Sparrho and Entrepreneur First partner to strengthen PhD talent pool for technology entrepreneurship

LONDON - March 10, 2016 - PRLog -- Sparrho, a six-person tech startup founded in Cambridge in 2013, has developed a discovery platform that helps researchers from 80 countries stay on top of the latest scientific content that matters to them. Sparrho's long term vision is to minimise the barriers to accessing and understanding scientific research for all of society.

Through Sparrho, Entrepreneur First will be sponsoring selected PhD students and early-career researchers to write concise and easily understandable opinion pieces, or Research Perspectives, on the latest publications in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science.

When it comes to career progression, young scientists have to balance high workloads with sparing the time to communicate their research achievements to the wider scientific community as well as prospective employers.

As the success of an academic researcher is still primarily judged by the quantity of their research publications, and which journals they publish in, most scientists will prioritise publishing a research paper over building their reputation for a career outside academia. Scientific communication and outreach are rarely rewarded. Given the common lack of external exposure for researchers, it is concurrently difficult for employers to identify PhD talent for specialised roles.

Moreover, technology-focussed entrepreneurship programmes such as Entrepreneur First are keen for PhD scientists to channel their expertise into improving general comprehension of cutting-edge research, and building tomorrow's game-changing startups. To this end, Entrepreneur First has been taking concrete steps towards integrating academia and industry by introducing their expert Science Partners, and now collaborating with Sparrho.

This partnership is just the beginning of Sparrho's long-term plan to improve the dissemination of scientific knowledge:

• The general public will be able to understand a wider range of scientific research through Sparrho's Research Perspectives.
• Researchers and PhD students can save time by using Sparrho as a platform to communicate their research as well as connect with prospective employers and alternative career development programmes.
• Employers and other organisations such as Entrepreneur First can work with Sparrho to reach their target candidates whilst supporting scientific communication at the cutting edge.

Sparrho has kicked off partnerships with two more companies, Cambridge Coding Academy and PetaGene, and is also continuing to independently sponsor Research Perspectives from all scientific and engineering fields. Interested researchers and students should email the topics they wish to write about to Dr Sybil Wong at Sparrho (sybil@sparrho.com).

The first three Research Perspectives sponsored by Entrepreneur First are now available to view through Sparrho, written by PhD students from Imperial College London, University College London, and the University of Cambridge. These three pieces can be accessed via the following links:

1. "Detecting DNA on standard computer microchips"
(blog.sparrho.com/post/140627149262/)
2. "Predicting protein structure from coevolutionary information"
(blog.sparrho.com/post/140753056547/)
3. "A more consistent way for people to make quantitative judgements"
(blog.sparrho.com/post/140751820247/)

Quotes:

Chloe Lianos, Talent Associate at Entrepreneur First, said:
"Entrepreneur First are excited to work with Sparrho to ensure that top class research in AI, machine learning, and informatics is more widely accessible. Condensed perspectives of these cutting edge research papers is the first step to open access of vital research thus furthering tech innovation."

Dr Vivian Chan, CEO and Co-founder of Sparrho, said:
"Sparrho is facilitating a new incentive model for PhD students and researchers to communicate their research findings to a wider audience, whilst connecting them with prospective employers and alternative career paths such as entrepreneurship."

Notes to Editors:

Please direct all press and media enquiries to
Sybil Wong, PhD
Head of Marketing and Communications, Sparrho
sybil@sparrho.com

About Sparrho

Sparrho is the world's most intuitive AI-driven platform to help researchers and professionals stay on top of science that matters to them. Currently holding more than 24 million items from over 21,000 sources, Sparrho has the most comprehensive, structured repository of scientific content - from publications to patents to multimedia - and the most accurate content recommendations developed by world-class scientists. Sparrho was founded in 2013 out of frustration by two Oxbridge scientists and now has a talented team based between Cambridge and London, UK.

Learn more: http://www.sparrho.com

About Entrepreneur First

Entrepreneur First (EF) was founded by Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck to help top technical talent build world-class tech startups in London. It is the only pre-seed investment programme in the world to accept candidates pre-team, pre-idea with individuals selected purely on the basis of their technical ability or domain expertise.

As well as pre-seed funding, the full-time, six month programme provides individuals with mentoring and advice from the EF team and some of the world's top entrepreneurs, as well as office space and legal and administrative support, so that each cohort has the best possible environment to meet potential co-founders and launch their startups.

The programme has so far supported over 200 entrepreneurs build over 70 companies who have been funded by some of the world's leading venture investors, including Balderton Capital, Index Ventures; Notion Capital, Octopus Investments and Y Combinator.

Learn more: www.joinef.com