JIMMY WALES
Founder, Wikipedia
U.S. Internet Entrepreneur and Wiki Pioneer
One of TIME Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People”
Wikipedia: Ranked Among the Top Ten Most-Visited Web Sites Worldwide
Ranked by Forbes Magazine as a “Web Celeb”
Jimmy Donal Wales is a U.S. Internet entrepreneur and wiki pioneer who is best known as the founder of Wikipedia, an international collaborative free content encyclopedia on the Internet, and the Wikimedia Foundation. He is co-founder of Wikia, a privately owned free web hosting service he set up in 2004.
The origins of Wikipedia began in March 2000, when Mr. Wales started Nupedia (“the free encyclopedia”), which was characterized by an extensive peer-review process designed to make its articles of a quality comparable to that of professional encyclopedias. With the addition of wikis (a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content), the project was dubbed “Wikipedia.” Mr. Wales laid down the founding principles and content, establishing an Internet-based community of contributors during that year. Wikipedia was initially intended to be a wiki-based site for collaboration on early encyclopedic content for submission to Nupedia, but Wikipedia's rapid growth quickly overshadowed Nupedia's development.
In a 2004 interview with Slashdot, Mr. Wales explained his motivations about Wikipedia, “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.”
The success of the project has helped popularize a trend in web development (called Web 2.0) that aims to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users. As Wikipedia expanded and its public profile grew, Mr. Wales took on the role of the project's spokesperson and promoter through speaking engagements and media appearances. His work with Wikipedia, which has become the world's largest encyclopedia, prompted TIME Magazine to name him one of its “100 Most Influential People,” in 2006 in the “Scientists & Thinkers” category.
In 2003, Mr. Wales founded the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the 10 most visited websites in the world.
In 2004, Wales co-founded, with Angela Beesley, the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. Wikia is a wiki farm – a collection of individual wikis on different subjects, all hosted on the same website. As part of his work at Wikia, Inc., Mr. Wales is developing a human-powered search engine, Search Wikia, which will be based on the same open, transparent, community-driven principles of Wikia and Wikipedia.
The World Economic Forum recognized Wales as one of the “Young Global Leaders” of 2007. This prestigious award acknowledges the top 250 young leaders across the world for their professional accomplishments, their commitment to society, and their potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.
Mr. Wales is a Fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. He serves on the Board of Directors of Socialtext, a provider of wiki technology to businesses and the non-profit organization Creative Commons. Mr. Wales has received an honorary doctorate from Knox College of Illinois and was presented with a Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2006.
Mr. Wales received his bachelor's degree in finance from Auburn University and started with the Ph.D. finance program at the University of Alabama, where he left with a Master's. After that, he took courses offered in the Ph.D. finance program at Indiana University. He taught at both universities during his postgraduate studies, but did not write the doctoral dissertation required to earn a Ph.D.
From 1994 to 2000, Wales was the research director at Chicago Options Associates, a futures and options trading firm in Chicago.
KAREN CATOR
Karen Cator is the Director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education. She has devoted her career to creating the best possible learning environments for this generation of students. Prior to joining the department, Cator directed Apple's leadership and advocacy efforts in education. In this role, she focused on the intersection of education policy and research, emerging technologies, and the reality faced by teachers, students and administrators.
Cator joined Apple in 1997 from the public education sector, most recently leading technology planning and implementation in Juneau, Alaska. She also served as Special Assistant for Telecommunications for the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska. Cator holds a Masters in school administration from the University of Oregon and Bachelors in early childhood education from Springfield College. She is the past chair of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and has served on the several boards including the Software & Information Industry Association—Education.
