How can we keep going and going and going?

The development of batteries with more capacity is not only important to watch cute kitty videos for longer, but also for other far-reaching applications such as electric vehicles or even the Mars Curiosity rover. To design more efficient batteries we need to understand what is going on inside the battery. It is very hard to "look into" the battery experimentally, but mathematics can help us. In this talk Ferran will show you how we can use maths to make fast and accurate predictions of battery behaviour that can be used to make batteries that charge faster and last longer.

Looking into our future, our greatest threat is climate change. We look to cut down our emissions in many areas, yet transport has been a clear focus for many governments. With electric vehicles moving into the spot light, batteries have appeared in the media as a heroic piece of technology to help save our planet. However, when we look inside a battery, could this piece of technology actually come from dark beginnings? Evé will discuss how batteries work and their many applications, especially to electric vehicles, and debate the positives and negatives of battery technology and production.

Machine Learning (often confused with artificial intelligence) is something that was once only associated with scientific disciplines but is now something that we come into contact with in our everyday lives. Self-driving cars and personalised Youtube ads are just the tip of the iceberg and as a result, the hype is rising. But what exactly can these clever algorithms do and are they really going to change the world? In this talk, Gabriele will offer insight into machine learning, focussing on its role in drug design and discovery.