October 3rd 2025

Our latest First Friday Club Editors’ Briefing welcomed 14 trade editors to The Wellington Hotel at London’s Victoria to hear from leading voices in the sector. The presenters explored cutting-edge technology and initiatives that are transforming industry.

The full agenda featured Peter Williamson, Executive Chair of Automate UK setting the tone with a presentation titled “The role of robotics and automation in a modern industrial strategy”. In addition, Simon Hickman, Chair of UKIVA highlighted industrial vision and its applications.

Other presenters included Chris Ferriday from Atlas Copco on sustainability and smart technology in industrial cooling, and Nathaniel Hofmann from SICK introducing new AI-driven machine vision for collision avoidance.

A joint presentation from Tim Stoddard from Zebra and its partner Jon Anderson from Polytag explained a new concept to boost recycling rates of packaging materials with trackable UV printed markers.

Finally, Sumele Adelana from Trimble and Katie Cresswell-Maynard announced a new partnership between Trimble and Engineers Without Borders International to nurture engineering skills and talent that will underpin the development of critical Infrastructure in Eastern Uganda.