EVAN ROTH
Evan Roth is an artist and researcher whose work focuses on technology, tools of empowerment, open source and popular culture. His notable projects include L.A.S.E.R. Tag and LED Throwies (with Graffiti Research Lab), White Glove Tracking, Explicit Content Only and Graffiti Analysis. Roth is co-founder of the Graffiti Research Lab and the Free Art & Technology Lab (F.A.T. Lab), a web based, open source research and development lab. In 2009, two of Roth's projects (Graffiti Taxonomy and EyeWriter (a collaborative project)) were selected as the British Design Museum's Designs of the Year. Roth has exhibited widely in the Americas, Europe and Asia, including the Sundance Film Festival, the MoMA (NYC), the Tate (London), the Fondation Cartier (Paris) and the front page of YouTube. From experimenting with crowd sourcing to creating art with airport security and collaborating with Jay-Z on the first open source rap video, Roth's work explores the overlap between free culture and popular culture. To find Roth's work online, just google "bad ass mother fucker".
SAUL NASSÉ
As Controller of BBC Learning, Saul is responsible for the BBC’s formal learning content, including the highly popular Bitesize, as well as for commissioning key factual TV programmes, formal and informal online Learning content, and off-air events and campaigns like Headroom and Breathing Places, which promote education and learning to all audiences.
Saul has spent the last 20 years working for the BBC. Prior to joining BBC Learning, Saul was based in Mumbai where he was General Manager and Creative Head of BBC Worldwide Productions India from 2007 to 2009, producing the Indian version of Strictly Come Dancing amongst others. Before that, the popular and critically acclaimed India and Pakistan season in 2007; and he was Creative Head of Development for Specialist Factual in 2006.
In 2004/5, he was Head of Religion and Ethics, where he ran a department producing religious programmes across all media including the highly praised coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II; in 2002/2003 executive producer of the BBC World Trust Service Haath Se Haath Milaa, a programme to help promote AIDS awareness in India; and from 1997 – 2001 he was the editor of Tomorrow’s World, BBC One’s popular science programme.
GENEVIEVE SHORE
CIO and Director of Digital Strategy, Pearson plc
Genevieve has worked in publishing for 18 years. She began her career with Random House and joined Penguin Group in 2002 as Group Sales Director. In June 2007 Genevieve took on the role of Global Digital Director to spearhead Penguin's efforts and investments in the digital world. In 2009 she became the Director of Digital Strategy at Pearson PLC to tackle similar challenges and extend her expertise across the whole of the Pearson Company.
In June 2010, in addition to her role as Director of Digital Strategy, Genevieve took on the leadership of Pearson’s worldwide technology function as CIO.
As CIO, Genevieve oversees the strategy, architecture and implementation of all Pearson’s worldwide IT operations: networks, systems for processes from content creation through to sales, systems to manage Pearson’s assets such as content, rights and royalties, data and analysis. She leads teams responsible for Pearson’s core software and enterprise systems, consumer-facing product technologies, hardware and networks, as well as those that identify, share and commercialise relevant new technologies and develop technology talent.
THEODORE GRAY
Theodore W. Gray is one of the founders of Wolfram Research and is currently Wolfram's Director of User Interface Technology.
He created a wooden periodic table with compartments for each of the elements. This table won him an Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
He writes a regular column for Popular Science entitled "Gray Matter", which in 2009 were published as a collection in a book titled "Mad Science: Experiments you can do at home - But probably shouldn't." He was nominated for a 2010 National Magazine Award for Best Column, but didn't win. Additionally, he wrote the introduction to Michael Swanwick's The Periodic Table of Science Fiction.
He founded the company Element Collection in late 2006 to primarily sell a full color photo periodic table poster he created. His book (with photographer Nick Mann) The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe was converted one of the launch titles for the Apple iPad providing a glimpse into the future of how e-Books could interact with their readers rather than simply digitizing their traditional counterparts.
ED VAIZEY MP
Portfolio
- Arts
- Media
- Museums and Galleries
- Telecoms and Broadband
- Digital Switchover
- Creative Industries
- Libraries
Ed Vaizey MP is the UK Minister for Communications, Culture and the Creative Industries.
Ed Vaizey MP was elected as the Member of Parliament for Wantage and Didcot in May 2005.
