Oxbotica: imagine the future

A company spun out from the University of Oxford in 2014 to develop a ‘brain’ for driverless cars has won a Financial Times ArcelorMittal Boldness in Business award.

Oxbotica carried off the ‘Smaller Company’ award for its achievements in creating artificial intelligence software for the next generation of autonomous road vehicles.

Creating an autonomous control system

With support from Innovate UK, Oxbotica has developed an autonomous control system called Selenium. It can work on any vehicle, including forklifts and cargo pods.

The software uses data from laser and camera sensors mounted on the vehicle to find out where it is, what’s around it, and to calculate a safe and efficient route.

The technology is already running on Oxbotica’s fleet of vehicles, including a last-mile delivery van, the ESA Mars Rover, and the £8 million GATEway (Greenwich Automated Transport Environment) project in London.

Creating value through intellectual property

Originating from the university’s Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI) research group, the company has spurned conventional financing through external investment.

Dr Graeme Smith, CEO of Oxbotica, said:

We didn’t take the easy money. We’ve got very specific methodology to creating value through intellectual property and opportunities to license that. We stuck steadfastly to that approach. It’s nice to have a big investor but we didn’t want that to change our focus or direction.

Oxbotica began with 4 employees and has now grown to 30, with the intention of doubling that number this year.

Dr Smith added:

We’ve opened up a third office in Oxford, a full fleet of autonomous vehicles, and a dedicated test track and workshop. Our customer base is expanding rapidly and we’re growing fast to meet this demand. This award is a major deal to a small company like us.

Oxbotica’s success was recognised alongside other winners, including Google’s Deepmind, Dollar Shave Club, Dong Energy and Preferred Networks.

Updated: Summary of responses added and decision made to remove Instow from the list of bathing waters.

The Education Funding Agency and Skills Funding Agency are to merge to become one body, the Secretary State for Education announced today (Tuesday 28 March).

The new, single funding agency – to be called the Education and Skills Funding Agency – will sit within the Department for Education and begin to operate from April 2017.

The new body will continue to carry out the roles of the Education Funding Agency and Skills Funding Agency and will therefore be responsible for effectively and efficiently overseeing:

• the funding of education for pupils aged 5 to 16
• education and training for those aged 16 to 19
• apprenticeships and adult education
• managing school building programmes

Its responsibilities cover these functions in England.

Secretary of State for Education Justine Greening said:

Creating the Education and Skills Funding Agency will mean we are able to provide a more joined-up approach to funding and regulation of schools, colleges and other providers, with improved accountability and better service.

We will be working closely with our staff, unions, stakeholders and the education sector to finalise and deliver our plans for the new agency.

Current chief executive of both agencies, Peter Lauener, has announced that he intends to retire following the merger and plans to recruit a successor are under way. Mr Lauener will carry on as chief executive of the Education and Skills Funding Agency until a permanent replacement has been recruited and is in place.

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