2023-24

Thursday 18th January

Time: 1.00pm Location: HUX 308
Title:  Optimizing libjpeg-turbo: Lessons learned from working in the OSS community
Speaker:  Jonathan Wright | Arm

Arm wanted to accelerate JPEG image encoding and decoding in Google Chrome and Android. This talk will review the long and eventful journey to get a full set of Neon optimization patches landed in the libjpeg-turbo project. Join us to hear the many practical lessons learned from the technical, political and strategic decisions we took - and the mistakes we made - in order to reach our objectives in contributing to major OSS projects.

Tuesday 23rd January

Time: 1.00pm Location: HUX 308
Title:  5 traders, 40K orders/day
Speaker:  Samuel Allan | Winton Capital 

Talk Abstract:   Winton is a quantitative investment manager, holding ~$10B in assets under management. Our investment decisions are made by computers, which take in data from many sources, and combine it to generate signals. We trade a wide variety of instruments, in many markets, worldwide, all day. Technology is absolutely fundamental to every aspect of our business. This talk examines one facet of that business: the tedious but critical work of actually buying and selling. How that is only possible at our scale through technology. We'll also talk a bit about some of the background which enables buying and selling to take place, and how that also couldn't happen without technology.

Speaker Bio:   Samuel Allan Head of Execution Development at Winton. Samuel has been a professional programmer for ~20 years. He has worked on software for a wide range of industries including sports betting, sub-prime mortgage lending, television, investment banking, commodities trading and asset management. Samuel believes that programming is an art, not a science, and one of the most creative activities you can engage in. Until ChatGPT solves it forever.

Tuesday 30th January

Time: 1.00pm Location: HUX 308
Title:  Sustainability Education: Why does it matter to Computing students?
Speaker:  Eliott Stoclet

This talk is aiming to bring Computing students' attention to the ongoing environmental and social crises.

After understanding what is exactly happening and why, we will be reflecting on how Computing students have a unique potential to tackle this global crisis.

This is not all doom and gloom, and we are here to empower everyone to make a difference around them, starting at Imperial.

Come along to see how you can help!

Tuesday 6th February

Time: 1.00pm Location: HUX 308
Title:  How we keep the bad guys out
Speaker:   Vivek Srivastava, Senior Engineering Manager

Micro-Virtualization: Protecting against advanced malware

Most security software use content-based or behaviour-based detection. HP Wolf Security forgoes detection and leverages micro-virtualization to keep you safe. Learn how the cool technology that powers large clouds has been shrunk down to fit on your laptop and how it protects against advanced malware.

Tuesday 20th February

Time: 1.00pm Location: HUX 308
Title:  Building the next generation of trading systems in the cloud
Speaker:  David Smith, Head of Java Practice (EU)

Trading system engineering is an exercise in managing complexity, and dealing with changing state over time. In this talk, we outline how Adaptive uses Aeron, an open-source technology developed by Martin Thompson and others at Adaptive to build the next generation of high-throughput and low-latency trading systems in cloud environments.

We dive into techniques used to communicate over networks reliably and with predictable microsecond latency at millions of messages per second. We also provide an overview of Aeron’s pioneering and unique RAFT implementation which allows us to build reliable solutions in otherwise unreliable conditions in the cloud.

We’d like you to join us in our vision of driving the future of trading through open-source and cloud technology.

Tuesday 27th February

Time: 1.00pm Location: HUX 308
Title:  Generative AI in Financial Services
Speakers:  Maisie Muir – Senior Machine Learning Scientist, Sohail Khan – Machine Learning Engineer, Vedant Varshney – Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Tomorrow’s bank is digital. It’s why we value innovative and creative thinkers in technology who can help us deliver the next generation of banking services, for HSBC and our customers around the world. During this Employer technical talk you’ll hear from colleagues in the HSBC Office of Applied Artificial Intelligence sharing how we use Generative IT in the world biggest Bank.

Responsible AI is at the core of our ambitions to Digitise at Scale. We develop solutions, using cutting edge machine learning approaches, to significantly improve our ability to manage risk and enhance client experience. At HSBC we are building a team in the UK to define and deliver opportunities for growth and optimisation using Artificial Intelligence and are seeking expert individuals to join this team

Registration:

https://forms.office.com/e/MBvSP2uNDe

Wednesday 4th October

Time: 1.30pm Location: HUX 308
Title: Nutanix and AHV: From the Data Centre to the Public Cloud and Back
Speaker: Dr Felipe Franciosi

More frequently than ever we are seeing innovation accruing millions of users in record time. Behind that is compute, network, and storage infrastructure scaling according to demand. This talk will introduce you to Nutanix, a cloud company helping all segments of industry to manage their data centres on premises, on the public cloud, and in between to balance scalability and cost. At the core of this technology is Nutanix's Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV), a KVM-based virtualisation solution primarily developed right around the corner in Cambridge. On the second half of the talk, you will also hear from Imperial student Wojtek who interned at Nutanix this summer.

Wednesday 4th October

Time: 2:30pm Location: HUX 308
Title:  How to be a Hedge Fund Quant
Speaker:  Dr Tom Doris | Carlson Capital

Interested in becoming a 'quant' in the hedge fund world? This talk introduces the dynamic role of a quantitative analyst. We'll cover the essentials: what quants do, the skills they need, and the career opportunities available. While we'll highlight the quant roles at our firm, we'll also touch upon broader industry perspectives. Join us for a clear and concise look into the life and work of a hedge fund quant.

