes into
account gravity and balance to produce
lifelike movements.
IKinema’s solutions are extraordinary fast,
and can be used to control dozens of
www.ikinema.com
“Companies like these really capture The
Surrey Research Park’s spirit of innovation
and ambition very well,” Malcolm Parry
adds. “Surrey has now truly become a hub
for the gaming industry, not just for the
UK, but for the entire world. The success
of our tenants in this area is an important
reminder of how creativity and originality
can be transformed into remarkable
commercial success.”
Lionhead continues to go from strength to
strength, and was ultimately acquired by
the Microsoft Corporation in April 2006.
This development gave Lionhead – still
an enormously successful company with
more than 150 employees – the security
and freedom to continue doing what it
does best, making original and innovative
games which are also commercially
successful. Fable 2, the first product
to be released under Microsoft’s
ownership, bore this out. Released
to very positive reviews in
October 2008, the game has
already sold nearly 4 million
copies, with Fable III expected to
enjoyed similar success.
www.surrey-research-park.com 13
then
and now
Long-time Park residents
What is your biggest
achievement?
What is your
biggest worry?
Peter Molyneux
Founder of
Lionhead
Studios Ltd
2001
Taking my company from being
a tiny start-up to a fully- fledged
company.
How to earn enough money to fill
up my car.
2011
Now we’ve been acquired by
Microsoft, becoming an integral
part of the Microsoft machine,
and also releasing Fable III.
Making sure the 200 people who
work at Lionhead are earning
enough to fill up their cars.
Martin Sweeting
Chairman of Surrey Satellite
Technology Ltd
2006
Signing a contract with Nigeria
for NigeriaSat-2 to carry a newlydeveloped very high resolution
imager, and NigeriaSat-X a
training satellite for Nigerian
engineers.
Maintaining high levels of
communications between the
two sites, with our manufacturing
still taking place in cleanrooms
on the University campus and the
majority of our staff now being
based on the Research Park.
2011
Being selected by EU/ESA to supply
14 highly advanced navigation
payloads for the deployment phase
of the European satellite navigation
system Galileo - this was a contract
worth nearly £0.25 billion.
Resource management and
recruitment. We estimate we
will need 70 new staff in 2011
to fulfill our contracts, mainly
highly-qualified engineers, project
managers and space analysts. They
are out there but it takes time to
sort through CVs and conduct
interviews.
2006
Making our first sales in Japan.
As an organisation we tend not
to worry about problems - we
solve them!
2011
Our recent partnership with
King’s Health Partners (KHP),
one of only five Academic
Health Science Centres
(AHSCs) in the UK.
I’d say more a challenge than a
worry - we’ve just had our best
year ever, and as we don’t go
backwards, it’s making sure that
2011 is an even better year!
Neil Kipling
CEO of IDBS
14 The Surrey Research Park News
look back at their time on the Park
What technological
breakthrough are you
most impressed by?
What do you think is
the next big thing in
technology?
What recent
news stories have
really captured
your attention?
What is your ‘hope
for the future’?
The brick-like mobile phones I
have seen appearing.
Computer Games, Consoles
The freeing of Nelson
Mandela.
Peace, Love, Harmony and
Equality for all.
Kinect
The Cloud
The freeing of Aung San
Suu Kyi in Burma.
Peace, Love, Harmony and
Wealth for all.
Our development of advanced optics
for very high resolution imaging
satellites and the increased on-board
storage to support them - using the
latest terrestrial memory devices
suitably selected for operation in
space.
Driving the imaging performance
of small satellites to compete with
large traditional satellites - but at a
fraction of the cost - to be able to
achieve ground resolutions of less
than 1-metre!.
The launch of SpaceX’s
Falcon-1 rocket as the
first fully-commercial
affordable launcher
suited to small satellites.
For the UK to take space more
seriously and for Guildford to
become a thriving and successful
space technology hub, with SSTL
contributing through innovation
in small satellite design.The
formation of the UK Space Agency
and Surrey becoming one of the
first ‘spokes’ to the Harwell space
‘hub’ is encouraging.
The decision by the Technology
Steering Board and the South East
Development Agency (SEEDA) to
provide funding for TechDemoSat-1,
which will carry experimental payloads
demonstrating UK innovation in space.
This is a far-sighted decision that enables
technological advancements from UK
academia and companies.
