Each year, the Engineering Department hosts an Annual Industry Lecture – a special lecture given by a well-known engineer – talking about something of interest to our current staff, students and engineers in general.  This year's lecture was attended by 180 people.

Hugo Spowers is a partner in Riversimple LLP. After reading Engineering at Oxford, he spent 15 years in motorsport but left in 1997 to work on environmentally benign cars. He concluded that a step change in technology was both essential and possible and, furthermore, that the principal barriers were not technical but to do with people, politics and business; the incumbent industry was shaped by the 20th Century and redesigning the business model for providing mobility reduces both barriers and risks.

Popular wisdom dictates that one change at a time is a prudent strategy but Hugo argues that incremental change creates artificial technical and commercial barriers that can be entirely avoided if multiple changes are made simultaneously; it's also more fun!

Slides from the lecture (PDF)

Text of the lecture (PDF)

You can see details about Hugo and Riversimple at http://www.riversimple.com

Members of the Engineering Society and Dr David Siddle meet Hugo Spowers.

Hugo Spowers talking with Professor John Fothergill, head of the Department of Engineering.