You come from far away with pictures in your eyes
Of coffee shops and morning streets in the blue and silent sunrise
But night is the cathedral where we recognized the sign
We strangers know each other now as part of the whole design
This week we hosted a mission from a European telecommunications company which wants to understand how Cambridge ideas might help them change their part of the world. Our three guests spend quite a bit of time abroad, as their job titles suggest: "Head of International Standards", "Director of Innovative Opportunities", "VP Innovation Plan". Obviously with such senior visitors, Members agreed to chat with them. People who are "Head of Strategic University Research" and "Director of Product Management" are generally busy, so the respect was clearly mutual. They had selected ARM, BT and Qualcomm out of a longer list of potential site visits, and so I accompanied them as they had long and searching discussions about the future of the devices and services that will drive bits of data across telecommunications channels.
It was a privilege to listen in. The devices and services being discussed are global: ARM showed the next generation of low cost tablet devices with startling sub-$200 price points in Taiwan; BT talked about how a start-up in Beijing became market leader in re-conditioned notebooks in 3 years using instant messaging and bulletin boards; Qualcomm showed screen shots of the personalization they are currently doing for the mobile division of the visitors in their home country. The circle of people internationally involved is a small one, and mutual acquaintances were identified at a series of points. It turned out that some of the visitors had even visited Qualcomm's Cambridge unit ten years ago while it was still 3G Lab, and had met the same Engineering Director before! All of these people live in a world 2 to 5 years ahead of the services and devices that we are used to today, and the services they have personally introduced have had huge impact. When the BT representative introduced broadband years ago, he might not have predicted that more than 2 out of 3 UK adults today would be using broadband services. So it was little surprise that further meetings were proposed around emerging standards and specific opportunities for collaboration.
We will see more visitors in a couple of months at the Corporate Gateway. This week I spoke to people in Brazil, Germany and the United States, and many other companies have been in touch. They are drawn by our reputation as a regional cluster that regularly creates start-ups with very strong teams and a clear contribution to emerging technology markets. The investments that they make here help Cambridge ideas to change the world. It is a pleasure to host visitors who are clearly so welcome to our Members.
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