Didn’t expect IEEE ICASSP 2019 to be that large! More than 3,000 people attended my Plenary Keynote which I gave 15 May 2019 in Brighton, UK, at the world’s largest Signal Processing conference. I spoke about King’s pioneering works in designing the Internet of Skills, Soft Robotics, Explainable AI and Spatial Audio Surround.

Another great day at H-Farm, this time with Francesca Bellettini, the CEO of Yves Saint Laurent, now Yves Laurent. Is she the most down-to-earth CEO of a global brand? What a wonderful person, and so smart — asking the right questions and making incredible observations. YSL is really lucky to having her!

So pleased to have become good friend of Rob del Naja, founder and lead singer / artist of British band Massive Attack. Not only is he a wonderful person but also one of the most interesting and progressing thinkers of our generation. Very excited to be part of the AI and robotics painting project, as covered by Wired under https://www.wired.co.uk/article/massive-attack-mezzanine-dna.

Spent the day with noneless than Pablo Ettinger, the co-founder of Caffè Nero. He grew the famous coffee chain into a >£100m business. We talked about my company Moving Beans and the challenges around selling coffee and being sustainable. But we also talked about music. Yes! Pablo is actually a musician, a pianist, like me. This is the reason you hear amazing classical music when sitting in at Caffè Nero. He is now supporting emerging artists. Truly inspiring!

Great day out with Marco Bizzarri, the CEO of Gucci. Really intelligent and forward-looking CEO, exploring next generation technologies which could give his industry an edge. One of the few looking beyond his own industry vertical, and a fantastic person too!

Did this just happen? I won the “21st Century Icon Award” for global contributions to technology and the arts. I did not expect this, but am very happy – no doubt :). Here, with incredibly talented painter artist Yuliya Zelinskaya.

At King’s, we did the world’s first 5G concert. Whilst networked performances had been done before, it was the first time that a “commodity” system was used which everybody has access to. I was playing the piano in Berlin under the Brandenburger Tor, whilst my daughter Noa was singing in London in the Guildhall. The latency was just under 20ms and gave us a complete feeling of immediacy. What an emotional night that was! We have discussed the challenges in a 2020 TEDx talk.

What a magic night that was! Organised by amazing Laura Westcott, I was performing in front of an intimite crowd in London in memory of my late brother. I played “Timeless Memories” and “Ouroboros”.

I launched my 5th album “Stories From Another World” in Los Angeles today, with my record label. And we did it in style! Playing in front of 4,000 people. I cannot deny that I was very, very nervous but it went all well! For many years, I had stage fright and the best way to overcome it was, I thought, by going big. That was my largest piano performance. Ever!

I couldn’t believe that news. I was just elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. All the hard work over past years to evangelize technology into the arts and pushing for co-design technology/arts has paid off, not to mention my music compositions. I am very happy and proud to be part of one of the most creative group of people on the planet.