Keynote Speakers 2016

In 2012, Christoph Benzmüller was awarded with a Heisenberg Research Fellowship of the German National Research Foundation (DFG). In this position he is currently affiliated with Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, where he holds a venia legendi in Mathematics and Computer Science, and with Stanford University, CSLI/Cordula Hall, CA, USA. Previously, Christoph held positions as a full professor at the International University in Bruchsal, Germany, and as an Associate and Assistant Professor at Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.

Christoph received his PhD (1999) and his Habilitation (2007) in computer science from Saarland University. His PhD, titled 'Equality and Extensionality in Higher-Order Theorem Proving', was supported by a grant of the 'Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes' and was partly conducted at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. Core research interests of Christoph include the theory, implementation, and application of reasoning systems for expressive logics, including classical and non-classical first-order and higher-order logics.

Christoph is well known for his automated higher-order theorem provers LEO-I and LEO-II. The latter system was developed in a project at Cambridge University, UK (2006-2007). Previously, Christoph has also been working at the boundry of computational logic, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics and computer-supported mathematics in several projects at Saarland University, the University of Birmingham, UK, and the University of Edinburgh, UK. The latest research activities of Christoph include the automation of various quantified non-classical logics logics as natural fragments of classical higher-order logic, and the automation of challenge aspects, in particular, modal contexts, in ontology reasoning. In the latter research Christoph cooperated with Articulate Software, Angwin, CA, USA (2008-2011). Recently, Christoph received major international recognition for his work (with B. Woltzenlogel-Paleo) on the formalization and automation of Kurt Gödel's ontological argument for the existence of God on the computer.

Christoph is trustee and vice-president of CADE (Conference on Automated Deduction), board member of AAR (Association of Automated Reasoning) and spokesman of the section Deduction Systems of the Gesellschaft für Informatik. He is editorial board member of the Journal of Applied Logic and the Logic Journal of the IGPL, and a permanent steering committee member of the User Interfaces for Theorem Provers workshop series. Moreover, he served as a trustee or steering committee member of several other conferences and he is an executive officer of The International Federation for Computational Logic (IFCoLog).

Prior to his academia career, Christoph Benzmüller was a successful long-distance runner at German national level.

Links

http://christoph-benzmueller.de

Donald is an entrepreneur. He was CEO and one of the original founders of Epic Group plc, which established itself as the leading company in the UK e-learning market, floated on the Stock Market in 1996 and sold in 2005. Describing himself as ‘free from the tyranny of employment’, he now has a foot in two camps, one as an investor and Board member of PlanB learning, WiQi, LearningPool, Cogbooks, the other in the public sector as a Trustee for the University for Industry, City & Guilds and Deputy Chair of Brighton Arts Festival & Dome. He has been involved in consulting and implementing online learning in schools, FE, HE, corporate and government.

Donald has been involved in film, games, web, mobile, MOOCs, Oculus Rift and won many awards for the design and implementation of online learning. He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences, having delivered talks in the US, Europe, Far East, Middle East and Africa, and won several ‘Best speaker’ awards … also a regular (and controversial) blogger on online learning!

Links

http://www.planblearning.com/Bio/

Alec Couros is an associate professor of educational technology and media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina, in Saskatchewan, Canada. An award-winning educator, Alec helps his undergraduate and graduate students take up the incredible affordances of our connected world through the integration of educational technology in teaching and learning. Alec is also a well-recognized scholar and researcher who has given hundreds of keynotes and workshops around the globe on diverse topics such as connected/networked learning, digital citizenship, social media in education, and critical media literacy, providing educators, students, and parents with the knowledge necessary to take advantage of and thrive in our new digital reality. Finally, Alec is a passionate advocate of openness in education and demonstrates this commitment through his open access publications, considerable digital presence and contributions, and highly successful MOOCs and open boundary courses.

Links

http://www.uregina.ca/education/faculty…http://www.educationaltechnology.ca/cou…

Xavier Durochat earned an MBA in International Management in San Francisco. He began his career in 1989 at SFMI Chronopost in sales and managerial positions before joining the Westland consulting firm two years later where he engaged in managerial consulting and coaching assignments, an experience that led him to create Outline, his own management and organization consulting firm, in 1993.

In 1996, he joined the Altran Group where he worked through 2008 in a number of different positions, including Consultant Manager in a startup, and Coach and Training Manager in the Group’s Corporate University, before creating, in the capacity of ‘intrapreneur’, a skills development service unit. In 2006, he assumed the position of Human Resources Director in the Group’s holding company.

After completing an assignment for Altedia on behalf of Hewlett-Packard as coach of the executive responsible for HP’s merger with EDS, he joined BNP Paribas International Retail Banking in 2010, assuming the position of Director of Learning, Change and Transformation, and thus becoming a member of the BNP Paribas Group’s Learning & Development committee.

