Workshop Sessions

Every medical device carries a set of decisions made in its first few weeks: who it is for, what it claims to do, which market it enters first, and how much of the design can change later. Get those right and the rest of development runs more smoothly. Get them wrong and they are expensive to unpick. This session looks at some of those decisions relating to intended purpose, market fit, and evidence, with practical steps you can apply to a project now, whether new to medical devices or already partway through.

We will explore key challenges in modern robotic systems and highlight the core difficulties of achieving reliable real‑time motion control. The session will examine how integrated industrial communication solutions deliver deterministic performance, efficiency, and coordination across complex motion architectures, while also addressing functional safety to ensure reliable operation and environmental protection. Finally, we will consider the growing importance of cybersecurity.

The way engineers discover, research and evaluate suppliers is changing rapidly. Technical buyers increasingly self-serve information, compare potential solutions and form opinions long before speaking to a supplier - with search, answer engines and AI now becoming part of that process.

This practical session explores what the changing buyer journey means for manufacturers and engineering businesses, and how marketing can help turn technical expertise into visibility, understanding and trust. Moving beyond classic marketing theory, Alex will introduce a practical framework for identifying friction across the buyer journey, capturing valuable technical knowledge and making small, measurable improvements that compound over time.

Attendees will leave with a structured approach to building marketing that helps their business get found, understood, specified and trusted - even before a sales conversation begins.

Counterfeit goods form a multi-billion dollar industry and electronic components form part of that. Let’s take a look at how modern testing techniques helps in the fight against counterfeit components entering the supply chain. The good, the bad and the surprising world of  electronic components.

Hardware ventures rarely collapse because of bad engineering. They fail when teams focus on technical details while ignoring downstream commercial, regulatory, and operational risks.

In this interactive session, founders and investors Dean Carran and Ben May trade slide-deck theory for raw operator experience. Having built, scaled, and exited hardware spin-outs, as well as taking the financial hits of failed ventures, they share lessons learned from both sides.

Moving beyond basic Technology Readiness Levels, they introduce a framework spanning IP, compliance, supply chain, and specialist sector requirements. Expect an open discussion on real failure points, de-risking strategies, and shared experience.

Problem of turning internal documents into AI‑answerable knowledge: 

• Requires sending files to cloud APIs, which conflicts with security policies, NDAs, and regulations
• Token‑based pricing makes costs unpredictable and hard to budget

For organizations holding confidential information, the files that most need AI help are exactly those that mustn’t leave the premises.

Cloud models don’t understand internal terminology and depend on stable connectivity and APIs, while typical RAG knowledge bases force document resends for every query and generate answers without clear citations, driving up cost and latency and making verification difficult.

By deploying an on‑premise AI system to structure historical technical cases, engineers can query in natural language and receive similar cases, summaries, and source references without data leaving the company.

The SheCanEngineer workshop offers a unique approach to raising awareness around Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and intersectionality in Engineering and Management. Designed to be accessible and open to all, this session should bring all genders to the table. An interactive presentation of the business case for diversity in engineering, and the role of awareness and psychological safety in creating inclusive workplaces. Outcomes:

·       Understanding the gender gap in the engineering workplace.

·       Understanding how bias works in CV assessment.

·       Defining psychologically safe environments.

SheCanEngineer is a volunteer-based charity based in the UK, working to close the gender gap in engineering industries by raising awareness around issues relating to DE&I, and promoting engineering careers to students.