Ilika plc (LON:IKA) Chief Executive Officer Graeme Purdy caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss their product launch at the IDTecheX conference
Q1: Now Graeme, in Ilika’s half-year results in January you mentioned that your product launch would be in half one from this year, now given that the launch will be in April does that mean that your programme is running ahead of schedule?
A1: Well, we’re very happy with the progress that the technical team has made in the past few months and the key thing for us actually has been to make sure that we choose the right forum to launch this product so that the target audience is ready and present at the event and we believe that we’ve managed to coordinate with the technical activities with our marketing launch.
Q2: OK, what makes the IDTecheX conference suitable for this product launch?
A2: It’s actually a very interesting conference, it’s one of the largest in this sector in the world really and it’s co-locates a few conference which are relevant to the target markets for our technology. So we’ll actually be presenting at the Energy Harvesting and Storage Europe part of the conference but there’s also the Internet of Things application discussion that is co-located as well as a discussion on sensors and wearables so all of these of course are very relevant for the activities that we’re targeting with our solid state batteries.
Q3: Now we understand that Ilika plc will be showcasing your product at the conference, what can we expect to see there?
A3: Well, we’ll be talking about the performance and specifications of the batteries but I concede that that’s fairly dry information so what we’re going to do is we’ll also be demonstrating how the battery performs in the context of real devices which we’ll be showcasing. We’re actually going to be on what they call ‘Demonstration Alley’ which is an area of the show where you get to see real devices so you’ll get to see the batteries actually integrated into useful products that you might be able to use as a consumer.
Q4: So who are going to be the typically attendees at the conference?
A4: Typical attendees are innovators like ourselves that will be showing their products and talking about the latest advances in the industry. You also get a big turn out from OEM’s so typically you’d get vice-presidents and officers of big companies who might be interested in taking these technologies and co-commercialising them with the innovators. Also actually you get representatives from these big OEM’s speaking so if you look at the agenda for this particular conference you’ll see that Ilika are speaking alongside some very large global names and the finally you also get analysts turning up who write about the sector and will provide coverage of the technologies and the event.