Dr Harold Elletson is an international communications and public affairs consultant. He is also the Director of The New Security Foundation, which conducts research into the implications of the new security environment for civil society. The New Security Foundation provides an international forum for dialogue between the public and private sectors and offers analytical insight and information about new security conditions. The Foundation hosts the Security and Defence Learning track at OEB, as well as organising other conferences and seminars. A particular area of expertise is tourism security and the connection between culture and security.

He is a founding director of the Africa Forum on Business, Investment and Security, a member of the steering committee of OEB, a member of the Organising Committee of eLearning Africa and a consultant to ICWE GmbH. He is also the editor of The eLearning Africa Report, which is published every year and contains a survey of ICT in education in Africa, a comprehensive country report outlining progress in ICT4E in every African country and a funding guide.

Dr Elletson was previously Director of the NATO Forum on Business and Security, which he created with support from the NATO Science Programme.

A former Member of the United Kingdom Parliament (from 1992-1997), he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the early stages of the peace process and was also a member of the Select Committee on Environmental affairs. He served as a member of the Lancashire Education Authority (the Education Committee of Lancashire County Council) before being elected to Parliament where he represented the interests of schools and colleges in his constituency in discussions with Ministers and on the floor of the House of Commons. He is a Fellow of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme and of the Industry and Parliament Trust.

As a communications and public affairs specialist, he has advised many leading companies on aspects of their business in challenging markets, including BP in Azerbaijan and Alstom in Siberia. He has written widely on political and historical subjects and his first book, The General Against the Kremlin, was published by Little Brown. His journalism has been published in a variety of newspapers and magazines. Dr Elletson holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Bradford.

Professional Experience
• Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary to Germany August 2016
• Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Geneva 2012-2016
• Ambassador to the Holy See, since December 2013
• Ambassador to Liechtenstein, since December 2012
• Director General MFA – External Trade and Economic affairs, 2007-2012
• Director MFA – European affairs, 2007
• Deputy Director MFA, Department of External Trade, 2007
• Head of Overseas Business Services MFA, 2003-2004
• Head of Unit MFA – International Trade Agreements, 2002-2003
• Embassy of Iceland in Brussels – First Secretary 1998-2002
• Legal expert EU and EEA law – MFA 1996-1998

Other Activities
• LDC Facilitator WTO Ministerial Meeting, Nairobi 2015
• Chairman of the WTO Council for Trade in Services, 2015-2016
• Chairman of the WTO Committee on Balance-of-Payments Restrictions, 2014-2015
• Member of Chief Negotiation Committee on Iceland's Membership to EU, 2009-2012
• IMF Programme of Iceland - Negotiations, 2008
• Icesave Negotiation Committee, 2008-2009
• Negotiations with various countries on Foreign Currency Reserves, 2009
• Negotiations on various Air Services Agreements from 2002-2011
• EEA Enlargment negotiations, 2007
• EEA Enlargment negotiations, 2004
• Legal pleadings before the Court of Justice of the European Communities and the EFTA Court on behalf of the Government of Iceland
• Various articles on EU law in Iceland and International Academic Journals and lectured in Universities in Iceland on EU law

Education
• Cand. Juris. University of Iceland, Faculty of Law, Reykjavík, Iceland
• Languages: Icelandic, English, German, French and Danish

Personal Information
• Born 18 May 1971 in the Westman Islands, Iceland
• Married to Eva Thengilsdóttir (cand.oecon, MPA). Three children; Thengill (1991), Sylvía (1999) and Tinna (2001)
• Played football in the Icelandic Premier League for 5 years with IBV

Nik Gowing was a main news presenter for the BBC’s international 24-hour news channel BBC World News 1996-2014. He presented The Hub with Nik Gowing, BBC World Debates, Dateline London, plus location coverage of major global stories.

For 18 years he worked at ITN where he was bureau chief in Rome and Warsaw, and Diplomatic Editor for Channel Four News (1988-1996). He has been a member of the councils of Chatham House (1998–2004), the Royal United Services Institute (2005–present), and the Overseas Development Institute (2007-2014), the board of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy including vice chair (1996-2005), and the advisory council at Wilton Park (1998-2012 ). In 1994 he was a fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center in the J. F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Nik has extensive reporting experience over three decades in diplomacy, defence and international security. He also has a much sought-after analytical expertise on the failures to manage information in the new transparent environments of conflicts, crises, emergencies and times of tension. His peer-reviewed study at Oxford University is “Skyful of Lies and Black Swans”. It predicts and identifies the new vulnerability, fragility and brittleness of institutional power in the new all-pervasive public information space.  It can be downloaded free online after registration.

