But what are the secrets of its success? What has it achieved? What is the Cambridge spirit? What does the future hold?
All of this is within The Cambridge Phenomenon: 50 Years of Innovation & Enterprise, a momentous book charting the development of the cluster being launched at the University of Cambridge Senate House today (Tuesday 8 May). This living history of technology was only made possible by inspirational people, many of whom are present today to attend this celebration of innovation.
Below is a list of 50 of the great ideas that have come out of Cambridge, but there are many more. Can you name them? Which Cambridge ideas do you think are most significant? Who has contributed most? Twitter users are encouraged to tweet their favourites: use the hashtag #cambphenomenon or follow @Cambphenomenon
The Cambridge Phenomenon: 50 Years of Innovation & Enterprise is available to purchase and more information is available on www.cambridgephenomenon.com/book
50 ideas that Cambridge has given us: innovations designed or developed in Cambridge (in no significant order)
- Concorde’s droop nose cone and retracting visor
- In-flight refuelling capability, for Hercules aircraft developed in 19 days during Falkland’s War Crisis
- Araldite epoxy resin, used in the construction of the Sidney Opera House and the de Havilland Mosquito multi-role combat aircraft
- Sinclair ZX80, the world’s first affordable home computer
- Acorn BBC micro, used almost universally in British schools from its birth into the 90s
- Sinclair Executive calculator, first to use button cells and UK's first pocket calculator
- Jagex (Runescape), Frontier Games (Elite), two of the UK most successful games companies
- Wallace and Gromit Curse of the Were Rabbit computer game
- Kinect hands-free control technology for Xbox 360, selling a total of 8 million units in its first 60 days, the Kinect holds the Guinness World Record of being the "fastest selling consumer electronics device"
- Scalextric Sport Digital, enables up to four digital cars to be raced in a single slot moving the brand into the 21st century
- Sinclair Micro-6, the world’s smallest radio set in the early 1960s
- Over 20 billion ARM based chips shipped, found in all the world’s mobile phones
- Pipex, the UK’s first commercial internet service provider
- The world’s first webcam, was pointed at the coffee pot in the computer science department of the University of Cambridge
- The first intranet developed for Sun Microsystems
- Support for the world’s first webcast by Paul McCartney
- Bluetooth on a single chip, making it possible to connect low power devices to mobile phones
- ARCAM rCube iPod dock, the ‘best iPod sound system so far’ it is claimed
- G7th guitar capo, a new mechanism allows precise placement without pulling strings
- Lecson pre-amplifier
- PYE television, one of the first to be commercially available in the UK
- Strapless Wonderbra, brand’s best selling product, driving 33% growth in the UK in 2010
- Clear Blue pregnancy test, 99 per cent accurate
- Female condom manufacturing machines
- IVF, now responsible for over 4 million babies worldwide
- Inkjet printing: Cambridge companies controlled half the world industrial market in 2009
- Powerskin X-Glide swimwear, helped swimmers break world records in 2009
- Vandal proof pay phones, still in use worldwide
- The round teabag proved tea drinking was not just for squares
- Widget in Courage beer cans, putting the head back on the top of beer
- Evian ‘mountain range’ bottle, exploiting the new properties of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)
- SureFlap, the world’s first multi-format microchip operated cat flap
- AlertMe, smart meters which will be supplied to British Gas customers
- Kenwood juice extractor, an innovative fruit juicer
- Flavia coffee machines’ foaming system
- Grant sous-vide cooking baths as used by Masterchef, Heston Blumenthal etc
- Determining the structure of DNA
- Sequencing of the human genome, creating knowledge for a new generation of medicine
- Solexa gene sequencing machine
- Block busting drug Humira, with sales topping $6.5bn in 2010
- X-MAN, ‘patient-in-a-test-tube’ for genetic research and drug development
- Scanning electron microscope, the ‘Stereoscan’ one of the most useful instruments in research today
- World's first wireless pacemakers
- World’s first successful peanut desensitisation programme
- World's first electronic fragrance semiconductor
- World’s first 5kw fuel cell creating electricity from chemical reactions, later used in the US space programme to create electricity and drinking water
- Britain’s first Science Park
- The first UK biotech product to be approved in Europe and the US, marketed as Chirocaine
- Iris Recognition used in cross-border control worldwide
- A Brief History Of Time: From Big Bang To Black Holes - a book that became a surprising best seller
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