Access All Areas March 2018 | Page 7

EEAEC to host inaugural food event The East of England Arena and Events Centre (EEAEC) has announced it will be the venue for the inaugural Cambridgeshire Food and Drink Festival, June 23-24, 2018, organised in conjunction with organiser Events By B3. The event aims to attract up to 15,000 visitors to the EEAEC with a combination of culinary events, family fun and camping, and to create a food festival with a difference. Celebrity chef headliners, The Hairy Bikers and James Martin, will be hosting cookery demonstrations, but as Louise Rhodes, Events By B3’s events manager, explained, the festival is aimed at whole families, and not just food and drink enthusiasts. “We want this to be much more than just a food festival,” said Rhodes, “so we’ve taken care to create an event that caters to everyone. In addition to over 250 food & drink exhibitors, local and celebrity chef demonstrations and culinary workshops that will showcase the best of local food and drink, there will also be feasts for the ears and eyes in the shape of live music, a vintage funfair and dozens of other attractions.” The festival will be based on the successful Yorkshire Dales Food and Drink Festival, also organised by Events By B3, as Ryan Moroney, EEAEC’s operations manager, explained, “We wanted to replace our annual Autumn Country and Food fair with an event that had broader appeal, and the Yorkshire Dales Food and Drink Festival proved to be an excellent template. With our agricultural heritage, the ‘farm to fork’ movement is important to us, and it’s clear that Events By B3 shares our enthusiasm for supporting local food producers. Our links with national and regional businesses enable us to offer additional benefits, including 10% discounts at nearby hotels on standard room rates, up to 30% off advance purchase fares on Virgin Trains services to Peterborough and transport to the festival from the station.” AI festival returns to London AI Festival CogX returns for second year, with SoftBank Investment Advisers as Headline Sponsor. CognitionX has announced that SoftBank Investment Advisers, which manages the SoftBank Vision Fund, will be the headline sponsor for CogX 2018, the Festival for All Things AI. The event, now in its second year, will take place from Monday 11 to Tuesday 12 June at the historic Tobacco Dock, during London Tech Week. CogX 2018 will bring together 4,000 attendees and 300 speakers across five main stages, more than doubling the size of the acclaimed inaugural 2017 event. The event will feature an expanded agenda discussing not only The Impact of AI on Industry, Government and Society, but also the pressing question for executives of How To Get From Lab to Live and at the same time deploy AI responsibly and ethically. Along with this, CogX will explore how AI Intersects With Emerging Technologies including Blockchain, IoT and 5G telecoms, VR and AR, as well as the future of transportation, health and education. Confirmed speakers include: Hermann Hauser, director at Amadeus Capital Partners; Baroness Joanna Shields OBE, former vice president EMEA at Facebook and managing director of Syndication, business development and partnerships at Google; Frank Chen, partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Charlie Muirhead, founder and CEO, CognitionX said: “My co-founder Tabitha Goldstaub and I launched CogX last year with the goal of creating the most informative event in AI and to move the conversation forward. CogX 2018 is set to be our biggest, most ambitious event yet, and a true festival of AI. We’re honoured to have SoftBank Investment Advisers on board as headline sponsors. Laura Citron, CEO London & Partners said: “London is a global leader in artificial intelligence. With a diverse international tech talent pool and some of the world’s top universities, London is home to some of the best minds in the field of AI and development. 2017 was a record year for investment into London’s AI companies, offering further proof of the global allure of the city’s AI offering. CogX 2018 will bring together some of the best AI experts and businesses from London and the rest of the world. We are delighted that it will be part of the London Tech Week 2018 programme.” TSG and Definitive Security gain ACS nod TSG and sister brand Definitive Security have won Approved Contractor Scheme (ACS) accreditation, the set of standards overseen by the Security Industry Authority (SIA). Independently monitored, the ACS endorsement process examines how well an organisation is managed, how effectively it services its customers and how well it treats its employees. Companies are judged across nine categories including Strategy, Commercial Relationship Management, Resources, People and Leadership. TSG achieved ISO 9001 for a second accessaa.co.uk successive year in December, but ACS, recognised by clients/potential clients and the police, is another marker for the agency. A spokesperson for the SIA said: “Approved contractors are committed to customer service and the compulsory licensing of their staff. This means their customers can rest assured that every private security operative deployed on their premises will be working within the law.” TSG managing director David Boswell, added: “It is a great feeling to achieve Approved Contractor status. It allows us to engage prospects, which might otherwise have been unable to consider deploying our resources. Now, any organisation that wants to can bring our solutions into their security and safety plans.” Built on a platform of relevant industry codes of practice, the SIA’s Approved Contractor Scheme is a universally recognised mark of quality for private security suppliers, designed to raise performance standards and to assist in developing new opportunities. Developed in consultation with representatives from across the industry, ACS specifically covers the elements regulated by the SIA and the Private Security Industry Act 2001. MaRcH 2018 7