He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Exeter University in 2012 for both his ongoing cutting edge analysis and distinguished career in international journalism. From 2014 he is a Visiting Professor at Kings College, London in the School of Social Science and Public Policy.

Links

Twitter

Andrew Keen is one of the world’s best known and controversial commentators on the digital revolution.

He is the author of three books: Cult of the Amateur, Digital Vertigo and his current international hit The Internet Is Not The Answer which the London Sunday Times acclaimed as a "powerful, frightening read" and the Washington Post called "an enormously useful primer for those of us concerned that online life isn't as shiny as our digital avatars would like us to believe". 

He is executive director of the Silicon Valley innovation salonFutureCast, the host of the popular Internet chat show "Keen On", a Senior Fellow at CALinnovates,a columnist for CNN and a much acclaimed public speaker around the world. 

In 2015, he was named by GQ magazine in their list of the "100 Most Connected Men”.

Links

http://ajkeen.com/

Diana Laurillard is Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies at the London Knowledge Lab, UCL Institute of Education, leading research projects on developing the Learning Designer suite of tools and online community for teachers and trainers, on adaptive software interventions for learners with low numeracy and dyscalculia, and on the use of MOOCs for CPD.

Previous roles include: Head of the e-Learning Strategy Unit at the Department for Education and Skills; Pro-Vice-Chancellor for learning technologies and teaching at The Open University; the Visiting Committee on IT at Harvard University; Royal Society Working Group on Educational Neuroscience.

Most recent book is Teaching as a Design Science, 2012. Previous book, Rethinking University Teaching, Routledge, 2002, is one of the most widely cited in the field.

Links

http://www.ioe.ac.uk

Prof. Andreas Mack has a degree in business administration with a focus on strategy development, consumer behavior, innovation management, and organizational psychology. Since 2012 he is a honorary professor at the University of Arts in Berlin. At Partake he is responsible for consulting and brand management. Andreas manages customer projects in the field of  strategy development and the development of user experience design. He uses the methods and techniques of Design Thinking.

His best-known projects include, among others, the brand campaign and the “Be Berlin” claim. In addition, he has led customer projects conducted in the sectors of energy, ICT, and public administration.

Andreas Mack is the practice lead consulting.

Links

http://www.partake.de

Mr. Pakulski joined the European Commission in September 2009.  Prior to taking his current assignment he worked for 16 years for the World Bank in WashingtonDC where he held numerous positions in the Bank's operational complex as well as the external affairs and operational services vice-presidencies.  He has an extensive track record of project management, primarily in social sectors, held management as well as advisory positions related to Bank-funded operations in the Europe and Central Asia region.

Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked as expert in the area of social development for the Netherlands Government, the European Commission Phare program, the Council of Europe and other agencies.  Following his university graduation, he worked as Executive Director of a Netherlands-based international NGO network, working in the area of development education and social justice, traveling extensively through the developing world.

Mr. Pakulski holds a M.A. degree in economics from the Warsaw School of Economics and a doctorandus degree in development economics from the Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Links

http://ec.europa.eu

Roger Schank is one of the world's leading visionaries in artificial intelligence, learning theory, cognitive science, and the building of virtual learning environments. He is CEO of Socratic Arts, a company whose goal is to design and implement learning-by-doing, story-centered curricula in schools, universities, and corporations.

Links

http://www.socraticarts.com/

Andreas Schleicher is Director for Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris.

As a key member of the OECD Senior Management team, Mr. Schleicher supports the Secretary-General’s strategy to produce analysis and policy advice that advances economic growth and social progress. He promotes the work of the Directorate for Education and Skills on a global stage and fosters co-operation both within and outside the OECD. In addition to policy and country reviews, the work of the Directorate includes the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), and the development and analysis of benchmarks on the performance of education systems (INES).

Before joining the OECD, Mr. Schleicher was Director for Analysis at the International Association for Educational Achievement (IEA). He studied Physics in Germany and received a degree in Mathematics and Statistics in Australia. He is the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including the “Theodor Heuss” prize, awarded in the name of the first president of the Federal Republic of Germany for “exemplary democratic engagement”.  He holds an honorary Professorship at the University of Heidelberg.

Links

http://www.oecd.org/edu/andreas-schleic…

The web is one of our most valuable public resources -- it’s Mark Surman’s job to protect it. Mark serves as Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation, a global community that does everything from making Firefox to taking stands on issues like online privacy. Mark’s biggest focus is building the movement side of Mozilla: rallying the citizens of the web, building alliances with likeminded organizations and leaders, and growing the open internet movement. Before Mozilla, Mark was the Managing Director of telecentre.org and president of boutique consulting firm Commons Group. In 2007, he was awarded the prestigious Shuttleworth Foundation fellowship, where he explored how to apply open source approaches to philanthropy. Mark lives in Toronto with his wife Tonya, founding Executive Director of the Centre for Social Innovation, and his sons Tristan and Ethan.