Born in 1968, Ed attended Merton College, Oxford. When he left university, he spent two years working for the Conservative Party’s Research Department, before training and practising as a barrister.
In 1996, he became the director of a highly successful public relations company based in London. In 2004, he left to become the chief speech writer for the then Leader of the Opposition, Michael Howard.
Ed also built up a career as a freelance political commentator, writing regularly for The Guardian, and appearing on programmes such as Despatch Box and The Wright Stuff, as well as broadcasting frequently on Five Live.
Ed married Alex in September 2005, they live in Sparsholt and London with their son Joseph, and daughter Martha.
LORD DAVID PUTTNAM OF QUEENSGATE, C.B.E.
David Puttnam spent thirty years as an independent film producer. His many award winning films include The Mission, the Killing Fields, Local Hero, Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone, and the Memphis Belle.
He retired from film production in 1998 and now focuses on his work in education and the environment. He is Chancellor of the Open University. In 1998 he founded that National Teaching Awards which he Chaired until October 2008. He served as the first Chair of the General Teaching Council (2000-2002), and on a variety of other public bodies. He was founding Chair of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, and for ten years chaired the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, as well as serving as a Trustee of both the Tate Gallery and the Science Museum. He has also recently become a Trustee of the Eden Project. He was also Vice President and Chair of Trustees at BAFTA (British Academy of Film & Television Arts) from 1994 to 2004, and was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship in 2006.
He was appointed President of UNICEF UK in July 2002, and played a key role in promoting UNICEF’s advocacy, awareness and fundraising objectives. He retired from this post in July 2009.
In February 2006, became Deputy Chairman of Channel Four, and in April 2006 Chairman of Futurelab. In April 2007 he became the Chairman of Profero serving in that capacity until 2009 when he became Deputy Chairman. In 2007 he served as Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Climate Change Bill Scrutiny Committee. Also in 2007 he was appointed as Chairman of North Music Trust, The Sage Gateshead. Most recently he was made President of the FDA.
David was awarded a CBE in 1982, received a Knighthood in 1995 and was appointed to the House of Lords in 1997. In France he has been honoured as a Chevalier (‘85), Officer (’92) and, most recently (2006) Commander of Arts and Letters.
http://www.wearethepeoplemovie.com/
DAVID YARNTON
David Yarnton is General Manger of Nintendo UK and joined the company in September 2003 from Nintendo Australia where he was Director of Sales & Marketing for Nintendo in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Since moving to the UK David has joined the board of ELSPA and has worked with many of Nintendo’s business partners in looking to build upon Nintendo’s strong gaming heritage. David Yarnton has been with Nintendo for over 10 years; he first joined in March 1994 as National Sales Manager and was promoted to Sales and Marketing Manager for the launch of Nintendo 64. In January 2002 he was promoted to Director of Sales & Marketing and was responsible for launching Gamecube and Gameboy Advance SP into the Australian market.
David was born in England and moved to Australia in 1961. He studied at the South Australian Institute of Technology and has a Bachelor of Business in Marketing.
Yarnton has a keen interest in sport having represented South Australia in both Hockey and Rugby Union. As a gamer David loves Strategy games, First Person Shooters and Racing Games especially Mario Kart. His favourite game of all time is Golden Eye closely followed by Advance Wars and perhaps showing his age Arcade Classics that were released on Game Boy Colour (Galaga & Galaxian).
IRIS LAPINSKI
Iris runs CDI Europe and Apps for Good, a programme where young people learn to create apps that change their world. She has a background in commercial digital media & telecoms consulting working for Ovum and Farncombe Technology. During that time Iris managed a range of due diligence, business planning and strategy projects especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.
TIM RYLANDS
Tim Rylands has been described as “an extremely gifted and inspirational teacher, with a love of the creative potential of technology and an excellent rapport with his pupils”.
Tim has received a vast amount of press coverage around the world for his innovative use of ICT. Observers have commented on his imaginative and encouraging style of teaching, which allows children to express their creativity and make significant gains in attainment.
