Meet our speakers

Neil is a globally experienced, ‘first-principles’ Engineer and currently operates as Rolls-Royce’s company Fellow in Digital Manufacturing Systems within the corporate Chief Technology Office, where he takes full cross-sector business accountability for the setting of strategy in this technology domain.

Neil started with Rolls-Royce as an Apprentice in 1984, having now held numerous technology and operational roles prior to formal recognition of his specialism in Digital Manufacturing. During his career Neil’s genuine passion in this sphere of technology has led Rolls-Royce through sustainable levels of global transformational change in Manufacturing, whilst continuing to navigate the company’s own journey to Industry 4.0. This has involved many fortunate opportunities to design and launch international programmes both in Singapore and the US; and also take a leading role in the development of R-R’s interests in global AxRC’s (incl. HVMC).

Linda is a Professor of Cost Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath. She leads the ‘Made Smarter Innovation: People-Led Digitilisation’ Centre, and grants such as Designing the Future: Resilient Transdisciplinary Design Engineers and Responsive Manufacturing: Maximising Value Through Life.  Knowledge, information and management is at the heart of her work which is industry focused aiming for world leading manufacturing.   She is on the EPSRC Manufacturing the Future, Circular Economy, Strategic Advisory Team, is President of the Society of Transdisciplinary Engineering, and a committee member of the Society of Cost Analysis and  Forecasting.  In 2021 she was awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Research Medal for her sustained contribution and impact, and was awarded an Honorary CPCostE Accreditation by the Association of Cost Engineers in 2022. 

Philippa is a member of OMRON's senior leadership team in the UK and Ireland responsible for strategically driving Omron’s Industry Commercial Teams.  Before this, she was the Managing Director of a small robotic integration business based in the Northwest. Philippa is passionate about working closely with the broader manufacturing community to address critical challenges that will shape our future. She is a Made Smarter Commissioner and a passionate advocate for the sector sitting on several regional and national industry boards including Liverpool City Regions Innovation Board, Make UK and Innovate UK.

Ben is the Deputy Director of the Innovate UK-led £300 million Made Smarter Innovation Challenge; a collaboration between UK government and industry designed to support the development and novel application of industrial digital technologies.
 
Prior to this, Ben held positions at HiETA Technologies, Airbus Group, University of Bath and Cobham. He is also founder of Added Lightness, a technology strategy consulting business, and Atherton Bikes, which brings together multiple-world champion and world cup winning athletes with the latest composite and additive manufacturing technologies.
 
Ben holds a degree in Materials Science and Engineering and an MBA from the University of Bath, a PhD in Materials Science and Metallurgy from the University of Cambridge and is a Chartered Engineer.

Professor Keith Ridgway CBE FREng is the Senior Executive - Manufacturing at the University of Strathclyde. 

Born in Manchester, Keith studied for his first degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Manchester (UMIST) and started his career as a Special Apprentice at Mather and Platt Ltd, Manchester. He worked as a design engineer at Kennedy and Donkin Consulting Engineers, Manchester before studying for a PhD at the University of Manchester, supported by Shell International Marine. After completion he returned to industry before becoming an academic with a strong desire to bring Industry and Academia closer together. In 2000, he worked with Sheffield businessman Adrian Allen to establish the AMRC with Boeing at the University of Sheffield. This mechanism of collaborative working not only extended to other sectors but was the basis of how Catapults work with industry today. In 2019 he joined the University of Strathclyde as the Exec Chair of the Advanced Forging Research Centre and established the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland. In September 2020, he was appointed as the Chair of Industry Wales by Ministerial appointment. (Welsh Government). 

Professor Ridgway is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Royal Institute of Naval Architects and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. In 2019 he was elected a Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute. He was awarded the OBE for services to UK manufacturing industry in June 2005 and a CBE for services to Manufacturing Research in January 2012. 

Mark Huddleston, is joint CEO Makers Alliance, working with key stakeholders including Invest NI / Dept. for Economy, Manufacturing NI, universities, further education colleges and councils to address the needs of Makers and advanced manufacturing across Northern Ireland. Mark has more than 20 years’ industry experience working across automotive, aerospace, defence and space sectors from his own family business to global multi-nationals. He has just finished as vice chair of the Northern Ireland Skills Council working in conjunction with regional government to support the new 10X Skills Strategy, furthering the implementation of apprenticeship & youth training policy and widening participation in lifelong learning. He was NI Commissioner for Employment and Skills from 2015-2018, representing NI at the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. He is also acting as an adviser to the Special EU Programmes Body on Theme Two – Economic Transformation and Regeneration.

Dr. Redwan Alqasemi earned his BSc, MSc, and PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1994, 2001, and 2007 consecutively. He is currently a research professor at the University of South Florida’s Mechanical Engineering Department and a lead researcher at the Center for Assistive, Rehabilitation and Robotics Technologies (CARRT). Dr. Alqasemi is a senior member of IEEE society, a member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), and a board member of the Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board. He served as a panelist for several NSF/NIH programs and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Rehabilitation Research & Development Service (RRDS) program. Dr. Alqasemi has published more than 200 technical papers in national and international journals and conferences in the field of robotics and assistive/rehabilitation technologies, and he is an Associate Editor for the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), committee member for IEEE Control Systems Society on Intelligent Control, and for MDPI Sensors Journal. His research interests include: rehabilitation robotics and assistive technologies, human-robot interaction and controls, virtual reality simulation, haptic interfaces, and brain-computer interfaces. Dr. Alqasemi holds five full US patents, several provisional patents, and some of his work is ready for commercial use.

