Speakers
Speakers
Andrew founded the climate change, energy and interdependence programmes at nef (the new economics foundation), and is author of Ecological Debt: Global Warming and the Wealth of Nations (2009). Described by New Scientist magazine as ‘a master at joined-up progressive thinking,’ he was co-author of the groundbreaking Green New Deal report and co-founded the Green New Deal group. Until the end of 2010, he was Policy Director at nef.
Andrew writes regularly for the national press and is on the boards of Greenpeace UK, the climate campaign 10:10 and The Energy and Resources Institute Europe. He worked for many years for international development organisations, writing extensively on issues of climate change and poverty reduction. He was one of the original organisers of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition developing country debt relief campaign, devised the idea of ‘Ecological Debt Day,' also known as 'Overshoot Day,’ and was behind the onehundredmonths.org initiative which is counting down the time left for action before the world enters a new more perilous phase of global warming.
In the UK, with a series of groundbreaking reports on ‘Ghost Town Britain’ and ‘Clone Town Britain’, Andrew also coined new terms and changed the debate on the impact of mass retailing on communities. He is also the author of: Tescopoly: How One Shop Came Out on Top and Why it Matters (2007); co-editor of Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth? (2008), and author, with David Boyle, of The New Economics: A Bigger Picture (2009). His new book with David Boyle published in 2010 is, Eminent Corporations: the Rise and Fall of the Great British Corporation and includes a history of the tragic oil company, BP.
Felicia Huppert is the Professor of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. She is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and Darwin College, Cambridge.
She has a wide range of areas of research interest, including biomedical science, genetics, psychometrics, social sciences, economics and engineering.
Felicia's main area of interest is the well-being across life course. She is currently involved in popular studies, which includes, NAI Funded English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA.). More
Dr. Chris Groves is currently employed as a Cesagen Research Fellow at the ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics. He is based at Cardiff University and his extensive education has led to him obtaining a PhD in Philosophy.
The work Chris undertakes in relation to well-being, includes looking at aspects of an individual's life which may cause them to worry about their future. This includes the global environmental change, and the rise in the use of technology, in particular bio and nanotechnology, and personalised genetic testing.
He looks at the reasons why we should take control of our own destiny, and the political and ethical implications of the increasing advancement in technology. Chris has a wide range of research interests, which includes risk and regulation, social theories of time and environmental ethics and law. More
Madeleine was educated at the Corpus Christi College Cambridge, and was awarded a Knox postgraduate fellowship, which enabled her to study politics and teach at Harvard.
She is currently employed at the Guardian, where she works as a columnist and associate editor.
Madeleine has a wide range of interests in the subjects she writes about, including politics, work,
science and ethics, Islam and women's issues. More
William Davies is a Fellow at The Young Foundation, and is also a sociologist at the Institute for Science Innovation and Society.
He is also the editor of Our Kingdom's Happiness Debate. He has written many articles on the
subject of well-being. More
Bridget resides in South East London, and is the founding director of Flow Associates. She does a lot of work with clients in the areas of culture and education, and is involved in digital and learning strategies.
She supports the local cultural community and has a passion for photography and writing. Bridget also has links with various networks, which develop sustainability.
Her main areas of interest include cultural learning. More
New media pioneer Bill Thompson has been working in, on and around the Internet since 1984 and currently spends his time thinking, writing and speaking about the digital world we are in the midst of building.
During the 1990's he was Internet Ambassador for PIPEX, the UK's first commercial ISP where he developed websites for Comic Relief, the Edinburgh Fringe and Anne Campbell MP, before moving to Guardian Newspapers as head of new media. He established the paper's first website in 1994 and was responsible for many online projects including Eurosoccer.com in 1996. He is currently working with the Archive Development group at the BBC on finding ways to make the BBC Archive more accessible.
Bill appears each week on Click (formerly 'Digital Planet') on BBC World Service radio writes a monthly column for Focus magazine and makes occasional contributions to other publications and programmes both on and off-line.
He is a Visiting Fellow in the Journalism department at City University, a trustee of the Cambridge Film Trust and a member of the board of Writers' Centre Norwich.
You can find him online at http://www.andfinally.com/ or working in one of Cambridge's many cafes.
Alice Taylor lives in Central London and attended the University of London. She was previously employed as the Commissioning Editor for Channel 4, and is now the founder of Makieworld.
She was named one of the Game Industry's 100 Most Influential Women by Next Generation
Magazine.
Alice founded and edits the blog 'Wonderland.' More
Steve Fuller was born in New York, and his education history includes graduating from Columbia University in History and Sociology. He also received an M.Phil from Cambridge, and a PhD from Pittsburgh in History and Philosophy of Science.
He currently holds the Auguste Comte Chair in social epistemology at Warwick University in Department of Sociology, and is the founder of the research program of social epistemology.
