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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250502T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250502T190000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
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SUMMARY:Marcus du Sautoy: How Mathematics Shapes Creativity
DESCRIPTION:Many of the artists that we encounter are completely unaware of the mathematics that bubble beneath their craft\, while some consciously use it for inspiration. Our instincts might tell us that these two subjects are incompatible forces with nothing in common – mathematics being the realm of precise logic and art being the realm of emotion and aesthetics – but what if we’re wrong?  \n\n\n\nMarcus du Sautoy joins us at the Futures Institute to unpack how we make art\, why a creative mindset is vital for discovering new mathematics\, and how a fundamental connection to the natural world intrinsically links these two subjects.  \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nMarcus du Sautoy\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMarcus du Sautoy has been named by the Independent on Sunday as one of the UK’s leading scientists\, has written extensively for the Guardian\, The Times and the Daily Telegraph and has appeared on Radio 4 on numerous occasions. In 2008 he was appointed to Oxford University’s prestigious professorship as the Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science\, a post previously held by Richard Dawkins.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChair: Minhyong Kim\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMinhyong Kim is Director and Sir Edmund Whittaker Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences in Edinburgh. He works on arithmetic geometry\, the study of spaces built out of finitely-generated systems of numbers\, employing ideas of mathematical physics\, especially topological quantum field theory.  Minhyong is a keen communicator of mathematics and has published 13 books in Korea for the general public. His latest project is a series of illustrated children’s books featuring a mathematician (who quickly disappears)\, his family (who search for him)\, and Schroedinger’s cat (who does both).
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/marcus-de-sautoy-how-mathematics-shapes-creativity/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Making Waves: Spring 2025,Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/250502_MarcusduSautoyHowMathematicsShapesCreativity.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250501T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250501T170000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20250417T073607Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250417T073944Z
UID:10000253-1746111600-1746118800@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Book Launch: Experimental Times: Startup Capitalism and Feminist Futures in India
DESCRIPTION:Please join us for a discussion of Experimental Times by Hemangini Gupta\, Lecturer in Gender and Global Politics with a book presentation by the author followed by responses from: \n\n\n\n\nJanaki Srinivasan\, Associate Professor\, Digital South Asian Studies\, Uni of Oxford\n\n\n\nRahul Rao\, Reader in International Political Thought\, Uni of St Andrews\n\n\n\nAlex Taylor\, Reader in Design Informatics\, Uni of Edinburgh\n\n\n\n\nExperimental Times is an in-depth ethnography of the transformation of Bengaluru/Bangalore from a site of “backend” IT work to an aspirational global city of enterprise and innovation. The book journeys alongside the migrant workers\, technologists\, and entrepreneurs who shape and survive the dreams of a “Startup India” knitted through office work\, at networking meetings and urban festivals\, and across sites of leisure in the city. Tracking techno-futures that involve automation and impending precarity\, Hemangini Gupta details the everyday forms of experimentation\, care\, and friendship that sustain and reproduce life and labor in India’s current economy. \n\n\n\nA reception will follow the event.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/book-launch-experimental-times-startup-capitalism-and-feminist-futures-in-india/
LOCATION:Violet Laidlaw Room (6.02)\, Chrystal Macmillan Building\, 15a George Square\, Edinburgh\, EH8 9LD
CATEGORIES:Book launch,Talk/Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250429T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250429T203000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20250205T122745Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250410T093314Z
UID:10000231-1745949600-1745958600@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:The New Real Salon: Doing AI Differently 
DESCRIPTION:Join us for the third iteration of The New Real Salon\, which introduces their new international initiative\, Doing AI Differently. This initiative sets out to integrate the humanities\, data science\, and engineering in shaping the future of artificial intelligence. It is led by The New Real and the Data-Centric Engineering at Alan Turing Institute; and brings together the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC/UKRI) and partner institutions in the UK and North America.  \n\n\n\nAI has transitioned from numerical outputs to text-based\, qualitative ones\, highlighting the need for the humanities\, arts and social sciences to guide its development. Doing AI Differently brings humanities insights directly into AI design\, fostering collaboration between disciplines and aims to address complex\, context-dependent tasks in AI. By doing so\, it enhances AI tools for deep contextual analysis across different domains\, and fundamentality advances data-centric engineering.  \n\n\n\nThis event will showcase insights from our research in exploring humanities-based approaches to AI design. Throughout the event\, audience members will have the opportunity to participate in the discussion.  \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nImage credit: Yutong Liu & Kingston School of Art  / Better Images of AI / Talking to AI 2.0 / CC-BY 4.0
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/the-new-real-salon-doing-ai-differently/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Making Waves: Spring 2025,Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/250429_NewReal-Yutong-Liu-Kingston-School-of-Art-Better-Images-of-AI-Talking-to-AI-2.0-CC-BY-4.0.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250425T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250425T190000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20250205T121926Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250327T151901Z