Links

http://www.mozilla.org

Tricia Wang is a global technology ethnographer and the co-founder of Constellate Data. She studies and advises organizations on the patterns of how people use technology.

She consults companies on how to integrate “Big Data” and what she calls Thick Data — data brought to light from humans to improve strategy, policy, products, and services. Organizations she has worked with include P&G, IDEO, Nokia, Microsoft, Kickstarter, the United Nations, and NASA.

As a researcher, she seeks to understand how technology makes us more human. Her research spans from China to social media and most recently, virtual reality. For nearly ten years, she has lived and worked across four continents, studying the effects of social media on people’s lives. Her immersive research has taken her to internet cafés in Beijing, urban slums in India, small towns in rural Mexico, and immigrant housing in Sweden. Based on her extensive fieldwork, she formulated a sociological framework for understanding online behavior, The Elastic Self.

She was the first Western scholar to have worked within the China Internet Network Information Center in Beijing (the equivalent of the FCC in the United States, and the nucleus of the country’s censorship policies). Tricia’s work and points of view have been featured in Slate, The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Fast Company, Makeshift, and Wired. She guests lectures widely and has taught at New York University. Tricia is also the co-founder of Ethnography Matters, a site that features cutting edge uses of ethnographic approaches in design, science, and tech.

Currently, she’s an affiliate at Data & Society, and at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Tricia holds a PhD in sociology from UC San Diego, and is a Fulbright Fellow and National Science Foundation Fellow.

Links

http://triciawang.comhttp://ethnographymatters.net

Nell Watson is an engineer, entrepreneur, and futurist thinker who grew up in Northern Ireland. She has a longstanding interest in the philosophy of technology, and how extensions of human capacity drive emerging social trends.

Nell lectures globally on Machine Intelligence, AI philosophy, Human-Machine relations, and the Future of Human Society, serving as Associate Faculty at Singularity University.

She has had an unusual career, including teaching post-grad Computer Science at the age of 24, and later co-founding a successful Graffiti arts company. Her ability to bridge the world of technology and the Humanities makes it easy for her to translate complex subjects so that they can be clearly understood.

In 2010 Nell founded Poikos, a machine learning-driven ‘AI for for body measurement’. Nell’s patented technology ‘dematerialises’ the 3D body scanner, by providing accurate 3D scans of the body with only 2D camera hardware, such as that found within smartphones, or laptops. This may then be applied to a range of markets, such as mass customisation, and health.

Possessing a long-term mindset, Nell serves as Senior Advisor to The Future Society at Harvard, as well as serving as an advisory technologist to several startups, accelerators, and venture capital funds.

She is also Co-Founder of OpenEth, an ‘ethical explication engine’ that aims to crowdsource ethical heuristics for autonomous systems.

In her spare time Nell enjoys coding games, such as her startup life simulator, Founder Life. Founder Life attempts to teach the mindfulness and psychological habits necessary for entrepreneurs to consistently execute under pressure. She has also written two easily digestible books on philosophy – one for business leaders, and one aimed at children.

Monika Weber Fahr is Chief Operating Officer at Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All).

Previously, Monika was Chief Knowledge Officer and Senior Manager at the World Bank Group's Independent Evaluation Vice Presidency. Transforming how the World Bank Group and its staekholders learn from independent evaluation was her primary focus, working with IEG evaluators on shaping their products and engagement tools for enhanced uptake and usability - with the ultimate objective to deepen World Bank Group impact and effectiveness. Monika's teams also delivered IT supported analytical tools and coordinated partnerships and capacity development for evaluation, both within the Bank Group and externally. In her previous assignment, as Director for Knowledge, Learning and Results for Sustainable Development at the World Bank, Monika oversaw quality and portfolio management for knowledge services that were specifically designed to strengthen sustainable development. She was an advocate for innovative approaches in generating new knowledge and learning opportunities for the Bank Group and its clients.

Monika has worked for several years with the private sector, setting up and leading within the International Finance Corporation (IFC) its Business Line for Sustainable Business Advisory.  She also worked with the World Bank Institute (WBI) where she built and led the Global Development Learning Network and Multimedia Division at the World Bank Institute (WBI), spearheading the Institute’s engagement with an international partnership of independent Learning Centers.  In 2000, Monika led the team that designed and delivered the World Bank’s first global innovation competition, the Development Marketplace.  Monika brings private sector experience also from working several years with the Boston Consulting Group.  She holds a PhD in business economics.  Monika and her family live in Washington DC.

Monika heads the Council of the Centers for Learning in Evaluation and Results (CLEAR) Initiative and is a member of the Board of COSA (Committee on Sustainability Assessment).

Links

http://www.se4all.org/

Twitter