The next generation of Earth remote
sensing mini-satellites - but this time
using radar rather than optical sensors
to give our customers day & night
and all-weather imaging! We are also
developing a ‘small’ Geostationary
communications satellite - small in
this field being relative - it will weigh
in at nearly 3,000 kg - and hence
the construction of our new building
‘Kepler’ opposite Tycho House.
The discovery of
significant amounts of
water on the Moon,
which could pave the
way for further manned
space exploration.
Access to space made more
affordable in every sector, from
launchers to satellites to space
tourism - and the UK playing a
small, affordable, but select and
important role in exploration
beyond Earth of our solar system.
When a group of researchers
created a microscopic device using
Nano electrode wires, to make an
electrical connection between the
device and an individual neuron.
This has pointed the way towards
future synthetic substitutes for
damaged nerve cells.
A technique to fold a single
long strand of DNA into any 2D
shape, held together by a few
shorter DNA pieces, which has
promised a method for building
scaffolding that can be used to
hold quantum dots in a quantum
computer.
“Dolly the sheep”.
Whilst she’s not the
world’s first clone, she’s
the first mammal to be
cloned from an adult
cell, rather than an
embryo.
That science and technology
research will be used in an
increasingly positive way to
provide a better future for us all.
In May 2010, Craig Venter and his
team of scientists in the US created the
world’s first synthetic organism, proving
that genomes can be designed in the
computer, made in the lab chemically,
and then transplanted into a recipient
cell to produce a new self-replicating cell
controlled only by the synthetic genome.
The potential for this technology is huge.
I’m still waiting for my quantumpowered smartphone!
When a group of NASAfunded Astrobiology
scientists discovered
a microorganism on
Earth able to thrive and
reproduce using arsenic,
which seems insane!
That personalised medicine
will become a reality.
www.surrey-research-park.com 15
news
from SETsquared
SETsquared companies continue
to thrive through innovation
From its base on The Surrey
Research Park, SETsquared helps
early-stage, high-tech, highgrowth potential ventures turn
into viable business activities
by providing serviced office
space, business guidance and
mentoring, as well as access
to its high-calibre network of
experienced entrepreneurs,
potential investors, and
business professionals.
Stephen Kyle-Henry,
Managing Director
of TISICS
16 The Surrey Research Park News
Surrey’s International Space Innovation
Centre first member: TISICS
The International Space Innovation Centre
for Surrey (ISIC-Surrey) launched in the
Surrey Technology Centre at the beginning
of May, and its first member, TISICS,
develops reinforced titanium composites
that are aimed primarily at aerospace.
Aerospace TISICS titanium
composites are 40-70% lighter
than conventional metals used in
systems such as engines, brakes
and landing gear, and are also
corrosion resistant with very high
damage tolerance. As a result, the
use of TISICS titanium composites
means that airlines and air forces can
reduce fuel consumption and work at
higher speeds, which increases revenue
and reduces overall costs.
TISICS titanium composites also provide a low
maintenance long life solution in aggressive
environments like Space, or when exposed
to Nuclear Power, wind or wave. Customers
such as Rolls-Royce and Messier-Dowty are
confident in the benefits of TISICS shown in its
pilots processes, and now wish to see TISICS
make a series of production parts by 2015.
www.tisics.co.uk
‘Surrey 100 Club’ angel investor event
records its biggest ever attendance
Over 60 angels were in attendance at the
Surrey Technology Centre in July for the
latest ‘100 Club’ event that showcased
six exciting new business opportunities at
the best attended meeting of the group to
date. Making its debut as hosts for the first
time, it was fitting that Technology Centre
resident company, iGeolise, was one of
two companies who had previously pitched
at the club invited back to give attendees
updates on their companies’ progression
since presenting at the club.
Supported and run by SETsquared Surrey and The Surrey Research Park, The
University of Surrey 100 Club offers an
angel investor and support community
that provides a long-term contribution
to the growth and success of business
enterprise activities in the Surrey region.
The latest club saw businesses present
in the 10 minute investor pitch format
which was followed by an exhibition
of the companies’ products, giving the
investors a chance to have one-to-one
discussions with the companies. Rich
Clayton of i-Geolise, who has presented at
the club previously, said: “Really enjoyed
the new format, there was a much greater
opportunity for effective networking than
the previous event and a much more
energetic room. It all turned out rather well
for us too so the new format has my vote!”
