Abstract

Prestige Lecture given by Dr Shamus Husheer, founder and CEO of Cambridge Temperature Concepts, about the development of the innovative fertility monitoring aid, DuoFertility.

In his talk, Dr Husheer will focus on the engineering and product development of the system, and in particular, how the team got to market in 18 months and for less than £1 million, when usually a product development takes up to 10 to 20 times as much time and money.

DuoFertility (www.duofertility.com) is a fertility monitoring service with expert support, and a pregnancy rate like IVF at a fraction of the cost. The DuoFertility monitor consists of a body-worn sensor, a handheld reader and PC/Mac software. The DuoFertility sensor is worn under the arm as a discrete patch, and automatically makes up to 20,000 temperature measurements every single day. Sensor data is then transferred in seconds to the DuoFertility reader, which stores data and calculates fertility. The reader is then connected to computer and detailed fertility information is displayed on the DuoFertility software. Data can be securely transferred to CTC over the Internet. Advanced computer systems and PhD-qualified fertility specialists, based in Cambridge, analyse the data and accurate predictions are automatically transferred back to the DuoFertility reader.

Cambridge Temperature Concepts (www.temperatureconcepts.com) is a Cambridge start-up formed in 2005 by six postgraduate students. It has won multiple entrepreneur awards at the University, regionally and nationally, including the Downing Enterprise award, the CUE BiC Business Plan Competition and the UKSEC Business Plan Competition. In 2011, the company was named European Wireless Start-up of the year by Qualcomm.

DuoFertility featured in the BBC documentary “Britain’s Next Big Thing” with Theo Paphitis.

Dr Shamus Husheer is the inventor of the technology behind DuoFertility and the CEO of Cambridge Temperature Concepts. Shamus completed his PhD at Cambridge and has a research history in instrumentation development. His aptitude is in devising instrumentation to detect subtle changes in noisy and difficult data, whilst his personal interest in infertility stems from his parent’s difficulty in conception, together combining in DuoFertility.

Further details and a publicity poster are at http://tinyurl.com/6vo8g85

Refreshments served from 18.30. Talk starts at 19.00. Ends by 21.00 following questions and discussion.

Free to attend. All welcome. No need to register.

This talk is organised jointly by IMechE Beds & Cambs and IET Cambridge.