His areas of research include the future of the University and critical intellectuals, emergence of intellectual property in the information society. He currently supervises PhD students. More
She develops human and social capital value for businesses and works with clients to build business and brand equity through social business design. This includes business modelling, brand management, experience design, social media mentoring, community and reputation management. Visceral Business, her company, creates and develops social strategies to give organisations and brands the ability to generate spontaneous growth by making connections that move people. This means transforming organisations that use social media to being social organisations, effectively calibrated and positioned with user-centric business models fit for the social age and seamlessly connected to consumers. Anne McCrossan is highly experienced in marketing communications, brand identity and organisational change. She's a founder member of www.triiibes.com. She's also a collaborating author in the books Business Model Generation Handbook and Business Model You, author of the Change This manifesto ‘Cracking the Genetic Code, A Way Forward for Organizations’ and a regular conference speaker.
Alex Fradera is a professional writer, who specialises in the areas of popularisation of science, including neuroscience and social science.
He has vast experience of public speaking, talking more specifically on his areas of interest. He is also involved in face to face assessment and runs workshops to teach others about improvisation principles.
Alex also designs technical psychological processes and systems. More
Ben Irvine is a writer, publisher, campaigner and recovered philosopher.
He is editor of the Journal of Modern Wisdom, a collection of essays which seeks to put wiser ways of living back on the agenda for both academics and members of the public.
He also edits Cycle Lifestyle, a free magazine which is currently running the London Cycle Map Campaign, lobbying for a Tube-style map and network for cycling in the capital.
Ben’s wider interest is in using insights about human nature to promote well-being, mutual understanding and co-operation in society. As well as writing a regular blog for The School of Life, he is an Honorary Associate in the philosophy department at Durham University. More
For over twenty years, Indra Adnan has been writing, consulting, network-building and event-organising in the international arena of soft power, conflict transformation and integral leadership. As founder and Director of the Soft Power Network, she works in both the public and private sphere advising on personal, local and global agency. Indra is also a partner in New Integrity management consultancy and founder / Director of The Downing Street Project for balanced leadership. Her clients have included the World Economic Forum, the British Council, the Scottish Executive and the Institute of Contemporary Arts. She writes regularly for The Guardian and TheHuffington Post.
Architect and place strategist, co-founder and Director at Architecture00, lecturer on community generative urbanism and regular contributor to several architecture trade journals
Indy Johar is a qualified architect and place strategist. He co-founded Architecture00 in 2005, a research-driven design practice focused on re-imagining, re-thinking, re-designing and re-organising place. The practice’s work supports physical and spatial interventions catalysed by the synthesis of quantitative & qualitative research with a community & market generative approach. Project range from the scale of bespoke place shaping strategies to the detailed design & delivery of prototypes such as low-carbon homes, world class – co-working & learning institutions, community led neighbourhood retrofits and ‘self-commission masterplans’ - amongst others. Indy has taught at various institutions from Columbia University New York, TU-Berlin, University of Bath, Architectural Association and University College London. He has given lectures and led discussions on the issue of community generative urbanism at various forums from Said Business School Oxford, DEMOS, European Parliament, LSE, Royal Academy, Royal Society of the Arts to the Royal Institute British Architects. He is also a Demos Associate and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Residing in Devon, Gay is a writer who also teaches on the subject of science and its relation to well being.
She studied a degree in Religious Education at the School of Oriental and African Studies, at University of London, and has professional training in Core Process Psychotherapy.
Gay is the author of 'Resonance of Emptiness: A Buddhist Inspiration for a Contemporary Psychotherapy' and co-editor of 'The Psychology of Awakening.' More
Dawson King
Dawson is CEO, CTO and Founder of Cambridge Healthcare, working in partnership with the NHS to develop howareyou.com, an e-Health platform for patients and healthcare professionals.
Dawson is an NHS consultant, sits on the NHS Innovation Council, NHS Innovations Expert Panel and is a UKTI representative for eHealth. Previously, he was a Technical Lead at the European Bioinformatics Institute and co-founded one of the first companies to integrate into the NHS Connecting for Health network and to offer secure tools for patients to work with clinicians.
Dr Alan Clarke trained and worked for many years as a professional actor, including a spell on East German television in “English for You” teaching English to GDR schoolchildren, before being achieving a PhD in ‘Theaterwissenschaft’ (theatre studies) at the Humboldt University, Berlin.
On returning to England, he gained a postgraduate teaching certificate at the London University and lectured in drama and media for over 25 years in further and higher education.
Since taking early retirement in 2000, he has worked as an external examiner and international consultant, coordinating a number of Comenius-funded projects concerned with arts education, including the Big Picture Network, On the Edge and Dialogue. He has also organised many prison arts projects for The Manchester College, including the Pan European Network, The Will to Dream and Movable Barres.
He was a partner in the IILL dissemination project and a founder member of the ILLIAD Network. He is currently working as an educational expert, reviewing Comenius projects for the European Commission, as well as with the prestigious College of Teachers in London and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts on an initiative involving drama schools from across Europe.