In addition to showcasing ‘investmentready’ ventures, the 100 Club provides
members with networking opportunities, the
opportunity to pitch new business ideas, and
an ongoing education programme delivered
via a variety of guest speakers. Founded
in late 2007, the 100 Club leverages the
University and The Surrey Research Park’s
wealth of resources and contacts in the local
entrepreneurial and investment community
to provide the foundations for venture
creation, thus enabling its members to take
an active role in future success stories. So far
the companies who have presented at the
Surrey 100 Club have raised over £4 million
and created over 50 jobs.
Bamboo
Innovations
Ltd launches
Bamzonia
Bamzonia, developed by Bamboo
Innovations, delivers independent,
personal financial education in an
engaging format by providing 47
online lessons to teach many different
aspects of personal finance and money
management. Rewards and incentives
for learning are then provided through
an innovative city building game.
Bamzonia requires no pre-lesson
content preparation or post-lesson
marking, so it is very easy for teachers
to introduce the concept to their
students at school. Because it is webbased, Bamzonia is available 24/7 and is
currently being used during lesson time,
as homework, and during afterschool
clubs in schools across
the UK, including
Secondary, Primary,
Private, Public and
SEN schools.
www.bamzonia.com
i-Geolise
i-Geolise was nominated to attend
this summer’s HIT Barcelona event, a
unique global exhibition that integrates
a number of different spaces dedicated
to knowledge, revolutionary ideas and
great business opportunities. The Surrey
Research Park, a judge at this year’s event,
puts forward three companies each year.
For two days, the event brings together
business leaders, innovators, investors and
entrepreneurs to share ideas, promote
projects and redefine the keys to business
success. Last year Gold-i, a successful startup within the Surrey Technology Centre,
was nominated and subsequently received
one of three awards out of the 23 business
plans submitted into the competition.
i-Geolise has also been selected to participate
in the UK-US springboard programme. The
purpose of the programme is to develop
lasting value by creating commercial
relationships between the high-technology
research and development clusters of the
UK and Southern California, and deliver real
benefit in terms of accelerating technology
A partnership between the Universities
of Bath, Bristol, Southampton and Surrey,
SETsquared is the largest governmentfunded, privately backed support
programme of its kind in the UK. Since its
launch in 2002, SETsquared has supported
more than 100 ventures. Much of its
success comes from the unique way in
which SETsquared brings together the
research strengths of the universities and
private sector commercial expertise.
Rich Clayton, Charlie Davies (left) and Peter Lilley
(right) from iGeolise
start-up companies into US or UK markets.
The start-ups are given a rare opportunity
to harness the expertise, know-how, and
unique entrepreneurial networks that have
been built in and around California, whilst
those around the SETsquared region and
London are given the chance to accelerate
their entry into international markets.
SETsquared has supported early stage
companies at The Surrey Research Park
for nearly a decade, with the majority
of companies who graduate from the
“incubator” still in existence and indeed
growing. With substantial cuts to public
sector expenditure on business support now
a grim reality, incubators like these have an
increasingly important role to play in helping
Britain’s innovators launch companies with a
solid basis for long term growth.
www.igeolise.com
www.setsquared.co.uk
www.surrey-research-park.com 17
15
awards
and honours
OmniPerception
recognised at
2011 IFSEC Future
of Security awards
Surrey Research Park
residents honoured
with multiple awards
T
O
mniPerception has recently
been recognised for its
world-leading real-time face
recognition surveillance
solution, CheckPoint.S™, by being selected
as a finalist for the 2011 IFSEC Future of
Security awards. OmniPerception, which
has earned an international reputation for
its ground-breaking biometric technology,
was one of nine entrants selected to go
through to the live final.
he 2011 Game Developers
Choice Awards (GDCA), the
peer-awarded highest honours
in video game development, has
honoured Peter Molyneux,
founder of Lionhead Studios, with the
Lifetime Achievement Award for his
contributions to the art and science of
games.
As a passionate creator of video games
for more than 25 years, and one of the
creators of the ‘god game’ genre, Peter
Molyneux was awarded the Lifetime
Achievement Award to recognise his career
and achievements as “a developer who has
made an indelible impact on the craft of
game development and games as a whole.”