Tim is now much in demand for seminars and conferences around the country, presenting the results of his work in an inspiring, practical and often humorous way.
Tim has over 20 years of experience in schools as far afield as the West Country and West Africa. He has gained notable recognition for using the games in the Myst series to inspire children’s creative confidence in many areas of the curriculum e.g. creative writing, speaking and listening, music and art.
Tim is also well known for his musicals, written for children and performed to great acclaim around the country.
Tim is a firm believer that ICT is about communication more than technology … and that it should be FUN!
In 2005 Tim won the 2005 Becta ICT in Practice Award.
As featured on Teachers TV, BBC, CNN, The Times,
The Guardian, The Independent, and many others
For more information visit: www.timrylands.com
STEPHEN HEPPELL
Stephen founded Ultralab in the 1980s, moving there from the UK Government's groundbreaking Microelectronics Education Programme. Over a score of years Ultralab grew to become Europe's leading learning technology research centre with projects that pioneered multimedia CD ROMs and on-line communities back in the pre-web 1980s! Stephen was the guiding "father" of a number of pioneering social networking projects including *ESW in the 1980s, Schools OnLine in 1995/6, Nortel's pivotal Learning in the New Millennium from 1993-2000, the Guinness Record holding Tesco Schoolnet 2000 from 1999, Oracle's Think.com from 1999 and many more. Today Stephen heads his own flourishing policy and learning consultancy Heppell.net which now has a portfolio of international projects, from school building to horizon scanning. He is an active professor at Bournemouth University and elsewhere. Stephen sits on a number of boards, including chairing the charity Inclusion Trust, and is executive chairman of global learning company LP plus.
Every pocketable device turned of is, potentially, a student turned off too. When you have seen the potential of persoanlised, seductive, delightful learning technology you simply want to give it all the help you can. "Learning" is our generation's contribution to a better tomorrow. Handheld Learning a core component of that.
DAVID MCCANDLESS
David McCandless is a London-based author, data-journalist and information designer, working across print, advertising, TV and web. His design work has appeared in over forty publications internationally including The Guardian, Wired and Die Zeit. Recently, he has championed the use of infographics and data visualisations to explore new directions for journalism and design - and to discover new stories in the seas of data swamping and surrounding us. His blog and book Information Is Beautiful are dedicated to visualising ideas, issues, knowledge and data - all with the minimum of text.
Information is Beautiful
In an age of high-speed living and info overload, visualized information has incredible potential to help us quickly understand, navigate and find meaning in complex world.
The use of infographics, data visualisations and information design is a rising trend across many disciplines: science, design, journalism and web. At the same time, daily exposure to the web is creating a incredibly design-literate population. Could this be a new language?
David will share his passion for exciting potential of this merging of design, information, text and story. And unveil some of the interesting, unexpected and sometimes magical things that happen when you visualise data, knowledge and ideas. And, admitting that his book is as full of mistakes as it is successes, he'll also explore some of the common pitfalls, traps and FAILS that dog this young design form. Using examples from his book and blog, he'll share thoughts on what makes a successful information visualisation and journalistic tips, especially for designers, on how to zero in on interesting data and subjects - and how designing information expose your own biases and change your views about the world. Oh yeah!
www.informationisbeautiful.net | @infobeautiful
JOSIE FRASER
Josie Fraser is a UK-based social and educational technologist. She currently works as ICT Strategy Lead for Leicester City Council, supporting the city schools in using technology to transform and drive forward learning, teaching and business practice. Her work focuses on and promotes creative, collaborative and community based approaches to, and understandings of, learning environments.
She has worked promoting and developing the effective and innovative use of ICT and e-learning design, delivery and policy both within and across the UK, and internationally. Working across the broad field of educational technology, she is primarily interested in digital literacy, and in how web 2.0 and social media can be used to support community development.
