Eastern Promise - The Podcast

This Week: We bring you an on-location special!   First, Mike Rigby talks to organisers and key delegates at the East of England Local Government Association (EELGA) & Infrastructure Matters ' conference, 'Opportunity East', itself based on EELGA's landmark 2024 report (PDF) and held at the award-winning 'Lab' at ARU Peterborough .  With us are EELGA Chief Executive Cairistine Foster-Cannan, C...

This Week: Mike Rigby chats with Prashant Shah, co-founder of both the O2H Group, which seeds new ideas in science, technology and green innovation, and the amazing extrava-palooza that is Cambridge Wide Open Week! (do peruse the links below for more info).   Prashant tells us about his introduction to the Cambridge ecosystem through his father, what makes him such a strong advocate for the city a...

This Week: Eastern Promise has assembled a mighty armada of experts to weigh in on the not-so-small matter of how the East of England's SMEs can WIN more business from across the public sector!   Coming to you from the Norwich offices of The Crown Commercial Service, the CCS' Deputy Director of Cloud Neal Smith joins our own Mike Rigby, along with Tim Robinson of Tech East, Jack Weaver of the Norf...

This Week: It's a long-awaited interview for Eastern Promise, as we sit down with Chair of the Cambridge Delivery Group and former Chair of Homes England, Peter Freeman. Mike Rigby chats with Peter his background, how he approached his role, his philosophy of development, new towns vs. urban extensions and get his tips on how your favourite East of England-focused podcast can help.   We're truly g...

This Week: We delve into the microencapsulation collaboration between Cambridge-based materials innovator Xampla and Norwich Research Park's titan of digestive health, The Quadram Institute! These two centres of excellence have come together to ensure that the probiotics we take for better digestive health can actually be packed, shipped to your local supermarket, stored at home and then consumed...

This Week: Eastern Promise takes a look at the exciting, inclusive and growing dynamo that is Innovate Cambridge! Recorded at their HQ, The Glasshouse, in Botanic House on Hills Road in the city, Dr Kathryn Chapman, Executive Director, and Board Member Michael Anstey, chat with host of the Eastern Promise podcast, Mike Rigby, about the progress Innovate Cambridge has made thus far, the vision behi...

This Week: Yes! Deferred is not denied and postponed is not prevented, 'coz CrowdSourcery is back to work its magic once again!  This time, we're looking at your hopes and dreams for 2025, with health, wealth and happiness featuring on your lists, in no particular order.   BUT THAT'S NOT ALL...By no means, for CEO of Eastern Promise and Executive Producer of this Podcast answers YOUR questions, in...

This Week: ARU Peterborough is the East of England's newest higher education provider, created for a specific set of socio-economic purposes by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, Peterborough City Council and Anglia Ruskin University. ARU Peterborough is addressing the skills shortage that threatens an otherwise strongly performing economy, limiting local firms and giving inco...

This Week: You join me in the Mother of Parliaments as a guest of Andrew Pakes, MP for Peterborough; North West Cambridgeshire MP Sam Carling; and the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority and Mayor Dr Nik Johnson.   I chat with Nik about the message behind the event; that Cambridgeshire and Peterborough stand ready to provide the growth that the UK needs.  We also discuss his role...

This Week: We return to our series on 'How the Brecks can Support the Growth of Cambridge'.   The Brecks area of Norfolk straddles the A11 and Cambridge railway line, and sits roughly equidistant between Cambridge and Norwich.   How the area might relieve the housing pressure on Cambridge for he benefit of all, and do so in a carefully created community is discussed by an all-star panel.   Joining...

This Week: We look at the £2.4m of fresh support for social enterprises in the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) area, bridging the gap between those organisations looking to put people and place before profit and traditional forms of finance.   Chair of the CPCA Business Board, Al Kingsley MBE, Gary Parker of the FSE Group, and Iain Crighton MBE FIMI of Allia join your h...

This week: Welcome to the first Eastern Promise podcase of 2025!  And what a belter it is... Anglia Capital Group MD Hannah Brynn joins me to discuss 'The Halo Programme', which readies participants to work with angel investors.  Hannah shares the way the programme works and we'll also hear from 2023 Halo Programme alum, Dr |Rosaria Campilongo of PfBIO on the difference the programme made to her....

