We are delighted to welcome our keynote speakers as part of this year’s conference programme, including:
Professor Sonia Livingstone
Sonia Livingstone DPhil (Oxon), OBE, FBA, FBPS, FAcSS, FRSA, is a professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Taking a comparative, critical and contextualised approach, her research examines how the changing conditions of mediation are reshaping everyday practices and possibilities for action. Much of Sonia’s time these days is concerned with Children’s Rights in the Digital Age.
Sonia has published 20 books on media audiences, especially children and young people’s risks and opportunities, media literacy and rights in the digital environment, including The Class: Living and Learning in the Digital Age (New York University Press, with Julian Sefton-Green) (view here). Her new book is Parenting for a Digital Future: How hopes and fears about technology shape children’s lives (Oxford University Press), with Alicia Blum-Ross (view here).
Dr Lou Mycroft
Dr Lou Mycroft is a nomadic educator, writer and public speaker. It took three years’ freelancing for the penny to drop that her entire career had been doing the same thing – building communities as a public health professional, community worker and teacher educator at The Northern College, where she spent nearly two decades. She now builds communities online, largely but not exclusively in further education.
Lou is co-founder of the #JoyFE movement and the #AdultConversations campaign for adult and community education. Her rhizomatic practices are changing the shape of professional development in FE. She writes regularly for TES FE and is a former columnist with the Society for Education and Training’s InTuition magazine. She is also part of the editorial team which produces the #JoyFE digital magazine each month, a critically affirmative look at further, adult and community education practice. She is a TEDx speaker (‘An Ethics of Joy’) and winner of the EduFuturists Staff Wellbeing Champion Award 2020.
Mutale Nkonde
Mutale Nkonde is the founding CEO of AI For the People (AFP) a non profit communications agency. AFP’s mission is to eliminate the under-representation of black professionals in the American technology sector by 2030. AFP do this in two ways, the first is identifying, recruiting and developing technologists from traditionally under represented groups. AFP commissions projects which draw on insights gained from research into the unique ways advanced technological systems impact Black life.
Prior to this Mutale Nkonde worked in AI Governance. During that time she was part of the team that introduced the Algorithmic and Deep Fakes Algorithmic Acts, as well as the No Biometric Barriers to Housing Act to the US House of Representatives. Mutale Nkonde started her career as a broadcast journalist and produced documentaries for the BBC, CNN & ABC. She now also writes widely on race and tech, as well speaking at conferences across the world and currently holds fellowships at Harvard and Stanford.