Professor Alan Smeaton:

As a scientist what excites me is that there has been more development in computing, technology and algorithms in the past three years than in the past previous decades. What excites me is the pace with which this changes. That is a personal, almost narcissistic view.

A corollary that follows from that is that for years I have been working in computer vision and multimedia analysis and when I try to explain it to people they, say "yeah, really, okay". Now, I can explain my work to my 91-year-old aunt and she can see it and she says that now she thinks she knows what I am working on. It is about the second part, the impact. It is not only an isolated academic discipline I work in. It affects everyone and it is great to see that impact and have that sort of recognition. People now know what I have been doing for all these years.

The question is how to bring the expertise back to Europe, how to anchor it and develop the European response, rather than being wholly dependent on big tech from Silicon Valley or China.