Mark has held various engineering leadership roles within industry, Formula One, academia and the public sector. In over a decade in F1 he ran both Jaguar/Red Bull and Williams race engineering teams.  

In academia he held the inaugural Sir George Edwards Chair in Aerospace Engineering, at the University of Surrey.  As CTO of the UK’s Innovation Agency, Innovate UK, Mark ran both the Strategy and Impact and the Centres and Networks Governance Directorates, that included oversight of the UK’s extensive Catapult Network.  He was also Chief Executive of Wave Power Ltd, Chief Operations Officer for Artemis Technologies Ltd and Belfast Digital Innovation Commissioner.  

Prior to joining KAUST as Special Projects Director, Mark was Head of R&D at the UK’s National Air Traffic Services (NATS), leading on a variety of airspace projects including one of the UK’s largest funded AI projects, called BlueBird, aimed at delivering the world’s first AI system to work with air traffic controllers and control a section of airspace in live trials.

Mark is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a Visiting Professor of both Surrey and Ulster Universities.

Michael works as the Head of Digital Transformation for ATS Global in the UK, working closely with the manufacturing industry and heading up the digital consultancy team to drive forward the adoption and usage of digital systems. Michael works with manufacturing organisations across domains to help them to understand their challenges, pain points and how digital solutions can be applied to resolve them. He is passionate about education and the appropriate implementation of technologies and systems to deliver cross domain business value ranging from shop floor IIOT and sensors through to higher level Manufacturing execution management systems. Not just implementing digital systems for the sake of change and modernity but building their implementation into an achievable and sustainable program to deliver improvements and tangible business transformation.

Professor Sam Turner is the CEO of the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre (AMIC), a £98m industry led innovation centre funded through the Belfast Regional City Deal at Queens University Belfast. Sam brings over 15 years leadership experience in industry led manufacturing innovation centres from his time at HVM Catapult and AMRC. On secondment from the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, he retains one day a week as the HVM Catapult Net Zero Champion, working across UK stakeholders to develop the HVMC strategy for net zero and support UK industry sectors in their transition to Net Zero.

Mark has worked closely with leading manufacturing strategy and innovation organizations over the years.  He served on the Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association (MESA) International Board of Directors and their Executive Committee and has served on the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) Board of Directors.  He is currently working with the Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CESMII) leading their Food and Beverage Affinity Group, as well as serving on their Sustainability Committee, Governance Board and Executive Committee. He is a contributing author to the book “Smart Manufacturing: Concepts and Methods” published by Elsevier in August 2020.

Cormac is the Senior Engineering Manager of Seagate’s Springtown Global Wafer Systems team, where he is responsible for Data Analytics, Visualization and Control Systems. He has a BSc Honours Degree in Electronic Science and 27 years of experience in manufacturing and engineering. An expert in the field of Advanced Process Control, he has authored a paper on "Evolution of Intelligent Factory control systems” and co-authored a paper on "Driving Decisions with Automated Workflow and R". His team recently introduced Cloud technologies into Seagate, scaling out Factory-integrated Artificially Intelligent applications and earning a “Smart Factory Manufacturer of the year” award.

Dolores is the Co-Founder of Total Control Pro – DynamxMFG manufacturing Operations Platform, providing SMB manufacturers with cloud based MES, SFDC and ERP for 10 years. 
Dolores combines her foundation in Manufacturing and Technology to focus on bringing to market effective technologies that support manufacturers in day to day operations. Collaboration with the broader technology and manufacturing communities, will serve to answer the bigger questions around manufacturing sustainably and using our resources effectively for the future, whilst delivering on business needs. 

Dolores grew up with holiday work in her parents factory, and saw the adoption of some of the first precision automation in printing and textile production, many techniques still widely used. 
Her first business was a screen printing company and she has built companies in digital rich media, and digital data transfer, for the last 30 years, winning her first Digital Transformation Award in 1998 alongside Martha Lane Fox.

Innovate UK Woman in Innovation Award and E2E Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs 2023. Dolores is a Ambassador for Be the Business, a Exemplar Mentor and enthusiastic member of the Strategic Board for the SMDH.

Dr David Sanderson is a Senior Research Fellow with a background in systems engineering specialising in the integration of adaptive systems for complex applications. Having gained his Masters in Information Systems Engineering and PhD in Intelligent Systems and Networks, both from Imperial College London, UK, he is currently at the Centre for Aerospace Manufacturing under the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is a member of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour. His work in Nottingham addresses intelligent integration, control, and reconfiguration in manufacturing, with previous low-TRL projects focussing on behavioural modelling and context awareness. Current projects focus on the mid-TRL integration of production systems for high-value, high-complexity, low- or variable-volume products in the aerospace domain that require solutions not addressed by conventional off-the-shelf MES and shop-floor control systems.

Noel has over 25 years hands-on experience working with manufacturing organisations on their digital transformation journeys.