On Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th July 2022, a few members of #TeamAwen attended Transform 2022 - a Siemens event focused on transforming industrial sectors in the UK & Ireland, and wider Europe.
Daniel Lewis (Executive Chair), Paul Dennis (CEO), Jules Farrow-Lesnianski (CTO) and James Sandrone (Head of Partnerships) attended from Awen.
We were there to engage with the industrial community with an invitation from Siemens. Our goal was to officially launch and celebrate the new collaborative partnership between Awen Collective and Siemens, which begins with a consortium to help improve cyber security within industrial SMEs. We launched our press release on this on the 8th July 2022, and this news has been appearing in publications.
Our Dot software solution was demonstrated to delegates at Transform by both Siemens and Awen staff:
Here are a few things that we’ve picked up from the talks at the event:
Justin Kelly, Director for Siemens UK & Ireland hosted a panel with: Matthew Fell, Chief UK Policy Director at CBI; Ashling Cunningham, CIO at Irish Water; Michael Wilton, Director & Leader of Arup’s Manchester Office; Lord O’Neill of Gatley; and Carl Ennis the CEO of Siemens UK.
Business resilience is a huge topic right now, and should be a catalyst for digital transformation within industrial sectors. Carl Ennis, the Siemens UK CEO highlighted the following challenges around business resilience...
• Supply chain
• Net zero
• Cost of energy bills
• Talent and skills
• Cyber security
Carl said: “No business, not even Siemens, is immune”
He also quoted Winston Churchill, who said: "Never let a good crisis go to waste"
Carl continued: "Those businesses that are able to survive, there will be opportunities. That silver lining isn't going to be available to those who sit there and wait. We must face it head on. Hope is not an option … now is exactly the right time to invest in transforming your business"
We also heard from a well-known economist Jim O'Neill (Lord O’Neill of Gatley) who added that we should embrace the fact that “the world is always uncertain” and that “it is unrealistic to think that anyone has the magic answers.” However, going forward he believes that “profit with purpose” is the only way we can navigate the uncertainty. Having societal values as well as commercially-driven values is the only way that businesses will be able to find their way forward.
At Awen, we genuinely believe in doing values-driven business and we live the four values of Agility, Warmth, Equality and Next-level innovation.
We also heard from Cedrik Neike, the CEO of Siemens Digital Industries, who pitched digital industries as being the pearl of Siemens. Once again, the concepts of "Covid, Conflict, Crisis" were key, and the way around them was through the transformation of industry into something more "Sustainable, Digital, Resilient, Fast." Cedric left the audience with the idea that we should make data-driven decisions throughout the entire processes to "Dream it - Make it - Recycle it."
Finally, on day two of the event we had our official launch of the partnership between Awen and Siemens, along with the wider consortium of partners being able to provide affordable cyber security solutions to Industrial SMEs.
Paul Hingley, Product Solution & Security Officer UK and Ireland for Siemens Digital Industries presenting the partnership and consortium
Jules Farrow-Lesnianski, CTO for Awen Collective presenting Dot as part of the collaborative partnership offering.
All-in-all, the event was great. It was a real pleasure to work alongside Siemens throughout the event, and we thank the Siemens team for their hospitality and support. We are very much looking forward to growing our relationship, and exploring where it will take us.
Siemens have some exciting solutions for making the world more sustainable and working toward net zero.
Fellow Welsh company, Riversimple, were also demonstrating their hydrogen powered car.
