In September 2024, the King’s E-Lab welcomed its fourth cohort of residential students for the 2024/5 academic year. The cohort included a mix of graduates and undergraduates from a wide range of academic fields. Eva Lemmy, an English undergraduate, reflects on her experience during the residential week and the potential of programmes like it to bridge important gaps between the arts and business.

Team JudgeMentor participated in the King's Entrepreneurship Lab's inaugural LLM X Law Hackathon on 23^rd June, an event inspired by the well-established CodeX initiative at Stanford University. Read more about their experience and inspiration for developing a scalable machine-learning tool that focuses on overlooked linguistic and conceptual information for analysing different judges’ legal ‘personalities’.

Imagine a world where everyone has access to the information and resources they need to progress in their chosen field. Imagine a world where everyone receives fair compensation for their hard work. This is the inspiration behind Ubuntu, a start-up that offers farmers in Northern Ghana competitive prices for produce and, using this network, provides educational resources on the topic of climate change and agriculture.

What transforms individuals into a stellar startup team? In the fast-paced venture world, founding-team composition is critical. Value homophily – the alignment of core beliefs among team members – has emerged as a key factor in entrepreneurial success. Ariel de Fauconberg’s PhD research explores both the benefits and obstacles of this phenomenon, challenging entrepreneurs to foster shared values while maintaining cognitive and experiential diversity. This post offers insights for effective team building across various innovative sectors.

Discovery AI is a tool that helps SMBs solve smaller disputes, such as a non-payment disputes, that typically go unsolved. It works by allowing these SMBs to upload all of their case data into the platform and then performing an in-depth analysis of the evidence. It has a chat feature to assist with further querying and it ultimately helps to understand the win chances. Finally it includes a cost estimation feature and, if the SMB decides to take the case further, it connects them to a lawyer. Discovery AI has the ability to bridge the gap between SMBs and lawyers to help them recover the huge amount of money lost annually due to legal issues. The solution can be expanded to further reduce the equal justice gap by including refugees seeking asylum and other minorities.

The Cambridge University Entrepreneurs (CUE) is the University’s oldest entrepreneurship society. On the 26^th of April 2024, in collaboration with the King’s E-Lab, they hosted their annual pitch competition. A demonstration of innovative thinking, interdisciplinary engagement and world-changing ideas characterised the day. Read more about it from the President of the society here.

Social impact entrepreneurship often involves an indirect relationship with the end user of the product or service. This makes it harder to know what's working and what's not; and it can catch people up in trying to please a decision maker with different priorities or views than the intended beneficiaries. It can even fuel harmful hierarchies which make assumptions about what people need and it can drive causes that in reality fall short of the mark. In these cases, what should such entrepreneurs be wary of and how should they prioritise meaningful impact?

In this part two of solving the dementia dilemma, Coco explores the influence and potential of lifestyle and environmental factors, poses important questions that societies can and should answer, and proposes a productive approach to address the leading cause of death in the UK.

Companies spend millions carefully negotiating contracts with their suppliers, only to realise that their legal and procurement teams lack the time and resources to enforce the execution of the majority of the "long-tail" of supply contract terms. Inadequacies in management systems results in supply chain disruption and subsequent litigation costs which are passed on to consumers. Nasir.AI has launched its agentic LLM-powered supplier contract management to tackle this problem (worth more than 1.4 billion USD in Europe alone). Using a two-stage generative AI pipeline, Nasir.AI identifies the contract terms, writes executable code to monitor their completion, and autonomously notifies relevant stakeholders. This approach to supplier contract management improves contract monitoring, empowers procurement teams, and helps prevent supply chain disruption.

On 4th of March 2024, the King’s E-Lab hosted an enlightening fireside chat with Sonia Singh, Editorial Director and Anchor of the NDTV Dialogues on India's premier TV and digital news network. The session was organised in collaboration with the Cambridge India Business Forum and the Centre for India and Global Business. The focus was the monumental 2024 World's Largest Democratic Election in India and the role that women play in the Indian political landscape. The conversation was moderated by Dr. Garima Sahai, a Post-doctoral Research Associate at the Department of Geography, and a Bye-Fellow at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. Read Singh’s reflections on the event.

What are signature skills and why are they important? On 4 July, 2024, the King’s E-Lab hosted Eric Sim in a fireside chat on how the "Small Actions" you take today can put you on the path to big career success tomorrow. Following the event, Sim went to Paris to try mashed potatoes. Why? Read more to find out.

The formation of corporate partnerships is driving innovation, especially in the TMT (technology, media, and telecommunications) industries. Over 80% of US CEOs are either implementing, or plan to incorporate partnerships to grow their businesses, or move into new markets, and maximise resources. A PwC survey from 2014, indicates that deals are 53% more likely to close when corporations join together in a partnership. Given the importance of these relationships, what do the experts say about how to establish and maintain partnerships that endure and create impact?

On 3rd June , the King’s E-Lab hosted Marion Reimers, one of the most prominent figures in sports journalism in Latin America and an advocate for women’s participation in sport. In a conversation with E-Lab Associate Jose Luis Lopez, alumnus of the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and President of the Cambridge University Mexican Society, Reimers reflected on the challenges and rewards of being a public figure and an advocate for women’s inclusion in the world of sport and journalism. Her voice and advocacy are not only a victory for journalism or for women, they are also a victory for our times.

On Wednesday 22nd May, the King’s E-Lab hosted Pete Stavros, Co-Head of Global Private Equity at KKR, in conversation with King’s College Provost, Gillian Tett. As an investor, Stavros has helped lead several successful investments across sectors and sizes and has a pioneered an innovative employee engagement and ownership model. He is a firm believer in the power and benefit of employee ownership. Read his reflections on the model, a rare opportunity for a “win-win” in business, and the kind of leaders that can make it happen.