“Peter is a remarkable asset to the games
industry, and truly embodies everything
that the Lifetime Achievement Award
represents,” said Meggan Scavio, Event
Director of GDCA. “We’re proud to
honour someone who has had such a
profound impact on the industry, through
his boundless enthusiasm and profound
talent in creating games about choice and
interactivity that the entire world loves to
play.”
In other news, Kate Craig-Wood,
Managing Director at Memset, was named
Business Personality of the Year during
the annual Toast of Surrey Business Awards
ceremony held at Guildford’s Yvonne
Arnaud Theatre. Now in their third year,
the awards run by the Surrey Advertiser
and Eagle Radio aim to celebrate the
success of businesses and recognise their
contribution to the economy, community
and prosperity of Surrey.
18 The Surrey Research Park News
The award, which was presented by
Councillor Stephen Mansbridge from
Guildford Borough Council, acknowledged
Kate Craig-Wood’s personal contribution,
made over a period of many years, not only
to Surrey but also as a female role model on
a national level throughout the IT industry.
Craig-Wood, who was born in Surrey, has
also based her cloud computing business,
Memset, on The Surrey Research Park, and
continues to recruit the company’s staff
from within the local community.
Memset was also named as a finalist in the
ISPA Awards for Best Managed Service,
after undergoing stringent technical testing
over a two-month period and exceeding the
standards set by ISPA. The nomination follows
Memset’s recognition by the SDI (Service Desk
Institute) for its outstanding customer support,
having been named as a finalist in the IT
Service Excellence Awards 2011.
The IFSEC Future of Security competition
aims to find the next generation security
innovations that will radically change the
security world. As such, the competition
brings together the world’s most promising
technological innovations at the IFSEC
conference each year, where entrants
compete against each other in a live
judging session. The competition is run in
association with Global Security Challenge,
a company that has an impressive track
record as a central hub for security
innovators, start-ups and investors, and
which hosts competitions and events
around the globe.
OmniPerception had been recognised for
its innovative CheckPoint.S™ product,
which uses face recognition to identify
and alert security staff in real time when
a blacklisted or a ‘person of interest’ is in
the area. CheckPoint.S™ can even identify
people when the subject is not directly
looking into the camera. Also, because it is
a light-immune solution designed to work
in any lighting conditions, CheckPoint.S™
can be used either covertly or overtly, and is
scalable from one to hundreds of cameras.
www.omniperception.com
Major project with
Royal Navy and award
nominations highlight
Telecoms specialist
siptel’s excellence
2011 is again proving to be a good year for IT
and Telecoms specialist siptel. Having secured
major contracts from top global companies
and Public sector organisations in Education
and healthcare, siptel has just completed
its fourth project implementation with a
successful international leisure travel group
operating in more than 50 countries and
employing 80,000 people globally. On top
of this, siptel was chosen to work with Atlas
Elektronik to provide a new efficient new
communications system for its ships.
In addition, the second quarter has seen
siptel short-listed for a number of business
awards, recognising the company’s excellence
in delivering its customers with solutions
that help improve their businesses. Recent
award successes include being short-listed
as a finalist for the “UK Reseller of the Year”
award at the Comms Business Awards 2011,
a finalist for The National Sales Awards, a
finalist in The British Excellence in Sales &
Marketing Awards 2011 (BESMA) and also
for the Customer Experience Awards 2011.
IDBS wins Queen’s Award
for International Trade 2011
I
DBS, a global provider of innovative
data management, analytics and
modeling solutions, has won the
Queen’s Award for Enterprise 2011
in the International Trade category. The
award – the third Queen’s Award IDBS has
won in its 21 year history – recognises IDBS’
outstanding business success in growing
revenues from international markets.
“As a British company competing against a
number of overseas players, we are absolutely
delighted to receive this prestigious award,”
said Neil Kipling, founder and CEO of IDBS.
“We have experienced unparalleled growth
and commercial success over the past three
years. This is through the commercialisation
of innovative new products, accessing new
and growing markets and an absolute
commitment to the highest standards by
our employees around the world. I am
thrilled to see our recent success recognised
in this manner.”
Over the last three years, IDBS has delivered
record financial performance, growing its
revenues by a total of 45% with overseas
revenues for the period increasing by £8
million to a total of £51 million. During that
time the company has expanded rapidly in
overseas markets, across the United States,
Europe and throughout Asia Pacific, where
it has recently opened a number of direct
sales and support centres.
