Cyber Physical Future Forum

The past few years have seen a growing convergence of emerging technologies to create at scale complex systems that will blur the lines between the digital and physical worlds. These “Cyber Physical Systems” are beginning to emerge as a new capability for businesses, society and the planet in the form of digital twins, the extended reality metaverse and other robotic and autonomous systems.

With this new and emerging cyber physical future, we are coming together with leaders in the field to foster discussions on what this means for the UK, how we can build these new innovations for the future and how we ensure that we create a new technology ecosystem that focuses on interoperability, openness, security and focuses on the needs of the end user.

These innovative cyber physical capabilities will also become interconnected, with underpinning infrastructure, data models and architectures that will enable innovators to more quickly build solutions to tackle challenges and create opportunities. This will include net zero goals for industry, new experiences for consumers, operational efficiency for businesses and a variety of economic and commercial opportunities. This set of connected physical and digital systems, and the building blocks that enable them, can be thought of as a cyber physical infrastructure over which new solutions and innovations can be developed.

The foundation thinking for the cyber physical infrastructure vision has been primarily led by the Robotic Growth Partnership, and Digital Catapult, which led research on behalf of BEIS to support the analysis on the questions of how to bring this vision to life.

This Forum is building on the work carried out till date with an aim to ideate how the vision for cyber physical future in the UK can be brought to life and to discuss how we build the technology ecosystem of the future.

Due to the format of the event, we are able to accommodate only a limited number of attendees.

This event will be of most interest to policy makers, industry stakeholders, adopters, users and other organisations from within the innovation landscape, interested in the cyber physical infrastructure in the UK.

12:00 Doors open – arrivals, lunch and networking

Moderated by Katy Ho, Head of Innovation – Emerging Ecosystem Building, Digital Catapult

12:45 Welcome

Dr Jeremy Silver, CEO, Digital Catapult

12:50 Keynote speech

George Freeman MP, Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, BEIS

13:05 Building cyber physical infrastructure – overview of report and study findings

Phil Young, Director for Policy, Research & Strategic Engagement, Digital Catapult

13:15 Panel discussion – What does the cyber physical future mean for the business ecosystem? What are commercial opportunities

Robert Elliot Smith, Director of AI and Data Science, Digital Catapult

Melissa Zanocco OBE, Head of Programmes, Infrastructure Client Group

Richard Warner, Director of Partner Success, Improbable

Mark Wharton, Co-founder, Inventor, IOTICS

14:05 Coffee break

14:30 Panel discussion: How do we deliver a cyber physical future, and avoid building a fake-osystem?

Paul Ceely, Director of Technology Strategy, Digital Catapult

Mark Enzer OBE FREng, Strategic Advisor at Mott MacDonald and Previous Head of UK National Digital Twin programme

Pippa Sharma, Deputy Director, Technology Strategy & Security, Business Growth Directorate at BEIS

Fabio la Franca, Founder and CEO, Blueverse Ventures

15:20 Closing remarks and next steps

Phil Young, Director for Policy, Research & Strategic Engagement, Digital Catapult

15:30- 16:30 Post-event networking

16:30 Event closes