Judging panel 2025

Jonathan Easton, Editor, National Technology News

Matt Ansell, Head of Marketing, Triad Group PLC
Ben Clark, Director, Future Worlds
Alice Iles, Head of Tech Acceleration, Future Worlds
Damien McCloud, Associate Director, Arup
David Price, Principal, Scala Advisors
Milan Radia, Founder and CEO, ConnectedCompute
Dr Anjali Subburaj, Enterprise Architect, Zooplus  

Matt Ansell, Head of Marketing, Triad Group PLC
Matt heads up the marketing for Triad Group Plc, an award-winning digital, data and technology partner. During his 25 year career working across, product, sales and marketing, Matt has worked agency and client side with leading brands in Sports (Wimbledon Tennis, Arsenal FC, Manchester United), Hospitality and Leisure (Liberty Living and Saga), Financial Services (Lloyds Banking Group, Westpac and RSA) and Education (Study Group). Matt holds an MBA with distinction from Hult International Business School.

Ben Clark, Director, Future Worlds
Ben Clark is the Director of Future Worlds (futureworlds.com), the on-campus startup accelerator at the University of Southampton. Having always worked in early stage and emerging tech in a career including leadership teams of four high growth startups raising millions of pounds of equity funding and working in international VC, he’s helped hundreds of founders go from idea to launch, investment and scale. Ben is a recognised leader in the startup ecosystem at the University of Southampton, a global powerhouse for startups, where he is supporting the next generation of extremely talented startup founders go from campus to global leadership to change the world with their ideas.

Alice Iles, Head of Tech Acceleration,Future Worlds
Dr Alice Iles completed her PhD in Point-of-Care Diagnostics at the world-renowned Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton. Working with University of Southampton spinout Highfield Diagnostics on their multiplex sensing platform, she focused on rapid tuberculosis testing.
She joined Future Worlds, the startup accelerator at the University of Southampton in 2022 and is now Head of Tech Acceleration, where she focuses on enabling researchers at the university to get their groundbreaking innovations out of the lab and to market, where they can make real impact.
Additionally, Dr Iles leads the annual Future Worlds Cohort programme, where a small group of University of Southampton startup founders are given intensive support from the Future Worlds team and a network of experts and investors in the UK and Silicon Valley to rapidly accelerate their startups - culminating in a live pitching event before a capacity audience as part of London Tech Week.
In the past four years, startups supported by Future Worlds have gone on to raise more than £60m in investment and grant funding.
You can find out more about Future Worlds, their startups and what they do, by watching the Future Worlds Podcast Series.

Damien McCloud, Associate Director, Arup
Damien leads a team of data and analytics professionals within Arup’s advanced digital engineering practice, supporting clients through better use of data. Having worked previously for Transport for London, the Environment Agency, KBR and BT, he was an early recipient of a chartership for his geographic information system work from the Royal Geographic Society. With over 20 years’ experience across a number of different sectors, he is a chartership assessor for the Royal Geographic Society, an honorary professor at University College London, whilst also sitting on numerous academic advisory boards.

David Price, Principal, Scala Advisors
David has driven advanced technology take-up in the TV and media industry since the transition to digital technology. Currently he holds a number of board and advisory positions in the industry and is principal at Scala Advisors. Previously he held the position of vice president, for strategic business development at Ericsson, based in Silicon Valley, and was a member of the executive team at Harmonic, helping grow revenues from less than $50 million to over $500 million. David was also founder of the Ultra HD Forum, the VR Industry Forum and the DASH Industry Forum, and is past-president of the MPEG Industry Forum.

Milan Radia, Founder and CEO, ConnectedCompute
Milan is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of ConnectedCompute, an international digital infrastructure business headquartered in the UAE. With over 30 years of experience in technology investment banking, equity research, asset management and executive management of leading data centre businesses, Milan brings differentiated strategic insights from a global perspective, and he is able to uniquely join dots by leveraging a deep understanding of the constituents of the technology and communications ecosystems. ConnectedCompute is currently engaged in data centre deployments, strategic advisory mandates and rural digital infrastructure projects in Europe, East and West Africa, and the Middle East. Milan read Economics (MA Hons First Class) at Selwyn College, Cambridge and has an Executive MBA from Quantic. He is married with three children and resides in Dubai.

Dr Anjali Subburaj, Enterprise Architect, Zooplus  
Since May 2023, Anjali has been working as an Interim Enterprise Architect with Zooplus, an online retailer of pet products. Between September 2022 and April 2023, Anjali acted as the interim DCX Program Architect at UK-based online retailer, The Very Group, to support the company’s re-platforming initiative. Previously, she was Digital Commerce Chief Architect for Mars Inc, where she led the development of its technology strategy and drove transformation for the enterprise’s existing and new D2C initiatives. As part of this work, she successfully introduced the use of MACH architecture to provide future scalability for Mars’ global businesses. Anjali has been a MACH Alliance Ambassador since 2020 and was named a MACH Advisory Board Member for 2023. Prior to embarking on her technology career in the UK, Anjali gained her Doctorate in Physics from Mumbai University, India, and has acquired technology architect certifications. She is passionate about introducing technologies that meet evolving customer requirements and creating a legacy for the next generation of technology leaders.