Josie is active in online community research and development, has served on several national and international advisory boards, and was awarded the title Individual Learning Technologist of the Year in September 2008 by the Association for Learning Technology “for ground-breaking work in the learning technology domain”.
She has frequently worked with the charity Childnet International, and delivered the national schools e-safety guidance Safe To Learn: Cyberbullying and Cyberbullying: Supporting School Staff for the UK Department of Children, Schools and Families. She has worked with universities and further education colleges across the UK as Lead Community Architect on JISC's cutting-edge Emerge project, and as a member of the support, synthesis and benefits realisation team for JISC's Institutional Innovation Programme.
JASON BRADBURY
Jason is an expert gamer, a maker of technological contraptions (Jet Powered Hoverboard anyone?!) and a world record breaking nerd. But Jason is also a children's author with a passion for reading that outstrips even his love of transistors and binary code.
For a man not unaccustomed to challenges - his day job on The Gadget Show has seen him racing the world's fastest jet skis and Dune buggies, climbing sky scrapers and testing personal submarines and jet powered bicycles – he’s now on a mission to get Britain's youth reading. He's doing this with a series of radically new author events in which he uses a specially coded digital background against which he films the audience, gets them racing robots, DJs live, breakdances against an actual robot and shows a YouTube movie made with his own money by a Hollywood SFX company) of a robot from his books trashing his kitchen. He is, in his own words, 'utilising the very technology that is blamed with killing reading, to bring vividly to life for a whole new digital reading generation!'
Jason is in the world's top fifteen most influential users of Twitter, ranking above Barack Obama and one below Downing Street.
Dot Robot hit the ibookstore bestseller lists and was named as one of The Sun’s favourite fantasy and sci fi books.
‘The best of a new breed of techno-thriller that will satisfy even the most hardened tech head’ Eoin Colfer, author of Artemis Fowl
Jason Bradbury's Dot Robot Show
MAGGIE PHILBIN
Maggie Philbin has worked in radio and television for 30 years on a wide range of science, medical and technology programmes. Currently providing analysis and comment on technology for BBC Breakfast News and a regular reporter on BBC1's "Inside Out", and BBC 1 "The One Show" she has a unique resonance with audiences, having grown up with them on much loved shows like "Swap Shop", "Hospital Watch" and "Tomorrow's World".
Many of the everyday gadgets we now take for granted were demonstrated on live television for the very first time by Maggie, the first truly mobile phone, the first car navigation system, the first fax machine, even the first supermarket barcode reader.
Additionally, Maggie's extensive radio and television career has also included working with ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. She has covered stories all over the world, from earthquake prediction systems in Iceland, to wave power technology in Norway, to possibly the most dangerous system for rescuing people from ski cable cars in Switzerland! In September 2008 she worked on a project with the BBC, NHK (Japan) and RAI (Italy) to give the first live international demonstration of Super Hi-Vision, the broadcasting system that will be used in ten years time!
Her reporting career on live programmes from "Hospital Watch" to "This Morning", on network television and on local radio has taken her into every imaginable and unimaginable situation. "The most memorable moments have come from people I've met, who have been generous to trust me with their stories and experiences".
In 2007 she and the BBC Radio Berkshire news team beat the Today Programme at the Sony Awards for the quality of their news coverage.
She is keen to help improve the visibility of successful scientists and engineers, both to encourage young people and women to pursue careers and reach top positions in these areas.
The LWF Awards for Hero Innovators
JASON DAPONTE
Jason DaPonte has over 15 years experience working at the junction where media and technology collide - and he loves it. THE SWARM is his new mobile consultancy and production venture.
He spent the last 3 years working in the midst of the mobile content and services explosion as head of mobile content at the BBC. He oversaw the content across the BBC’s mobile web, messaging and A/V offerings as well as looking at emerging areas including mobile broadcasting and out-of-home entertainment and information services. Before that, he was an Executive Producer for BBC ONLINE and chaired the BBC Future Media Editorial Forum.
