Careful Barging
Last week was a rather static affair. Some things were moving. Some things rather weren't.
This week made time considerably more expensive. Not because we ran out of it. Mostly because an increasing number of things now have project numbers, NDAs, follow-ups, people and actual work attached to them, while our compliance adjustments still leave the road uncertain. Patience is easier when it is abstract.
Less so where deadlines are in danger; we must remain resilient.
Structure
The administrative sequence that has occupied far too many paragraphs of this Infoblog is finally becoming finite.
Legacy tax liabilities have been regulated with the relevant authorities. The remaining social-security matters followed. That leaves the prescribed final process around the banking restriction before implementation reaches the bank. At the time of writing, the process remains underway. We'll call it completed when the bank does.
Companies House remains separately in hand: strike-off halted, filing window secured, documentation prepared and accounts positioned for completion. Although a timeslip here would be as embarrassing as inconsequential in the long run.
Resolve → Release → Reconcile → File.
A surprisingly long route for four verbs.
Time invested anyway.
Product
The first formal milestones for our UK-based review instance for the upcoming pilot programmes have now been raised around Project Mobilisation. It is now entering the considerably less romantic phase where work packages acquire references and finance departments send paperwork.
Mk-X meanwhile remains around the Stage II → Stage III transition:
Substrate + electrodes
Compression architecture
Mechanical integration
Rectification + reference circuitry
Reproducible validation
Or, considerably shorter:
Material → Core → Electronics → Validation → Pilot. // REPEAT
Plenty of architecture.
R&D Focus
The academic picture around KCM became considerably more interesting.
Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen spearheaded through Dr. Carlos Fernandez, whose work around battery systems, circularity, lifecycle extension, state-of-health estimation and wider energy-storage systems overlaps rather neatly with several directions already surrounding our own work, adds another potential axis around energy storage, knowledge transfer, circularity and Scottish R&D
Technical reference material has been shared. The first mutual NDA wording is now with RGU for review, another discussion is already scheduled for September 22, and KTP-adjacent development, joint funding, publication and student involvement are all entering the conversation. RGU also pointed us toward the Scottish Inward Investment Catalyst Fund as a route worth examining.
The University of Birmingham gave us our first sustained software and research programme, working systems, evidence architecture and a student pipeline we are now actively trying to continue. The annual Computer Science collaboration remains valuable, while the longer KTP route there remains available if the operating fit develops again.
Given ongoing discussion, Newcastle University remains part of the longer-term discussion around the energy-device and materials direction.
Three universities, with different strengths and talents, already contributing to our unique position.
Research → System → Handover → Continuation
Ecosystem
The external calendar is becoming more useful too. We've been invited to an OpenAI keynote focused on optimising our integration, arriving at a fairly convenient moment as the software work moves from university output toward something KCM actually intends to operate across engineering, evidence and internal systems.
Good timing. AI is considerably more interesting once it has to survive contact with engineers although for now it cannot surpass human intuition and oversight. You can’t outsource what you cannot do yourself.
Innovate UK Business Connect has also opened a route particularly close to our present work: a supported Eureka cohort visit to Vienna, Austria from 5–8 October, aimed at UK SMEs working across advanced manufacturing and electronic components and systems.
The programme combines:
Xecs, with international matchmaking and collaborative R&D around electronic components and systems
SMART, with advanced-manufacturing project development and preparation for SMART Call 10
consortium building, project pitches, partner meetings and international funding development
Alongside that sit the UK National Quantum Technologies Showcase, Future Aero in Munich, our continuing World Economic Forum Strategic Intelligence participation and the wider UK advanced-technology ecosystem already appearing throughout these updates.
Operations
This is probably where the week actually compresses best.
Mk-X: Stage II → Stage III transition.
RGU: first discussion complete, NDA under review, follow-up booked.
UoB: MSc chapter largely concluded; software and research continuation moving forward.
Newcastle: longer-term energy-device discussions remain open.
OpenAI: integration-focused keynote ahead.
Eureka: Vienna cohort route under consideration across Xecs and SMART.
Accounts: prepared toward the clarified completion route.
Companies House: strike-off halted and filing window secured.
Banking: underlying authority matters resolved; final release procedure in sequence.
MTC: Project 3007045 moving through mobilisation and preliminary concepting.
Not everything finished. Important things becoming finishable.
Outlook
For several months, time occasionally felt like something happening to the company.
Waiting for transactions. Waiting for authorities. Waiting for filings. Waiting for one dependency to stop sitting on another dependency. This week was a useful reminder that waiting and idling are not the same thing if we keep moving. And Mk-X kept moving. Patience is not a strategy. Meanwhile, September started with us finding where we fit.
Now the question is simpler:
Where does the next unit of time earn its return?
Invest your stakes accordingly. Thanks to everyone who made it possible.
Energy. Time. The Future.
— The KCM Team 🚀
