A Day at the Science Festival

Part 2

I watched a man make instant ice cream with milk and syrup and liquid nitrogen.  And when the clouds of Nitrogen dissipated (who would have thought that I could write that sentence outside of a novel about visiting Triton) it was ice cream and creamy and sweet.  The crystals were a little uneven but I imagine that this could be solved through more effective, high shear, agitation.

I loved the display of ancient books in a bright airy room off the gallery of the new library building and the mechanical devices and pictures of medieval pharmacopeia and botanical drawings all beautifully and informatively curated.

I could not for the life of me engage with that time honoured but completely boring thing which is the PhD student’s poster display… I walked past several with their attendant authors and graphs.  It feels like walking past a Big Issue seller.  In one of the courtyards Aberdeen University has a round enclosed pavilion.  Made of wood with a stage in the middle, space for chairs, booths and red velvety and high up stained glass windows all around.  Glorious Victorian structure.  They were offering some razzmatazz but I had to forgo the scientific can-can because I had booked myself onto…

I liked that they had fresh Jugs with water and cups for speakers, rather than bottles of mineral water.

 Lab bench to market….

Eleanor Mitchell, Commercialisation Director at Scottish Enterprise introduced their organisation and allowed two of their currently on-going successes to present their businesses.  Both had received proof of concept funding from Scottish enterprise for two years.

This is to help entrepreneurial academics commercialize their ideas.

I asked Eleanor… How do you find these academics, make them come forward, identify these ideas? Is there a large uptake?  She says that they do road shows, taking success stories such as the two who presented for us to present their work at universities.

The want to turn ideas into companies.  Look for a strong market opportunity and a real ambition to create a company……..

Proof of concept programme, Enterprise fellowships, Entrepreneurial support.  Technology entrepreneur helps.  Universities want their research to have Impact

 Harald Hass of PureVLC is working on turn Wi-Fi into Light-Fi.

Light frequency range is a lot bigger than radio range – they are using LED lights to up and download.

Insignia… Putting signalling dyes into food packaging.  Dyes that change colour when packaging is breached or when gas is released from rotting food.  Proof of concept was funded for 2 years. Then they started a spinout and almost immediately merged with a small company doing work in the area that they are working in.

Why did you decide to commercialise your idea, Harald? A jury went around German universities looking for 100 ideas that will change the world. Harald’s idea was one that was chosen and that was very enthralling.  He would simply be bored if his ideas are left in an academic paper.

Someone wanted to know – Why not just license? The answer is that the value would have gone off to multinationals – the commitment is that, if you take an investment from Scottish Enterprise, you will keep the business in Scotland.

So I was thinking….

In a country that has mines, that country is always being encouraged to refine and apply the mineral.  Beneficiation.  Iron ore into steel, steel into stainless steel and into pots and railway carriages and those little screws that they ship with my flat pack furniture.

Do we beneficiate research when we take the raw thoughts and heat them and discard the bad, publish the good in a four star journal.  Do we add value to knowledge when we commercialise our inventions?

The last talk that I attended was – for me – very light on science and heavy on a commercial plug and I didn’t enjoy it.  John Crossland’s program Let’s Think is a form of reflective learning, group sharing of ideas and physical activity based thinking for children which shares many elements of Philosophy for Children (P4C), and shares many of the same benefits.  In some way we repeat the embodiment ideas through activity and allowing children to have multiple experiences with physical objects – I would call it guided play – to accelerate cognition.  Successful learning is about feelings, then thinking processes and, finally, actions.

So I was thinking….

Does imagination and reading fiction improve the ability to think symbolically?

The train ride home was a direct one and, even though it stopped for twenty minutes on a dark black invisible stretch, uneventful.