Tech Events by The Royal Society

A three-day Royal Society meeting on brain-inspired computing hardware and whether it can make AI far more energy-efficient. Days 1 and 2 (23 to 24 November) are the Discussion Meeting on fundamental advances; day 3 (25 November) is a Transforming our Future day on translation and impact. Organised by Steve Furber (Manchester, of ARM and SpiNNaker), Judith Driscoll (Cambridge), Stuart Parkin (Max Planck), Sebastian Dixon (Cambridge) and Tony Kenyon (UCL). Day 1 speakers include Kaushik Roy (Purdue), J. Joshua Yang (USC), Adnan Mehonic (UCL), Bilge Yildiz (MIT) and Harish Bhaskaran. Free, but in-person places are sold out with a waiting list; online attendance is available. Optional lunch is £25 on days 1 and 2. You can come for any single day. Why go: the leading names in neuromorphic hardware in one room. For deep-tech founders, chip and materials researchers, and investors looking past GPUs.

with David Baker (Director, Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington)

The 2026 Croonian Medal and Lecture, awarded for pioneering the design of entirely new proteins and for key roles in protein structure prediction and protein engineering tools. Baker, a 2024 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, describes designing proteins from scratch using deep learning to address challenges in health, technology and sustainability.

with Kayla King (Professor, University of British Columbia)

The 2026 Francis Crick Medal and Lecture, awarded for contributions to evolutionary biology and the genetics of infectious disease. Explores why some infections are more harmful than others and how pathogens evolve higher or lower virulence over very short timescales. Doors at 18:00; livestreamed with live subtitles.

with Janet Hemingway (Professor CBE FRS, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine) · Andrew Hammond (Doctor, Biocentis)

Industry-focused one-day conference held with the Royal Entomological Society, showcasing innovative science and technology across entomology and the challenges of translation in the UK. Sessions cover human disease vectors, agricultural entomology and biodiversity. In-person attendance is invitation-only; the public route is the free livestream.

with Andy Biggin (Professor, University of Liverpool) · James Bryson (Doctor, University of Cambridge)

Two-day discussion meeting assembling researchers working across vast length and time scales on the multibillion-year histories of dynamos in the cores of Earth, the Moon, Mars, Mercury and asteroids. Tackles contemporary controversies in geo- and planetary magnetism using recent advances in data and techniques. Poster session on the first evening.