Alongside this he has revived his acting activities with a number of performance/ presentations using Shakespeare and other international writers to explore themes linked to his European work, including the plight of prisoners. He recently organised a performance of Romeo and Juliet in Verona with over 30 participants from a dozen European countries.
Ed is a mindfulness teacher and writer. He is co-author of The Mindful Manifesto: How Doing Less and Noticing More Can Help Us Thrive In A Stressed Out World (Hay House) and author of the Mental Health Foundation's Be Mindful Report. An authorised meditation instructor in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, he trained to teach the MBSR course at the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice (CMRP) at Bangor University and receives regular supervision and training from CMRP staff. He teaches mindfulness to a wide range of individuals and groups, writes regularly for the Guardian on meditation, Buddhism, and well-being, andblogs for mindful.org. He is also on the faculty of the School of Life in London, Ed's website.
Over the last few years his work has included directing Shakespeare in America, translating Tagore’s poetry from the Bengali, designing underwater sculptures in the Red Sea, living with wandering minstrels in India, being employed as an ornamental hermit in the English countryside, touring with Björk, spending three days blindfolded in an unknown place, travelling with shamans in the Gobi Desert, playing with Oasis, collaborating with neuroscientists in Arizona, living for a week with absolutely nothing but what spectators chose to give him, co-ordinating grassroots activists in Soweto, being sealed in a box for ten days with no food or light, staging a musical in a maximum security prison, re-designing Maidstone High Street, being a soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, bathing strangers, running seminars on democracy for monks in a Burmese monastery, being locked in a Gothic Tower alone for forty days and nights, and even flying on a real magic carpet in Star City, Moscow.
Ansuman is a trustee of Arts Catalyst, the science-art agency, and also Studio Upstairs, an organization working with the arts and mental health. He has shown visual and time-based art at Tate Modern, The South London Gallery, The Whitechapel Gallery, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, India International Centre, New Delhi, Yerba Buena Centre, San Francisco, and many other galleries and museums around the world. He has worked as a composer at the National Theatre, the Royal Opera House and London’s West End. He has also been artist-in-residence at the National Institute of Medical Research (London), at the Headlands Centre (San Francisco), at Portsmouth Cathedral, at Hewlett-Packard’s research labs in Bangalore, at the Guangdong Modern Dance Company (China), at The National Review of Live Art (Glasgow), and at NICA (Networking
She creates methods for genuine and sustainable change, using art processes to innovate four key social areas: rehabilitation, regeneration, sustainability and education.
She leads an initiative called ART vs REHAB, which aims to collaboratively develop new, critical relationships between art and rehabilitation. Within her own outreach practice, she uses a conceptual art model with various groups of people, including individuals with mental health problems, addiction and the homeless.
Hannah also creates temporary public artworks and social interventions. More
She is a performer/dramaturg with The Galloping Cuckoos and is a maker/performer on the AHRC funded, university of Kent run Imagining Autism project.
Maryjane currently co-facilitates the ‘Plays the Thing’ workshops at the Complex Cases Unit, Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge, in collaboration with Escape Artists.
In early 2009, he began organising monthly Space Makers meetups around London for anyone interested in rethinking the spaces in which we spend our time. These events brought together artists and activists, architects, policy-makers and social entrepreneurs. The aim was to connect the immediate challenges and opportunities presented by the economic crisis to the longer term trends in our use of shops, workplaces, homes and social spaces.
His interest in the creative reuse of space began as a BBC journalist and community activist in Sheffield, based in the middle of the city’s Cultural Industries Quarter, which had grown out of the takeover of former industrial buildings by artists and musicians. He was part of the collective which ran the MATILDA centre (2005−6), while as a member of the Access Spacemedia lab he began exploring the potential of spaces where online and offline meet.
In 2006, he co-founded School of Everything, an award-winning internet startup which helps people organise their own education. With Paul Kingsnorth, he is the author of ‘Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto’, the editor of the Dark Mountainjournal and organiser of an annual festival of stories and ideas.
In 2009, he was named in The Independent’s Hospital 100 list of the most influential figures in the UK’s creative industries.
He lives in Brixton.
Prior to joining nef, Michael led NESTA’s (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) work on public and social innovation,innovation policy, the creative industries and science education, and he remains a NESTA Senior Associate. Michael has also worked in central and local government, education, and he lectured in political philosophy and public policy. He has a first class degree and a PhD in politics from the University of Sheffield.
A chess Grandmaster, Jonathan was British Champion for three consecutive years 2004-6.
Libby Brooks is deputy comment editor of the Guardian. She joined the paper in 1998 and previously worked as a feature writer and women's editor. Her latest book, The Story of Childhood: Growing Up in Modern Britain is published by Bloomsbury.
Congratulations to our Speed Talk Winner: Jules Evans
Jules is policy director at the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary University in London. He is also the author of the blog, www.politicsofwellbeing.com, and the co-organiser of the London Philosophy Club. His first book, Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations, is being published by Random House in May 2012, and translated into several languages.