IDBS is now the fastest growing specialist
provider of informatics software for
pharmaceuticals, healthcare and industrial
R&D sectors. More than 200 R&D intensive
organisations including Pfizer, L’Oréal,
Roche, Amgen, Bayer, Genentech and
Daiichi-Sankyo (India) use the company’s
products across 25 countries.
The company’s R&D data platform,
E-WorkBook, has seen a four-fold increase
in market share since 2008, and there is
growing global demand for its software
across the pharmaceuticals and industrial
R&D sector. More recently, IDBS has been
working with the NHS in the UK to pioneer
the advancement of personalised medicine
and the use of ‘real-world’ clinical data to
improve healthcare outcomes.
www.idbs.com
Commenting on siptel’s string of recent award
nominations, Steve Rasmussen, Director of
siptel said, “It’s fantastic that we’re being
recognised across the board again this year for
our customer service, sales and most recently
as one of the UK’s leading resellers. It’s a real
boost to the whole team that the work we
are doing to help our customers’ businesses
is acknowledged. The awards, plus the
recent customer wins we have achieved really
demonstrates the standard of excellence that
we are delivering to all our customers across
multiple business sectors.”
www.siptel.co.uk
www.surrey-research-park.com 19
New guide
to ecology
survey timings
launched
B
ecause ecology surveys are highly
seasonal, Thomson Ecology has
published an “at a glance” guide
to help companies quickly assess
when different surveys need to be done,
and to determine which protected species
they may encounter on a site.
Any watercourse within a proposed
development site should be assessed
for potential to support water voles, for
example. Two visits are required, one in
mid-April, May or June and the other in July,
August or September. The habitat needs to
be mapped for its suitability and signs of
water vole occupation should be recorded.
Imagineer Systems creates
jaw-dropping special effects
I
magineer Systems Ltd, the company
that innovates and markets nextgeneration visual effects solutions
for film, video and broadcast postproduction markets, recently launched new
versions of its mocha™ and mocha Pro™
software tools, both of which dramatically
reduce the manual labour associated with
visual effects and stereo conversion projects.
Both products have recently gained
notoriety as a result of the significant
impact that the company’s Planar Tracker™
has made in the production of the Oscarwinning sensation, The Black Swan, as well
as The Chronicles of Narnia; Voyage of the
Dawn Treader, and Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2.
The guide also revealed that white-clawed
crayfish are in serious decline. A survey is
therefore likely to be recommended in areas
where rivers and streams may be affected
by a development, as white-clawed crayfish
can occur in streams and rivers in various
parts of the UK.
According to the guide’s author, a missed
survey window can result in considerable
delays to a project as the presence or
absence of protected species on a site
is a material consideration for planning
applications. The full guide to ecology
survey timings is available to download
from www.thomsonecology.com
Built on Imagineer Systems’ award-winning
2.5D planar tracking technology, and
integrated with its signature insertion and
placement, removal and stabilisation tools,
mocha Pro™ offers digital media artists a
powerful, intuitive and innovative planar
tracking-based solution with a streamlined
interface, accelerated workflow and the
power to easily manipulate and track shots
not possible with traditional solutions.
Leveraging more than eight years of
engineering research and development,
the latest version of mocha Pro™ delivers
the Planar Tracker™ and rotoscoping tools
from its award winning mocha™, and
adds compositing tools for match moving,
auto image and wire removal, clean plate
generation, lens distortion correction and
stabilization in order to deliver an all-in-one
master VFX tool set.
www.imagineersystems.com
Acuity Training teams up with
the Make-A-Wish Foundation UK
A
cuity Training has been selected
to manage the delivery of MS
Office 2010 upgrade training for
more than 40 staff from Make-A-Wish,
the charity that grants wishes to children
and young people fighting life-threatening
illnesses. Acuity Training has been operating
on The Surrey Research Park for over eight
years, and has extensive experience in the
training industry. The company is proud
of the reputation and relationship that it
has with clients, and is well known for its
ability to deliver high quality training in
small sized classes. This gives participants
the freedom to ask questions and get the
information they need.
www.acuitytraining.co.uk
While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the contents of The Surrey Research Park News, no responsibility can be taken for
errors or omissions. Commissioned articles do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Surrey Research Park or the University of Surrey.
Summer 2011