Sir Robin Saxby was impressed with students’ ability to work together across disciplines
Alumnus and benefactor, Sir Robin Saxby visited the University to judge the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) Competition, take a tour of improvements in Electrical Engineering and Electronics and meet the beneficiary of the Fang-Saxby Scholarship.
Sir Robin, who graduated with a BEng Electronics in 1968 before being awarded an Hon DEng in 2000, went on to head ARM Holdings, the world’s leading semiconductor intellectual property company, supplying processors to more than 90% of the planet’s mobile phones.
Now living in High Wycombe, Sir Robin retains a Liverpool apartment and a real soft spot for his former home. He said: “I love being back and just walking through the city; the fresh air, the sea birds. I’m also a Liverpool FC supporter. Some people buy houses in the south of France, we’ve got a flat in Liverpool.”
The former IET President was sitting on the panel of the organisation’s Entrepreneurship Competition, a contest that sees engineers and scientists working together to develop business ideas.
Sir Robin Saxby: “Work out what you want from life, and then what you want from business”
He said: “To be successful as an engineer or a scientist you need to be very vertical, to get very deep into a subject. But business tends to be very horizontal and the advantage of this competition is in getting people to be more horizontal. What is impressive to me is the way students in both teams are working together across disciplines and remaining positive with each other, which is what they are going to have to do in the real world.”
Sir Robin’s commercial success was won in an industry that has undergone exponential growth in the last 30 years, and as the next generation of smartphones become ubiquitous, it shows little signs of slowing.
Vision
He said: “We did see this happening, although it has maybe developed a bit more than we expected. We actually said when we started that mobile phones need more powerful processors. We had an idea that nobody else had, but the reality is that it just took off. The vision of ARM was there but it’s become much better than expected, because of the internet.”
Sir Robin is now turning his attention to business start-ups in his role as an angel investor. He says he “loves” being in at ground level, describing it as the “most exciting point in business”. He is currently monitoring the progress of investments in firms including Marmalade, a company that allows developers to produce software for Android and Apple on the same platform and Sontia, a sound enhancement technology firm, among others.
With graduating students in mind, Sir Robin added: “Follow your passions. Work out what you want from life and then work out what you want from business, not the other way around.”