Outside of the BBC Jason has spent the last two years as a non-executive director to Endz2Endz - a youth charity that believes that positive portrayal of young people in the media will encourage young people to engage in positive behaviours.
Jason is also a mentor and facilitator and has advised many small businesses and helped them build mobile and digital media competency in the USA, UK, Sweden, Korea and Australia.
He will be talking to Learning Without Frontiers about his predictions for trends in the mobile space that will change the way people around the globe learn.
DAVID BOTT
David was appointed as Director of Innovation Platforms in the Technology Strategy Board in July 2007. He was then made Director of Innovation Programmes in July 2008.
David graduated from the University of Sussex with a BSc in Polymer Science. He stayed on to do a PhD sponsored by ICI Plastics, spending the summers working in their laboratories at Welwyn Garden City. As a result of this experience, he joined the British Petroleum Research Centre at Sunbury-on-Thames where he led a team working on electrically conductive polymers, polymer batteries and non-linear optics.
8 years later he joined Courtaulds to set up and run their Strategic Research Group. In addition he spent separate years responsible for Carbon Fibre Research (1989) and Performance Films (1992)(in America). After another 8 years he left to join ICI Acrylics as Research Director. He then joined National Starch, where he was responsible for research in their Specialty Synthetic Resins Division for 2 years and then became a Director of Group Technology for ICI.
Throughout this time, he has sat on the UK Governments Technology Foresight Panel for Materials, was President of the Industrial Affairs Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2002-2004) and the Co-Chairman of the Strategy and Implementation Board of the Crystal Faraday Partnership on Green Chemistry (2001 – 2007). He is Chairman of Oxford Biomaterials and a Non-Executive Director of Oxford Advanced Surfaces Group, Apaclara and Spineless Design. From 2006 until 2008 he was part time CEO of Materials UK, an organisation set up to implement and develop the work of the Materials Innovation and Growth team.
BILL RANKIN
Dr. William Rankin is an associate professor of English and Director of Educational Innovation at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas. Along with colleagues, he helped design the initiative that became ACU Connected, ACU’s pioneering one-to-one that gave every student an iPhone or iPod touch as a platform for exploring next-wave mobile learning. As part of this initiative, Rankin has worked on everything from defining pedagogical approaches to designing interface elements, and along with others on ACU's team, Rankin continues to work to discover and create new ways to engage learners through mobile technologies.
ACU’s efforts have received a number of accolades, including winning 2009’s New Media Consortium’s Center of Excellence award, ACUTA’s Institutional Excellence award, and Alcatel-Lucent’s Dynamic Enterprise and Analyst Choice awards. As project lead, Rankin was named Campus Technology’s Innovator of the Year for mobile learning in 2008. In 2009, he was named an Apple Distinguished Educator and in 2010, he was named to Apple's ADE Board of Directors. Interviews with Rankin have appeared in such periodicals as Wired, The Guardian, and The Chronicle for Higher Education and at online sites including InsideHigherEd, TUAW, and Open Culture. Rankin has also contributed to stories featured on US National Public Radio, the BBC, the CBC and NBC Nightly News. With more than 20 years’ experience in higher education, Dr. Rankin has received numerous awards for teaching and has presented on the implications of mobility and emerging educational technologies throughout the world.
ANDREW BLAKE
Professor Blake is the Managing Director of Microsoft Research Cambridge. Prior to joining Microsoft he trained in mathematics and electrical engineering in Cambridge England, and studied for a doctorate in Artificial Intelligence in Edinburgh. He was an academic for 18 years, latterly on the faculty at Oxford University, where he was a pioneer in the development of the theory and algorithms that can make it possible for computers to behave as seeing machines. In 1999 he moved to Microsoft Research Cambridge to lead research in Computer Vision. In 2008 he became a Deputy Managing Director at the lab, before assuming his current position in 2010.
