volcanic

To run upon the sharp wind of the north,

To do me business in the veins o' th' earth

This week started with a seminar on monitoring volcanoes, organized by CambridgeSens. Different gases dissolve in magma at different pressures, so the mixture of gases that you can sense around the mouth of a volcano can tell you something about the depth from which the magma is coming and the processes going on inside. Perhaps that will help predict eruptions better. We heard from University groups monitoring cracking and movement in Underground tunnels and bridges, working out where to place relaying nodes to get signals back, and how to reduce the scale and power required for sensors, as well as Alphasense, a local company which has been providing sensors to monitor volcanoes as well as monitoring air quality around Cambridge. Looking at the current sensors being used, it was striking how much of the space and weight was taken up by batteries. We will have a number of visitors next week who are interested in energy-harvesting and other approaches to make sensor networks practical to monitor human wellbeing, and it was good to hear more about the challenges involved.

Later in the week we went to contribute to Cambridge City Council's plans for arts in the city, along with many other voluntary groups and Arts venues including members such as the Arts Theatre. It was very interesting to hear perspectives from people representing different parts of our community. Support from local businesses such as the John Lewis sponsorship for the Big Weekend make the city more fun for everyone, and these will become more important as government budgets are cut back. The arts play an important role in the attractiveness of our city to start-ups and the contribution that we can make to the wider recovery of the UK, and it is good to have some say in how we maintain them.

On Thursday we ran a husting for some of the local MP candidates to answer questions from our entrepreneurs. Issues such as the recent fall in venture capital funding, the difficulties of getting visas for overseas workers and the degree to which an MP will really go against the party line are important for native companies like AlertMe, AMiHo, Cambridge Design Partnership, Cambridge Temperature Concepts, Cognovo, EmotionAI, Hypertag, Marshall, Plextek, RedGate, Taptu, and UltraSoc, among many others. It was good to see both candidates and audience stay on to chat rather than rush back to watch the Prime Ministerial candidates debate.

Airports across Europe shut down at the end of the week as volcanic ash drifted south from Iceland, and contacts stranded around the world related their travel woes through LinkedIn and Twitter. Pictures of Mount Erebus in Antarctica seemed very distant at the start of the week, and the academics monitoring those volcanoes quite esoteric. But actually our world is small and there is plenty to learn here, if we can only connect.