Tom Simmons, Tom Mea and Srishti Gupta write:
Cambridge Minds is an innovative consultancy platform founded by a team of enterprising postdocs. It offers companies seeking technical insight on-demand access to some of the most creative minds at Cambridge University. It is a hard facts consultancy, built on in-depth study at the cutting edge of science and technology.
Our process is simple. First, we solicit projects from companies dealing with recalcitrant technical problems. Next, from our database of postdocs we identify those best equipped to tackle these problems. Finally, we facilitate direct relationships between the two parties. For example, when a healthcare consultancy needed to urgently reconfigure a computational economic model for the changing needs of their client, we were able to quickly find them a postdoc with expertise in biological modelling to do the work for them.
And because the postdoc talent-pool is so diverse, Cambridge Minds is a complete one-stop-shop for technical solutions. From biotech firms seeking new perspectives on the latest discoveries in genetics to investors needing immediate insight into microchip intellectual property, we can provide a broad range of insight.
The proposition is equally appealing for postdocs—they can get commercial experience on paid projects while continuing their academic research. Indeed, the value to postdocs is a core part of our mission. We created Cambridge Minds to be a single solution to three independent problems: to address the consulting needs of industry, to broaden the career aspirations of gifted academics and to meet the societal need for innovative answers to troubling issues.
Interested in hearing more? We are hosting a Meet the Minds event on 27 September. Great Cambridge minds and serial investors Jack Lang (co-founder Raspberry Pi) and Hermann Hauser (co-founder Acorn Computer) will speak. Contact us for more details.
Cambridge postdocs interested in getting involved can sign up here.