Z/Yen and the China Development Institute (CDI) are hosting an online expert seminar to take place on 21 October 2020 with a focus on China-UK Technology Co-operation.

The objectives of the event are:

• To explore current developments in technology co-operation across regulation, finance, trade, engineering/manufacturing, and the digital economy;
• To identify opportunities for increased co-operation between businesses, regulators and policy-makers in China and Europe;
• To promote understanding of the potential for technology co-operation between China and the UK.

Speakers:

Professor Fan Gang, President, China Development Institute:

Gang Fan is President of China Development Institute, Director of National Economic Research Institute and Chairman of China Reform Foundation in Beijing, China. He is Professor of Economics at Peking University (PHBS) and at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

He served as an independent member of the Monetary Policy Committee of China’s Central Bank from 2006 to 2010, and again since 2015, and is an advisor to various departments of the Chinese central government and provincial governments. He served as an economic consultant to various international organizations and played leading roles in research projects commissioned by the World Bank, ADB, UNDP, OECD, etc.

Professor Michael Mainelli, Executive Chairman, Z/Yen Group Ltd:

Professor Michael Mainelli FCCA FCSI FBCS co-founded Z/Yen, the City of London's leading commercial think-tank and venture firm, in 1994 to promote societal advance through better finance and technology. A qualified accountant, securities professional, computer specialist and management consultant, educated at Harvard University and Trinity College Dublin, Michael gained his PhD at London School of Economics where he was also a Visiting Professor. His PhD was on the application of risk/reward methodologies involving chaotic systems. Michael's career summary is a decade of technology research, followed by a decade in finance, then two decades at Z/Yen. Michael is an Alderman of the City Of London and currently serves as Sheriff of London.

Professor John Loughead, Chair of the International Mission Innovation Steering Committee:

Professor John Loughhead CB OBE FREng FTSE FIMechE FIET has extensive international experience in industry, academia and government. In the summer of 2019 John was appointed Chair of the international Mission Innovation Steering Committee. Mission Innovation is the primary intergovernmental forum to progress clean energy innovation and was launched at COP21 in Paris.

He was previously the Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). As a CSA, he was called upon for independent, impartial assurance on scientific rigour. His professional career has been predominantly in industrial research and development for the electronics and electrical power industries. His industrial experience includes advanced, high power gas turbines; new energy conversion systems; spacecraft thermal management; electrical and materials development for electricity generation and transmission equipment; and electronic control systems. John is a Chartered Engineer, graduating in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College, London, where he also spent five years in computational fluid dynamics research. Previously the Past-President of the UK’s Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Fellow of both the UK and Australian national Academies of Engineering, Honorary Professor of Cardiff University and Honorary Fellow of Queen Mary University of London.

Professor Zhang Xiaoyan, Vice Dean, PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University:

Xiaoyan Zhang is the Associate Dean at PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University. She is the Deputy Director of National Institute of Financial Research Tsinghua University and Institute of Fin-tech Research Tsinghua University. Prof. Zhang also heads the Xinyuan Fin-tech Research Center. Her research focuses on market regulation, quantitative investment and international finance. Her work has been published in Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies and other academic journals.

Professor Qiao Yu, Director, Institute of Advanced Computing and Digital Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences:

Yu Qiao is a professor with the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT), the Chinese Academy of Science, and the director of Institute of Advanced Computing and Digital Engineering. His research interests include computer vision, deep learning, and bio-information. He has published more than 180 papers in international journals and conferences, including T-PAMI, IJCV, T-IP, T-SP, CVPR, ICCV etc. He is also a Senior member of IEEE.

Professor David Bogle, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Pro-Vice-Provost of Doctoral School, University College London:

David Bogle is Professor of Chemical Engineering at University College London (UCL) and Pro-Vice-Provost of UCL’s Doctoral School. His expertise is in Process Systems Engineering and Systems Biology. He is visiting Professor at the East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) and chair of the Advisory Board for the Joint International Research Laboratory of Smart and Optimal Manufacturing for the Petrochemical Industry at ECUST in Shanghai. He organised a joint meeting between the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Royal Academy of Engineering in Shanghai in 2017 on Smart Process Manufacturing. He is currently Scientific Vice President of the European Federation of Chemical Engineers.