He has published several books including "Visual Reconstruction" with A.Zisserman (MIT press), "Active Vision" with A. Yuille (MIT Press) and "Active Contours" with M. Isard (Springer-Verlag). He has twice won the prize of the European Conference on Computer Vision, with R. Cipolla in 1992 and with M. Isard in 1996, and was awarded the IEEE David Marr Prize (jointly with K. Toyama) in 2001. In 2006 the Royal Academy of Engineering awarded him its Silver Medal and in 2007 the Institution of Engineering and Technology presented him with the Mountbatten Medal (previously awarded to computer pioneers Maurice Wilkes and Tim Berners-Lee, amongst others.) He was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1998, Fellow of the IEEE in 2008, and Fellow of the Royal Society in 2005.
The vision team at Microsoft has developed principles and built innovative product software for image editing and video processing. They have developed stereoscopic cameras that incorporate a sense of depth for use in video communication (the i2i project), and for remote collaboration (the C-Slate project). More recently work has started on processing other forms of imaging, collaborating with the MRRC in the University of Cambridge to improve MRI imaging using probabilistic inference. The team also works on medical imaging, feeding image processing innovation into the Microsoft Amalga family of Enterprise Health Systems. Most recently they have built the machine learning technology inside the Xbox Kinect human motion tracking system.
KATHARINE BIRBALSINGH
Katharine Birbalsingh is the teacher who spoke out at the Conservative Party conference and then found herself out of job. She has held senior leadership roles for over a decade in inner-city schools in London. She has always chosen to work in the inner city because it presents the most demanding of challenges and she enjoys the satisfaction of conquering difficulties that have dumbfounded others.
Having spent years transforming the lives of children and revitalising leadership in schools, she recently shook up the debate around education in this country at great cost to herself. Katharine lost her job, found herself thrown into the lion’s den and came out fighting on top. She is able to inspire others because she knows how to get the most out of the power of belief. As an MP recently said about her, ‘Katharine has managed to inspire many a politician because she has reminded us of what it is to believe in something’.
Using her skills as an “outstanding” teacher, Katharine has turned around many “unteachable” classes and failing departments. She has also inspired entire staff teams to take on board behaviours and thought patterns to which they were fundamentally opposed, thereby creating sustainable change and leading to whole school success. Change for the better is what Katharine does best.
Born in New Zealand to West Indian parents, Katharine Birbalsingh grew up in Canada. She has lived and worked all over the world, including Nigeria, France and South Africa. Her extensive travelling and studying of school systems throughout America, Europe, Brazil and Asia give her a world view. She read French and Philosophy at Oxford University.
She writes regularly for The Telegraph and Standpoint magazine.
Katharine’s book To Miss with Love comes out in April 2011.
ANNIKA SMALL
Annika is passionate about the power of the internet to improve lives and communities. Over the last 20 years, she has worked to develop innovative digital resources that help to address specific social problems from education to poverty and conflict. As Chief Executive of Nominet Trust, Annika Small is responsible for ensuring that the Trust's funding for innovative internet-related projects have maximum social impact. Previously, she was Director of Education for Tony Blair's charitable activities where she established an award-winning global education programme and prior to that, she helped to establish Futurelab, a leader in educational R&D, where she was Chief Executive for six years.
LUC DELANY
Luc is the European Policy Manager for Facebook
He has worked for a number of years in Public Policy across Europe. Luc has been heavily involved Child Online Safety Policy and in developing self-regulatory initiatives such as the European Safer Social Networking Principles and the UK Council on Children and Internet Safety. Luc was a VIP speaker at the 2007 United Nations Conference on Youth and ICT.
Luc has also been involved in the development of Content Policy, including content standards and the licensing of content for online services. Luc became a specialist in the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, actively lobbying on the Directive since its inception until its transposition into national regulation across the EU.
Before Joining Facebook, Luc spent 3 years at Google and YouTube. Prior to that Luc was Director of the European Digital Media Association; the Brussels based trade association for web services.
