The E-Lab’s Hack the Law 3.0 brought energy, excitement, and collaboration to the heart of Cambridge. Across a range of workshops, hacking, and research presentations, the three days brought together students from 24 countries and more than 60 universities to produce innovation at the intersection of law and technology. In this week’s blog, read from the winners of the LinkLater challenge and the Popular vote on how they addressed one of the central questions in legal AI: how do you make AI useful enough for professional work, while giving lawyers the reassurance, evidence, and control they need to rely on it?

In 2026, The Surpluss was selected as one of five global start-ups to address the World Economic Forum (WEF) on AI in circular value chains, intelligent infrastructure, and resource security. Founded by Rana Hajirasouli and a part of the inaugural SPARK 1.0 Cohort at the King’s E-Lab, The Surpluss is designed to save millions of kilograms of waste from landfill. In this week’s blog, hear from Rana on how the logic of circularity which sits at the heart of the company and why her solution is crucial today.

The E-Lab’s Hack the Law 3.0 brought energy, excitement, and collaboration to the heart of Cambridge. Across a range of workshops, hacking, and research presentations, the three days brought together students from 24 countries and more than 60 universities to produce innovation at the intersection of law and technology. In this week’s blog, read from our third place winners of the competition on how they developed their solution by drawing on unique strengths across their team.

On Sunday the 10th of May, the E-Lab hosted Abigail Disney for a screening of her documentary ‘American Dreams and Other Fairytales’. Grappling with America’s profound inequality crisis, the documentary traces the stories of workers at “The Happiest Place On Earth” to re-examine modern American capitalism. In this week’s blog, read our Laidlaw Scholar Freddie Fineman’s reflections on the evening and on how the themes of connection, time, and local action have carried through into his preparation for his Leadership-in-Action placement this summer.

The E-Lab’s Hack the Law 3.0 brought energy, excitement, and collaboration to the heart of Cambridge. Across a range of workshops, hacking, and research presentations, the three days brought together students from 24 countries and more than 60 universities to produce innovation at the intersection of law and technology. In this week’s blog, read from the second place winners on the lessons they learnt throughout the weekend and on why impressive technology may capture attention, but solutions that meaningfully improve people's lives are ultimately what leave a lasting impact.

We often associate entrepreneurship with Silicon Valley boardrooms, but what happens when the boardroom is a war zone? In Ukraine, civic technology isn't just software, it's a lifeline. From the agile pivot of the "city as a service" platform MISTO to the innovative offline features of the Kyiv Digital app, Ukrainian technologists and municipal actors are redefining digital governance under crisis. In this week’s blog, read from student Nia Elizabeth van der Velden as she explores how Ukrainians have transformed crisis management into a digital fortress, demonstrating that the true entrepreneurial mindset is about adaptability, people-centricity, and civic responsibility.

The E-Lab’s Hack the Law 3.0 brought energy, excitement, and collaboration to the heart of Cambridge. Across a range of workshops, hacking, and research presentations, the three days brought together students from 24 countries and more than 60 universities to produce innovation at the intersection of law and technology. In this week’s blog, read from our winners of the competition as they reflect on the deeper question behind their challenge brief: how can AI support legal work without weakening the lawyer’s own judgement?

Over the past few months, our brilliant Mia Fulford has developed and run the Dialogues for Post-Conflict Futures series, an initiative which convenes those with lived experience to understand how locally driven social innovation can shape more adaptive, context-sensitive, and sustainable pathways to recovery. In this week’s blog, read Mia’s argument for why conversations about innovation in complex and often deeply contested contexts cannot be reduced to technical expertise alone but must continue to centre questions of competing histories, values, and understandings of what it means to live together. Questions that only the humanities are well positioned to answer.

At the end of June 2026, the E-Lab hosted its third successful Hack the Law Hackathon. It brought together students and researchers from 20 countries and produced an array of exciting collaborations alongside innovative solutions at the intersection of law and technology. In this week’s blog, read from H.E. Mbelwa Brighton Kairuki, the current High Commissioner of the United Republic of Tanzania to the United Kingdom and one of the inspirational speakers who opened proceedings, as he reflects on the kind of leadership we need in the era of AI and how we can champion diversity, curiosity, and responsibility.

Polytecks began, like many deeptech companies, with a technology first mindset. SPARK 1.0, however, forced a mindset change that meant rethinking everything from the ground up. In this week’s blog, read how Polytecks founder, Ruben Ruiz-Mateos Serrano found the four week process and how his learnings from SPARK 1.0 prompted a shift has shaped every decision since.

In the world of innovation today, it is difficult to confront considerations of AI. So how should emerging entrepreneurs be thinking about AI as a tool for performance without increasing the cacophony of noise and inputs that amount to everyday life? In this week’s blog, Elle Whitelegg argues that resilience for entrepreneurs in the age of AI is about the ability to stay anchored to a longer-term goal while operating in a faster-moving environment.

Starting SPARK 1.0, Petra Scalamandré thought she had a clear answer to why the problem she was working on mattered. She didn’t. That was uncomfortable. It was also the point. As we build up to the announcement of the newest cohort of the SPARK Incubator programme, in this week’s blog, Petra details how the process of ‘undoing’ defined her experience of the programme as she learnt about what entrepreneurship really is and why an attachment to questions rather than ideas is essential.

A new wave of innovation is redefining women’s health - and with it, one of medicine’s most overlooked opportunities. In this week’s blog read this second part of Rewriting the Future of Women’s Health from MPhil student Anastasiya Rozenbaum, Founding Scientist at OvartiX Kyra Ungerleider and Co-Founder of Clair Jenny Duan as they outline how breakthrough advances, from Cambridge’s biotechnology ecosystem to Silicon Valley’s health-tech frontier, are transforming the field.

In 2025, the King’s E-Lab launched its SPARK Incubator programme to fast-track early-stage ventures to investment readiness and support founders in the heart of the University of Cambridge. In this week’s blog, Bernard Cho reflects on his journey from clinical neuroscience to Med Arcade and the identity shift he experienced with the adoption of an entrepreneurial mindset. Discover why the Cambridge ecosystem and SPARK 1.0 was the catalyst he needed to move from over-planning to execution.