Q&A w/ Dr Catherine Ramsdale, Senior Vice President of Technology @ Pragmatic Semiconductor

Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us! Firstly, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about your role and company!

I'm Catherine Ramsdale, Senior Vice President of Technology at Pragmatic Semiconductor, a company at the forefront of flexible electronics manufacturing.  

Pragmatic unlocks the potential of edge and item level intelligence to fuel digital transformation and empower our global customers to deliver solutions at scale.

FlexICs – thin-film, flexible integrated circuits – deliver low-cost, more sustainable connect, sense and compute technology solutions, enabling our customers to embed item-level intelligence into virtually any object on the planet. The technology can be applied to a wide array of applications spanning consumer, industrial and healthcare, accelerating the shift from the Internet of Things to an Internet of Everything. 

My role is to support each generation of our unique technology through the development phases and into deployment on our manufacturing lines. We recently opened the UK’s first 300mm manufacturing line at our fab near Durham, where we have the potential to produce billions of flexible chips each year.

What are you looking forward to at Women of Silicon Roundabout?

I am looking forward to sharing ideas and best practice with a wide range of talented women from diverse sectors 

Why is Women of Silicon Roundabout such an important event for Pragmatic Semiconductor to be a part of?

It’s been shown time and time again that companies with a diverse employee base perform better, so events that help to promote diversity in the workforce are critical. Bringing together different experiences, knowledge bases and disciplines is the most effective way to solve engineering challenges and ensure a strong engineering base in the UK. Supporting diversity and inclusion in the workplace makes sound business sense; it’s something Pragmatic actively embraces and is keen to support.

What can attendees expect from your session?

Attendees will have a chance to dig into the properties of FlexIC technology and explore the unique use cases that low-cost, low-carbon intelligence can address. They’ll also discuss challenges to implementation and consider the opportunities for commercial and societal impact that this ground-breaking technology presents. 

When you think about our theme for 2024, Digital X Human, what excites your company about the future in tech, business and/or leadership?

The infinite opportunities for technology to bring substantive societal benefits. Pragmatic's technology is all about bridging the digital and physical divide, adding compute where it was not previously possible. This opens up new use cases everywhere from patient-centric healthcare to better monitoring of supply chains and improved recycling and reuse. The endless potential of technology to positively impact our daily lives never ceases to be exciting.

Register for your place to join Catherine for her session, 'Enabling a More Sustainable Internet of Everything' at Women of Silicon Roundabout on 27 - 28 November now!