WMG at the University of Warwick has launched a new initiative to allow 25 West Midlands firms to take on a skilled intern to help them develop new products or services.

The Project Associate scheme is part of WMG’s Innovation Programme run by the new International Institute for Product and Service Innovation (IIPSI).

IIPSI’s core mission is to give West Midlands SMEs access world-leading technology to develop innovative products and services.

Dr Greg Gibbons, Head of WMG's Additive Layer Manufacturing group, was featured on BBC's The One Show last night in a piece about the future of 3D printing.

One Show presenter, Marty Jopson, visited WMG's facilities to see the range of work that is currently taking place and the number of different sectors that are are already benefitting from the technology.

The full piece on The One Show can be viewed on BBC iPlayer for the next 7 days:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rjzcc/The_One_Show_27_03_2013/?t=31m46s 

Research led by WMG at the University of Warwick is creating a physical personal digital repository that will record and hold data on both a person’s digital footprint and the physical patterns of their daily home life.

The repository is owned by the individual (much like money in our banks) and could be used to trade and shape future services and products to individuals.

The Research Councils UK Digital Economy Programme has given £1.2 million to a team of business researchers, economists, computing experts and arts academics from six UK universities (Warwick, Exeter, Nottingham, Cambridge, West of England and Edinburgh) to undertake the two-year study project, which will begin in June 2013.

The final speakers for the annual TEDxWarwick event have been announced this week, completing the full programme around the theme of Building Bridges.

We are pleased to announce WMG Honorary Fellow, Rick Robinson, is one of the speakers at this year’s event. Dr Rick Robinson is Executive IT Architect at IBM, responsible for the development and delivery of their Smarter Cities solutions. Dr Robinson will speak on the subject of Smarter Stories for Better Cities – how to develop sustainable city systems, such as transportation and water, in rapidly growing economies. Cities around the world are growing at a rate of two people per second; five billion people are expected to be living in cities by 2030; astonishing developments in science and technology such as 3D printing, brain-computer interfaces and predictive analytics offer the opportunity in theory to develop new models of business and city systems that can supply, manage and exchange resources in ways that are more sustainable; and that create localised personal and community value. Dr Robinson works closely with regional and city government organisations to unravel the problems faced by this rapid population growth.

TEDx, an off-shoot of the prestigious global TED event conference, is a programme of local, self-organised events that bring people together to share their experience. TEDxWarwick is organised by a team of 26 students from the University of Warwick, and this year is being led by WMG’s Professor Lucy Hooberman, Professor of Digital Media and Innovation.

Professor Hooberman is bringing her knowledge and expertise, gained from a career within the media industry and at the BBC, to the 2013 student organisers. She describes her role as one of a ‘mentor’ to the team.

This year’s line-up of speakers also includes:

· Kate Cooper – Feeding the City, Feeding the Mind

· Tan Lai Yong – The Broken Bicycle Chain

· Stefan Bon – Nano Materials: The Science of the Small

· Andy Miah – I Scientist: The Art of Future-Gazing

· Gilean McVean – A Thousand Genomes, A Thousand Stories

· Sir Philip Craven – Paralympic Sport: Society’s Great Educator

· Fabian Oefner – When Science Meets Art

….and many more from a range of fields.

Tickets for TEDxWarwick 2013, which takes place on Saturday 9^th March, are now on sale from the TEDxWarwick website: http://www.tedxwarwick.com/2013/

Pupils from North Leamington School in Warwickshire have made it through to the national finals of the F1 in Schools competition for the second year running.

The team of six students spent six months designing and building a model Formula One car, which they raced at the regional competition at Aston University, finishing in second place (missing out on fastest car by 0.005 seconds!) The team also won the trophy for Best Engineered Car, sponsored by Jaguar Land Rover.

Dr Greg Gibbons, Senior Research Fellow at WMG, helped the team to manufacture the suspension and some aerofoil components using WMG's state-of-the-art 3D printing facilities.

Researchers from WMG are working with staff and students from a local school on a project designed to help get the students interested in engineering and the technology involved in developing an electric-powered racing car.

Darren Stewardson, Materials Technologist at WMG, and Dr Steve Maggs, Principal Teaching Fellow at WMG, have been working with North Leamington School to develop an electric car which will eventually be built to compete in IET Formula 24, a national competition held at Goodwood, for students aged 11-16.

A new innovation support programme aimed at helping small business growth has been launched by the SME team at WMG, University of Warwick. They have recently been awarded ERDF funding to offer two free days of innovation support to West Midlands SMEs, through a new Innovation Programme, which is designed to help SMEs transform existing products and services and launch new products and services that are market leading and able to adapt to changing market needs.

WMG’s Chairman and founder, Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, welcomes Dr Vince Cable’s promise of a £1bn 'business bank'.

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya said:

“For two years now I've been fighting hard for a business bank, having seen how hard it has been for SME's to get capital.”

“I am absolutely delighted that Dr Vince Cable has made this announcement. Whilst details are sketchy, it is a wonderful start. This will really help SME's throughout the country."

A group of schoolchildren from Coventry’s Westwood Academy have become the first members of the public to see a specially commissioned 3D Virtual Reality model of Warwickshire’s Lunt Fort.

They were invited to WMG to see how the fort would have looked during the height of use by Roman soldiers between 60 and 80AD.

WMG's International Institute for Product and Service Innovation is three quarters through its build programme and on schedule as planned. Funded by the European Regional Development Fund and University of Warwick, it is due for completion this summer, with official launch expected for September 2012. IIPSI is WMG’s fifth building and will be dedicated purely for the use of SMEs in the region, highlighting WMG’s continuing dedication to business support and innovation.