This event is part of the Distinguished Lecture series, which runs four lectures by leading experts every year. This lecture commemorates Davey Fitch (1978-2019), the first Business Development Officer for the University of Edinburgh School of Mathematics. The lecture aims to highlight the impact of Mathematical Sciences.
Abstract:
"During this talk, I will sketch how studying mathematics unfolded into a career crisscrossing the line between science and startup businesses, for a lifetime. We will see some success, some failures, but above all I hope to convey the tremendous joy in working on the overlap. Some of the technical topics we will encounter are data storage, chip design, machine learning and devops as well as a simple mathematical and business perspectives to illustrate some things that went well and some that didn’t complete."
About the speaker:
Peter Braam is a scientist and entrepreneur mostly focused on problems in very large scale scientific computing. Originally trained as a mathematician by Sir Michael Atiyah, he was an academic at several institutions including Oxford, CMU and Cambridge.
One of his many startup companies developed the Lustre file system which is very widely used. Since 2014 he has focused on computing for the SKA telescope, machine learning for science and holds visiting professorships at Oxford and Waseda (Tokyo). He also rekindled his study of deep mathematics.
