Gap Summit 2016 — Day 1
4th April was the first day of Gap Summit 2016, an international leadership summit in biotechnology hosted at the University of Cambridge.
Nearly 100 delegates from around the globe, representing 40 countries, came to Cambridge to connect with and challenge industry leaders, research pioneers and innovative entrepreneurs.
The Summit is dedicated to addressing 7 gaps in biotechnology:
- Research and Innovation Gap
- Funding Gap
- Future Health Gap
- Future Resources Gap
- People Gap
- Bioethics Gap
- Public Perception and Education Gap
The day was fully scheduled with keynote speeches, panel discussions, networking sessions and interactive workshops. As a delegate, you never stop learning new knowledge about someone’s research project, business idea or simply the life in another country.
Personally, I think the two highlights today were (1) five companies showcased their pitch and (2) keynote by Prof. Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. In (1), five companies, namely Spiral Genetics, Immusoft, FuturaGene, Agenus and CN Bio Innovations, demonstrated how to give world-class company pitches. Watching five pitches back to back gave me a lot of insights for the pros and cons for different pitching techniques. Among them, I think Spiral Genetics had the best pitch which I can still easily remember the key messages. For (2), it was my second time listening to a speech by Prof. Borysiewicz and he always inspires me.
“personalised medicine… the right dose, the right drug to the right patient at the right time, and you can begin building the technology in medicine to be able to deliver that huge challenge”
Prof. Sir Leszek Borysiewicz
Day 1 of the Summit concluded with a formal dinner at the Great Hall at Trinity College. It was a great networking opportunity — it was simply amazing that everyone sitting around me (5 of us!) all had experiences in starting a startup.