This Week: In our last show of 2024, Mike Rigby chats to Nick Steven-Jones, Chief Executive of the Jarrold Group, which includes logistics, facilities management and training companies as well as the iconic Jarrolds department store in central Norwich. We'll hear from Nick: how his career path's taken him through some of Norfolk's biggest names; what it means to have a 250-year old independent, fa...

This Week: We're so pleased so many of you Love the CrowdSourcery feature (no, really; the data says so) and this time you've outdone yourselves, sharing your tallest tales, strangest stories and craziest chronicles from across the East of England, and here they are, recounted by a man who can't even act his age. So prepare to...COWER from the wrath of the Ludham Wyrm! RECOIL at the expectorating...

This Week: Your host, Mike Rigby, chats with EdiForm founders John Farley and Prof. Sheng Qi about their revolutionary approach to dementia care: using specialised 3D printers to deliver more nutritious, palatable food - a huge leap forward in material science spinning out from the University of East Anglia.  We also share news of Newmarket's ' Presents Galore ' festive shopping experience this co...

This week: I chat with a Cambridge-based charity which supports patient groups formed by those who have a family member diagnosed with a rare condition. We'll hear from Beacon CEO Rick Thompson and Digital Resources Manager Blayne Baker-Garwood, as well as co-founder of the Timothy Syndrome Alliance - which has been supported by Beacon - Sophie Muir.  It's a truly wonderful charity who provide hop...

This Week: Mike Rigby visits Co-Labs by Journey and meets Laura Grimwood, along with Adam Pead of Inuti , to look at a fresh new model for delivering lab space for scientific startups.  Laura encountered this model - where high-quality lab space is provided without the unnecessary fripperies that can drive up costs - in the USA and, on finding nothing like it in the UK, resolved to bring the model...

This week: We begin our new six-week run of episodes with a very special guest: Professor David Maguire, Vice Chancellor of the University of East Anglia (UEA).  I chat with David about the UEA's huge breadth of offer, its peerless position as an engine of sustainable economic growth and David's own varied career, how a new Vice-Chancellor goes about bringing change to the institution they lead. W...

This Week: At the inaugural Innovate Cambridge summit in 2023, a partnership between Innovate Cambridge and the University of Manchester was unveiled.  Now, with the 2024 Innovate Cambridge summit less than a week away, Eastern Promise is on the ground in Manchester, talking to Lou Cordwell OBE and John Holden of the University of Manchester . Lou and John will be sharing their view of the opportu...

This Week: Your host Mike Rigby chats with University of East Anglia academic, Dr Aram Saeed, about the revolution in ophthalmology that will use 3D printing to update treamtents dating back to WWII pilots and generic 'one-size-fits-all' ocular implants with bespoke, made-to-measure lenses.    To find out more about Eastern Promise and listen to more episodes, visit: https://easternpromise.org.uk...

We take a listen to your summertime activities across the mighty East of England, especially from those heading from Cambridgeshire to the Norfolk & Suffolk Coast.  Packed with our trademark...levity(?) if not brevity, take a listen to what our listeners have been doing across the region this Summer!  And make sure you listen all the way through for a special message. Wanna get in touch?  Clic...

This Week: Your host Mike Rigby drops in on the Cambridge Acorn Project. Now in its tenth anniversary year, the Cambridge Acorn Project works to provide meaningful, individual support to children and families who have lived through adverse experiences, including abuse, and financial hardship. It’s hard to understate the crucial importance of their work, helping disadvantaged families heal and grow...

This Week: We're off for our first trip to Hertfordshire, in the company of region-wide environmental charity, Groundwork East, to find out more about their role on the Watford Borough Council project, 'Rediscovering the River Colne'.   We also hear from Councillor Ian Stotesbury, Cabinet Member for Transport & Sustainability at the Council, who has been tasked by Watford's elected Mayor with...

This Week:  Join us for a look back at days 1 & 5 of Cambridge Tech Week, a special message from George Freeman MP, a chat with Form the Future CIC's Kath Austin and more.  Well, where else would we be?!  PLUS - that's not all at all!  We have a Public Service Announcement about Norfolk County Council's Market Towns Conference on 1st October 2024 at Swaffham Assembly Rooms - more details can b...

This Week: We're back from our Summer break with a bang, as a panel of the East of England's top experts in commercialising innovation discuss the potential, the pitfalls and the possibilities, all through the prism of the Triple Chasm model, co-developed by our first guest, Uday Phadke.   Kathryn Chapman has been a guide and mentor to many disrupters seeking to cross the three chasms to successfu...