Founder and CEO - Satalia (NPComplete Ltd)

Satalia (NPComplete Ltd) provides 'Optimisation-as-a-Service' to academia and industry, and has developed a technology - The SolveEngine - that span-out of UCL in 2008. This technology:

1. gives industry transparent and seamless access to state-of-the-art optimisation algorithms that enables more intelligent use of computation and produces better and faster solutions to their problems
2. provides new economic models to allow academics to commercialize their algorithmic innovations and get access to critical data to improve their research, and
3. gives producers of software tools a new revenue mechanism to support the development and exposure of their software.

This software platform includes five main components:

1. a portal and API to allow the submission of optimisation problems and retrieve the solutions
2. new optimisation translators and encodings to provide interoperability between algorithmic formats (such as SAT, CSP, FZN, LP, AMPL, SMT, OPB, etc)
3. machine learning to intelligently match the right algorithms to the problems it receives
4. distributed computation, running on public or private clouds and HPC, and
5. a management console to allow academics to include their algorithms on the platform, commercialise their IP and gain access to valuable data to enable better research.

The 'Optimisation-as-a-Service' platform is a conduit for academic algorithms into industry, and has wide reaching commercial applications across multiple sectors, including Finance, Bioinformatics, Logistics, Telecoms and Defence. Optimisation problems exist across the entire spectrum of computer science and engineering, and NPComplete’s SolveEngine has already been used to solve hard computational problems in graph theory, logistics, system verification, BigData and cryptography.

Kauffman Global Scholar

The Kauffman Global Scholars Program is a world-class opportunity for outstanding recent graduates who are aspiring and early-stage entrepreneurs, selected through a competitive application process, to develop their entrepreneurial skills and ideas, competencies, and capabilities to start a business. The Program affords these participants the opportunity to catalyze their ideas with unparalleled training in entrepreneurship, bringing together a unique group from around the world.

Entering its seventh year in 2013, the Global Scholars Program, an initiative of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, has hosted students sponsored by governments and organizations from eight countries representing at least fourteen nationalities. In 2013, the Program will include participants from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and the United States.

For six months, selected Scholars study, exchange ideas, and work with entrepreneurial experts. As part of the experience, Scholars:

Meet and engage with leading scholars and thinkers, policy leaders, innovative researchers, and business founders. Building on their existing expertise, they have the opportunity to further develop their skills in the direction of entrepreneurship and the creation of innovative businesses.

Learn from fellow aspiring entrepreneurs from other countries who likewise aim to build companies with global vision and global reach. They learn to think systematically about entrepreneurship and the variables that may lead to the success of their ventures.

Visit leading universities to exchange ideas with faculty, students, and those engaged in innovative, entrepreneurial work.

Experience a three-month entrepreneurship internship at an innovative company, and understand the real-life challenges and rewards of entrepreneurship.

In today’s economy, companies must think and act globally to succeed. The Kauffman Global Scholars Program forms the cornerstone of an important transnational dialogue that benefits all who participate.

Upon completing the program, Scholars possess a keen understanding of how they can apply their ideas, technical skills, and knowledge to create successful, high-impact ventures in their countries.

The Kauffman Foundation, America’s leading foundation on entrepreneurship, founded the Global Scholars Program in 2007 in collaboration with the United Kingdom government, then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, and the National Council of Graduate Entrepreneurship. The program gives select young engineering, science, and technology scholars from other countries the opportunity to study entrepreneurship in America.

International entrepreneurship programme for the UK's best graduate entrepreneurs in science, technology, engineering and maths. Six months in the UK and six months in the US. Part-time training and support delivered by NESTA and NCGE, supported by sponsor universities. Entrepreneurs focus on developing their innovative product ideas. Then full-time as Global Scholars at world renowned Kauffman Foundation in the US. Focuses on new venture creation from top US institutions/academics and four months entrepreneurial experience within an innovative US company.