Our speakers and talks
Friday 5 September saw one hundred delegates arrive at Reuben College for its third annual Entrepreneurship Forum. This is one of Reuben’s flagship events, where entrepreneurial graduate students are given the opportunity to network with key players in the University’s innovation eco-system and meet former students who started their companies when they were at Oxford.
Professor Lord Tarassenko (Reuben College President) set the scene and then handed over to Reuben Fellow, Cath Spence, who is also the Student Entrepreneurship & Incubator Lead for Oxford University Innovation (OUI) – no better person to enthuse the audience about entrepreneurship, demystify the thorny issue of Intellectual Property (IP) and explain how OUI works with students. Cath was followed by Kirsty Lloyd-Jukes, an Entrepreneur in Residence from Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE). OSE is an investment company backed by leading international blue-chip investors, dedicated to investing in Oxford University spin-outs (with University IP) and start-ups (no University IP). Kirsty illustrated her talk by describing the success story of Oxford Ionics, a quantum computing spin-out company acquired in June 2025 for $1.08bn. The company was only started in 2019 by two Oxford scientists who had had completed their DPhils in the Physics Department.
After this opening session which focused on how to start an Oxford company, the Forum resumed with presentations from speakers who had taken the opportunity to set up a company whilst a student at the University. First up was Patrick Brown, who had won the pitching competition last year after setting up Desigla, an automated platform to transform ideas into market-ready products in just a day. Patrick described the remarkable progress the company had made in the last 12 months whilst he was also in his final year as an undergraduate. Amazingly, Desigla has fulfilled 85,000 orders and has had a £1.4m turnover!
Dr Christoph Birkl, who co-founded Brill Power as a DPhil student in the Department of Engineering Science, was up next. He began by sharing the news that the company had just been acquired by Palmer Energy Technology. He also explained how Brill Power's Battery Intelligence Platform brings major advances in longevity, performance, cost and sustainability to electric vehicles. The morning session finished with a presentation from Sreyas Tirunagari from Quench.ai, who described how to build a start-up company in the age of Generative AI.
After lunch, we moved a long way from Oxford with a talk from Andy Thompson, both an entrepreneur and an investor from Silicon Valley, and a Reuben College Visiting Fellow. Andy described the process of setting up a company (business plan, people and funding), and then compared how each stage was executed in Silicon Valley and Oxford. The last speaker, Dr Mina Bekheet, the CEO of Panacea, then delivered the 2025 Forum keynote talk, describing his journey from being a DPhil student in the biomedical sciences to launching an investment fund to support start-ups in the life sciences. He emphasised that, in his view, the most powerful innovations happen at the intersection of disciplines.
Pitching competition
The now well-established pitching competition, for some the highlight of the Forum, pitted six pre-selected teams of Oxford students against each other, competing for a first prize of £30k (and a prize of 10k for the runners-up). The competition was judged by a panel chaired by Nicola McConville, a Partner at Mishcon de Reya.
First place went to Autotone, a start-up founded by graduate engineers from three different colleges whose product uses machine learning to replicate electric guitar effects without the need for traditional hardware like pedals or amps. In second place came Azenity, who have developed an AI platform to simulate enzymes, improving the efficiency of the enzyme engineering process for industrial labs. We have already invited Autotone to come back next year and give us a live demonstration (with guitars) of their product.
The Forum concluded with a drinks reception, offering the pitching teams and other delegates with further opportunities for networking and conversation.
Quotes from delegates
Thank you to Reuben College, University of Oxford for hosting such a vibrant forum celebrating entrepreneurship and innovation at Oxford.
(EnSpire Oxford)
It was a real pleasure to attend the Reuben College Entrepreneurship Forum for the third year in a row. Always inspiring to see platforms like this that give entrepreneurs the chance to showcase their work, connect, collaborate, and spark new ideas.
(Ahmed Adel Saad, Programme Manager at The Entrepreneurship Centre, Saïd Business School)
Love seeing entrepreneurship forums that actually focus on building real connections and learning!
(Ash L, Founder, Odd Circles)