Tuesday 10th October

Time: 1.00pm  Location: HUX 308
Title:  How a successful hedge fund leverages technology on the global markets
Speaker: Paul Kerrigan & Emma Claxton | SquarePoint Capital

At Squarepoint, we are developing a world-class quantitative investment platform to deliver high quality, uncorrelated returns by applying deep expertise across Quantitative Investment Management, Technology and Trading Operations. We operate at scale, executing millions of trades a day based on thousands of daily complex simulations produced by our Investment team.

In this talk we outline who we are, what we do, and how technology can enable us to solve such complex problems at the required scale. You will discover the multiple layers that make up our technological solutions, from distributed low-latency systems to firm-wide tools and services, and including the infrastructure that supports it all.

Perhaps you will also discover which of those problem spaces you wish to explore in your future technology career.

Thursday 12th October

Time: 1.00pm  Location: HUX 308
Title:  Disruptive Innovation using Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
Speaker: Dr David Sharp | Kaikaku.ai

David will take you on a journey that explores the increasingly sophisticated combinations of artificial intelligence, robotics, e-commerce, internet-of-things, telecommunication, transportation, cloud, logistics and warehouse technologies that are enabling disruptive innovations in customer service and fulfilment economics for online and in person experiences.

Tuesday 17th October

Time: 1.00pm  Location: HUX 308
Title:  Electronic Trading Systems, especially the Pre-Trade part,  Architecture and Challenges
Speaker: Jan Bischoff, Software Engineer | Qube Research & Technologies 

Thursday 19th October

Time: 1.00pm  Location: HUX 308
Title:  Mobile Apps, Data and AI: A Unified Framework for Scaling Apps and Extracting Insights
Speaker: Daniele Galloni | Bending Spoons

In this talk, we delve into the fascinating world of app management and data analysis at Bending Spoons. Our goal is to maximise the potential for a large suite of apps while ensuring they remain cost-effective. We'll explore how we created a unified architecture which enables the knowledge gained from one app to inform decisions about others, while preserving individual customisations. I'll take you on a high-level exploration of the platform we built, in which AI plays a foundational role, which has empowered us to acquire and rapidly scale new apps to their full potential.

Tuesday 24th October

Time: 1.00pm  Location: HUX 308
Title:  Syetems Engineering at Cloudflare
Speakers:

Dalila Parisi, Technical Program Manager

Dalila works closely with Engineering and Customer Facing teams, optimising support workflows and increasing efficiency to maximise customer experience. Dalila is also a current Computing student at Birkbeck, University of London.

Zak Cutner, Systems Engineer

Zak works on the Ruleset Engine, which helps customers write rules to control their traffic across numerous Cloudflare products. Zak has been with Cloudflare for two years since graduating from Imperial College London with an MEng in Computing.

Thursday 26th October

Time: 1.00pm  Location: HUX 308
Title:  Scambot: talking to scammers
Speaker: Joe Hewett | Software Engineer |Netcraft

Scambot is Netcraft's attempt to create the perfect scam victim. Humanlike, untiring, context-aware, and able to talk to thousands of scammers simultaneously.

In this talk we'll discuss how we use Scambot to farm scammer credentials, the engineering challenges involved in using language models in production, and the journey from University thesis project to a live system at Netcraft. 

Tuesday 31st October

Time: 1.00pm  Location: HUX 308
Title:  Providing software solutions, leveraging data and advanced features in the travel industry.
Speakers: Noelle Courbis & Fabien Mourgues 

Amadeus has always been a trusted tech partner for the travel industry. The hospitality sector occupies a significant role, and it was a natural progression for us to establish our presence in this market. In this presentation,  we're going to dive into the exciting challenges facing the hotel business and show you how Amadeus is using technology to tackle them head-on. We will discuss how we provide solutions, leveraging data and advanced features, to meet the expectations of guests who seek more personalized experiences. And the best part? We're not stopping there. We're on a mission to connect every step of your travel journey with Amadeus. Join us to discover the future of travel. 

Thursday 2nd November

Time: 1.00pm  Location: HUX 308
Title:  In-sample biases in systematic investing
Speaker: Dr Xavier Brokmann

Whether it's to discover new signals, build optimised portfolios or manage risk, systematic investing heavily relies on a familiar work horse: running back-tests on historical data. 

In this talk, we will show that despite its many strengths, this approach also exposes systematic investing to various in-sample biases.  We will illustrate the magnitude of the challenge these biases represent in quantitative finance, and also discuss various approaches to mitigate them when designing systematic trading strategies.

Tuesday 7th November

Time: 1.00pm  Location: HUX 308
Title:  Performance analysis in elite sport
Speaker: Gareth Griffith | Catapult Sports

At Catapult and SBG, our focus is on improving the performance of competitors and organisations in elite sports. Working with over 3,000 teams, organisations and coaches across the NFL, NBA, F1, NASCAR, IndyCar and Premier League Football, we offer various product solutions for performance analysis, physical conditioning and strategic management. In this session, I'll introduce you to our video-based performance analysis software, wearable technology and athlete monitoring systems.

Thursday 9th November

Time: 1.00pm  Location: HUX 308
Title: How we know about Kotlin language features adoption without storing the code of our users
Speaker: Maksim Sheptyakov | JetBrains

During the talk we will shortly tell you about what product analytics is, how it differs when your product is a programming language.

Then we will dive deeper into the problems we faced: how to understand how the programming language features are used in real projects but in the meantime save our reputation and be compliant with GDPR.