ALEX EVANS
Alex Evans is Technical Director at Media Molecule. He is universally acknowledged as one of the games industry’s technical innovators.
A graduate of Cambridge University, Alex got his first taste of the software industry working at Bullfrog Productions during his holidays. On graduating he joined Lionhead Studios full time and fast became a key member of the team, developing cutting-edge graphics technology for titles such as Black & White, Black & White 2, The Movies and The Room. His R&D work led to his invitation into Microsoft’s exclusive “Graphics Arbitration Board", a small group of top developers who help shape the future of 3D graphics on the PC. By night Alex turns his creativity to a more musical direction and his visuals and films have been shown around the world, most notably, on tour with Warp Records and the London Sinfonietta.
Alex's technical contributions to the cult PC internet game Live For Speed and Mark Healey's Rag Doll Kung Fu, along with his longstanding links with the demo scene (where he is known as Bluespoon) inspired him to develop games in a small and highly creative environment. In 2006 Alex co-founded Media Molecule with the Rag Doll Kung Fu collaborators Mark Healey, Dave Smith and Kareem Ettouney.
KAREEM ETTOUNEY
I was born on the 5th of June 1975 in Dundee, we moved back to Egypt when I was three.
I started drawing very early on. My biggest inspiration as a child was comic books; I loved them and would try to draw like my heroes Bill Sienkiewicz, Frank Frazetta and many more great comic artists.
My dad, who is an amazing architect, was also a huge inspiration. He not only taught me how to draw, but it was growing up surrounded by pictures on our walls by great artists like Klimt & Schiele, and having lots of art and design books in his library, that opened my eyes to the visual world.
My mum, who was a teacher, and then an office manager is a very impulsive natural character had lots impact on my personality and attitudes.
Another huge influence on me is my sister who although only 2 years older than me was my biggest supporter, she always encouraged and helped me through my life in all aspects.
And Julie my girlfriend who has also been an incredible support and inspiration, I really like her opinion on my work , it has always been clear and useful.
Another huge inspiration throughout my life has been The Beatles, not only musically, which I love, but as a story of very unique individuals and how they evolved creatively.
Life drawing has had a huge influence on my work also. For the last 5 years I have been drawing in my art teacher John Freeman’s studio. Doing this has really helped develop my drawing skills and attitude towards creating artwork in general.
After school I went to Fine Art University in Cairo. I specialised in interior design a decision I would never regret as I got to learn a lot of tangible skills as opposed to going completely arty.
In my university years I also began my career as a freelance artist designer, I took any job I could get, from graphic design to painting murals, doing cartoon drawings for magazines and commissioned portraits. This proved to be a great move as I ended up learning by doing as well.
After university I continued freelancing for five years and then I started feeling that I needed to work with other creative people, after developing as much as I can on my own.
I was attracted by the video game industry as I felt that in games I could create fantastical worlds and characters, unleash my imagination without the boundaries of the real world construction limitations and budgets, and I would do that with amazing teams of very varied talents and backgrounds. I put a portfolio together and applied to Lionhead Studios in the UK in June 2002, where I got a job as a concept artist. I worked on Fable, Black & White, The Movies, BC, and other unreleased projects; I also met many talented people and made lots of good friends there. During my time in Lionhead I found myself really interested in the game development creative process and started to have my own ideas of creative environments and team dynamics…
In January 2006 me and my mates founded Media Molecule, together with a small team of other super talents. the full history of Mm can be seen on the Media Molecule website...
Today, 5 years later, we have created one of the best projects I have ever worked on: LittleBigPlanet, a project that exposed how talented this generation is. We currently have millions of unique user generated creations that are published for everybody to enjoy and appreciate, and we are soon to finish LittleBigPlanet 2 which I am very proud of too.
Art directing this project was an amazing experience, as creating a game that empowers people to do whatever they want needs an empowered team to develop it. My philosophy in art direction is to work with people on solving the creative challenges, much more than being the judge that sees the work after it’s done and critiques it.
