In Your Shoes - Mhairi Towler

Dr. Mhairi Towler is Founder and CEO of the multi-award winning science animation production company, Vivomotion (www.vivomotion.co.uk). Mhairi is passionate about bringing science to life and helping scientists share their scientific stories.  She is also an active member of The Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy Scotland and a Future Leader of Entrepreneurial Scotland.

In her blog Mhairi aims to show you how she integrates work and life - running Vivomotion while being a Mum to 3-year-old twins.

Preparation for BioDundee begins

Today started with a trip to the doctors!  One of my twins woke up coughing and wouldn’t stop, so thought I should get it checked out before disappearing off for a night for this weeks BioDundee conference.  Thankfully it’s just a cold and nothing more serious.  The plus side of this trip into Forfar was that I could get some cake mix in for my Dad’s birthday tea this evening.  My folks are coming to stay for a couple of nights to allow me to attend BioDundee. I then dropped the kids at playgroup and squeezed in my week 5 run of the Couch to 5K programme.  It is a beautiful day and I love running down the drive at my local Glamis castle! An hour to catch up on e-mails, then off to pick the kids up at 12.30 p.m.  This afternoon will be cake making, getting the paddling pool out and packing for my event in Dundee tomorrow. Also a detailed briefing for Grandpa on what he has to do in the morning to get the twins ready for their sponsored walk.

Exhibition at BioDundee - Day 1

Set off for BioDundee at 7 a.m. with my Mum who offered to help me set up my exhibition stand.  Family support is always appreciated.   Everything was ready at West Park Conference Centre as delegates began to arrive for International Conference BioDundee 2018 - let the networking commence!

The conference opened with an animation that our Creative Director Fraser Murdoch, myself and Karen Duncan who heads up BioDundee have been working on for the last few months to showcase how much Dundee has to offer for investors or companies within the Biotech/Life Sciences/Healthcare sectors.  It took a long time to collect all the logos for the various segments of the animation but we got there in the end.  The animation can be seen on the BioDundee website in due course. 

An eclectic mix of talks followed the opening from Prof. Sir Peter Downes Principal of the University of Dundee, from med-tech innovations, to the wonders of bacteria, to raspberry genetics being carried out at the James Hutton Institute in Invergowrie.  We were pleased to see previous clients Dr. James McIllroy, from EnteroBiotix and Prof. Nicola Stanley-Wall from The University of Dundee in the line up of speakers. 

The Gala Dinner was a wonderful evening with a double act - Prof. Lorna Dawson forensic scientist at The James Hutton Institute and author Ann Cleeves who wrote “Shetland” and the Vera series of novels.  Having heard from 4 actors about a murder scene we had to decide at our tables “ Who Dunnit”!  It was great fun and good for getting the conversation to flow.

Exhibition at BioDundee Day 2

I enjoyed a fantastic view of the V&A Dundee from my hotel over breakfast and the feeling of being in a somewhat larger exciting city than I have felt Dundee to feel in the past.  There is a palpable vibe of excitement going on in Dundee at the moment as the Waterfront redevelopment happens, and it is nice to feel involved.  

Day 2 of BioDundee and this morning I was doing my bit to support the Association of Scottish Businesswomen with their #unstoppablewomen social media campaign to help publicise their upcoming conference on the 5th of June https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/asb-2018-unstoppable-woman-conference-tickets-45020742252.

The morning session involved a pitching competition called “Pitch Perfect” for new starts in the Biotech/Healthcare sector.  I was a finalist a couple of years ago and was glad to be in the audience this time.  The companies all gave great pitches, but In4derm who develop topical therapies for skin diseases won it. 

The final session also had super talks including another of our customers Mr. Rodney Mountain an ENT surgeon from Ninewells Hospital.  Rod mirrors my school of thought that innovation occurs at interdisciplinary boundaries.  He is an advocate for service design and putting design processes into all that we do, whether for business or for patient care. 

Another great BioDundee comes to a close.  Well done to Karen Duncan and her team who organise the event. I hurried home in time for a trip to the park with the kids and a Zumba class in the evening!

Reflections on BioDundee

It’s been a busy few days and today it was time for me to slow the pace down with some reflections.  I cleared my head, after dropping off the kids, with the next run in my 5K programme.  It is so good to leave a conference buzzing with ideas and feeling inspired by local and international speakers.  I follow up on LinkedIn with all those who have given me business cards.  I have decided to scrap my mailing list thanks to GDPR and just post news on social media.  There was quite a lot of interest from people at the conference so lets hope it is fruitful.  I also had A LOT of requests to give careers talks, both from schools and Universities.  Having had a rather varied career path from science to animation to enterprise, people are keen to hear about the journey.  I have had an idea to digitise the talk I normally deliver about my career.

It was also good to hear about how the twins had got on with their sponsored walk while I was away. Grandpa (my Dad) had managed fine along with Granny (my other half’s Mum).  They were all tired but had a bonus in that they got to sit in a helicopter that had landed at Glamis Castle. 

Back to Family Life

The end of a busy week and it’s a gorgeous day here.  I lather the kids up with sun cream and pack them off to playgroup, then it’s home for a coffee and to write up this blog and catch up with on-going client projects in my 2 hours of peace and quiet.  It’s been an interesting and varied week, accomplished with the help of loving grandparents.  This afternoon we will head out to my other half’s farm to enjoy the sunshine there and maybe see him for 5 minutes.  It’s a busy time for farmers at the moment, planting tatties while also lifting carrots.  I haven’t seen much of him this week.  I won’t this evening either as I have the playgroup AGM where I am to be sworn in as Vice Chair of the committee for next year.  What will I be letting myself in for??? I am off to enjoy the sunshine and blue skies while I can…