James York, Founder, Worry+Peace, Deputy Chair Insurtech UK:

James York is the founder of Worry+Peace – which is putting financial products under one roof, starting with insurance. He’s held a number of volunteer roles across the sector including BIBA and the CII. He is co-founder and Deputy Chair of Insurtech UK and a co-convenor at the sector collective Totus Re. He is a self-confessed insurance advocate and seeks to work with like minds to help improve the sector’s reputation across society.

Professor Shen Yan, Deputy Director, Institute of Digital Finance, Peking University:

Yan Shen is Deputy Director of Institute of Digital Finance, Professor of Economics at National School of Development, Peking University, Member of Econometric Society, Member of American Economic Association. Her research areas mainly focus on Big Data and Digital Finance, Peer-to-Peer Lending, Micro-finance, Econometrics, Microfinance.

Dr. Zheng Zhibin, General Manager of Global Smart City Business Department, HUAWEI:

Zhibin Zheng is the General Manager of Global Smart City Business Department of HUAWEI, and Vice Chairman of China Cyberspace Security Association. He is also appointed as the senior researcher of China Smart City Development Research Center, member of the Internet Committee of China Institute of Communications, and member of the National Information Standardization Committee.

Prof. Mirco Musolesi, Professor Of Computer Science, University College London:

Mirco Musolesi is a Professor in Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science at University College London and a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK national institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. He is also Professor of Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Bologna. He received a PhD in Computer Science from University College London in 2007 and a Master in Electronic Engineering from the University of Bologna in 2002. He held research and teaching positions at Dartmouth College, Cambridge, St Andrews and Birmingham. He is a computer scientist with a strong interest in sensing, modelling, understanding and predicting human behavior and dynamics in space and time, at different scales, using the "digital traces" we generate daily in our online and offline lives. He is interested in developing mathematical and computational models as well as implementing real-world systems based on them. This work has applications in a variety of domains, such as ubiquitous computing, intelligent systems design, digital health and security&privacy.

Professor Jane Jiang, Royal Academy of Engineering/Renishaw Chair in Precision Metrology, Director, the UK National EPSRC Future Metrology Hub, University of Huddersfield:

Professor Dame Jane Jiang holds a UK Royal Academy of Engineering/Renishaw Chair in Precision Metrology and is the Director of the EPSRC Future Metrology Hub. She obtained her PhD in measurement science in 1995, a Professorial Chair in 2003, a DSc for precision engineering in 2007.

Jane is an internationally respected research leader in advanced manufacturing, a specialist for precision metrology. She created a National Innovative Manufacturing Centre in 2006, focusing on “factory on machine”. Later 2011, she further developed her centre into a National Hub for Manufacturing InfraTechnology, with other three universities: Bath, Loughborough and Sheffield, in conjunction with the National Physical Laboratory and High-value manufacturing Catapult. Jane led a group that created: a new generation of sensors/instruments for in-line measurement applications; transferring laboratory-based metrology to a manufacturing platforms; creating ground-breaking internationally leading embedded metrology and universal metrology informatics systems that can be applied throughout the manufacturing value chain.

Jane is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), a Fellow of the International Academy of Production Research (FCIRP), the Institute of Engineering Technology (FIET). She has published more than 400 journal papers; was awarded a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2006, the Sir Harold Hartley Medal in 2014 and the IET 2014 Innovation Award in the manufacturing technology. More recently she received a Damehood in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to manufacturing and engineering.

Barry Brooks, Immediate Past-Master, Worshipful Company of Engineers, Trustee, Engineers Trust:

Barry Brooks BSc(Eng) CMarEng FIMarEST CEng FIET FCGI read Electrical Engineering at Imperial College, sponsored by the Royal Navy, with whom he had a successful and varied career – seagoing submarine weapon systems and nuclear propulsion, R&D projects, MOD strategy, long-term planning, resource allocation, pan-MOD change to procurement, through-life support and project management organisations.

Since 2002, he worked for IBM, Hitachi and his own company, Wychcote Ltd, providing support for, and assurance of, complex, high-risk, engineering, procurement and change programmes.

Since 2001, his volunteering includes the Institution of Engineering and Technology (and as President and Chairman of the Board of Trustees 2013-14), and Institute of Marine Engineering Science and Technology (as Trustee).

As Master Engineer of the Worshipful Company of Engineers (2019-20), he led the Promoting Engineering in the City of London (PECL) campaign, encouraging engineers and financiers to collaborate in meeting strategic challenges such as climate change.