UID:10000230-1745604000-1745607600@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:David Farrier: Nature’s Genius
DESCRIPTION:Life on Earth is changing; the question is\, can we change with it? Can we remake the world to be fit for all life to thrive once more? In his new book Nature’s Genuis: Evolution’s Lessons for a Changing World\, Professor David Farrier takes us on a profound journey into this ever-changing natural world\, encouraging us to think creatively about finding ways that we can adapt\, ways to stop the destruction we’re causing to the planet.  \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nDavid Farrier\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDavid Farrier is Professor of Literature and the Environment at the University of Edinburgh. David’s first book\, Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils\, looked at the marks we are leaving on the planet and how these might appear in the fossil record in the deep future. It was named by both The Times and Telegraph as a Book of the Year\, earned praise from Robert Macfarlane and Margaret Atwood\, and has been translated into ten languages. He has had pieces published in The Atlantic\, BBC Future\, Emergence\, Prospect\, Daily Telegraph\, Orion and The Washington Post. He has spoken at numerous online events\, has given an invited lecture at the Royal Geographical Society\, and has appeared on radio and podcasts such as BBC’s Free Thinking and Little Atoms.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChair: Hermione Cockburn\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHermione Cockburn is an Honorary Fellow of the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh and former Scientific Director at Dynamic Earth. She began her career in research working on landscape evolution in Africa\, Antarctica and Australia before moving on to present science programmes for the BBC including an 8-part television series about British palaeontology for which she wrote an accompanying book. She is passionate about empowering people with understanding and empathy for the Earth and enabling life-long learning. She was an associate lecturer with the Open University in Scotland teaching environmental science for many years and now works with a variety of organisations to support learning for a range of audiences. Hermione is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh\, a trustee of National Museums Scotland and in 2020 was awarded an OBE for services to public engagement in science. 
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/david-farrier-natures-genius/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Making Waves: Spring 2025,Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/250425_DavidFarrierNaturesGenius.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250410T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250410T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20250205T120000Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250429T105152Z
UID:10000226-1744308000-1744313400@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Technomoral Conversations: AI & Creative Labour
DESCRIPTION:The Technomoral Conversations series brings together leaders\, creators and innovators from academia\, technology\, business and the third sector in a ‘fireside chat’ format to discuss futures that are worth wanting. Focusing on AI and creative labour\, this Technomoral Conversation will look at issues ranging from the AI industry’s copyright violations\, to the responses from creatives in the UK and elsewhere\, to the wider ethical and political questions about the role of AI in creative practice and culture.  \n\n\n\nThe Centre for Technomoral Futures\n\n\n\nThe Centre for Technomoral Futures focuses on the ethical implications of present and future advances in AI\, machine learning and other data-driven technologies. It supports work and research in these areas across the Futures Institute\, the University of Edinburgh and with a wide portfolio of partners\, projects and networks.  \n\n\n\nAs part of Edinburgh Futures Institute\, the Centre’s shared goal is to help people create and shape more resilient\, sustainable and equitable forms of life. The Centre for Technomoral Futures is a home for developing more constructive modes of innovation: innovation that preserves and strengthens human ties and capabilities; that builds more accessible and just paths to public participation in the co-creation of our futures; and that reinvests the power of technology into the repair\, maintenance and care of our communities and our planet.  \n\n\n\nBridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID)\n\n\n\nBRAID is a UK-wide programme dedicated to integrating Arts and Humanities research more fully into the Responsible AI ecosystem\, as well as bridging the divides between academic\, industry\, policy and regulatory work on responsible AI. They represent a six-year\, £15.9 million investment in enabling responsible AI in the UK\, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and running from 2022 to 2028. Working in partnership with the Ada Lovelace Institute and BBC\, their team brings together expertise in human-computer interaction\, moral philosophy\, arts\, design\, law\, social sciences\, journalism\, and AI. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nCaroline Sinders\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCaroline Sinders is an award winning critical designer\, researcher\, and artist. They’re the founder of human rights and design lab\, Convocation Research + Design\, and a current BRAID fellow with the University of Arts\, London. For the past few years\, they have been examining the intersections of artificial intelligence\, intersectional justice\, harmful design\, systems and politics in digital conversational spaces and technology platforms. They’ve worked with the Tate Exchange at the Tate Modern\, the United Nations\, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office\, the European Commission\, Ars Electronica\, the Harvard Kennedy School and others. Caroline is currently based between London\, UK and New Orleans\, USA.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPaula Westenberger\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDr Paula Westenberger is a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law and a member of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence at Brunel University of London. She has a Masters and a PhD in IP law from Queen Mary University of London\, and is the Deputy Editor of the European Copyright and Design Reports. Her research interests cover the intersection between copyright law\, human rights and culture\, with a particular focus on the use of digital technologies (including AI) in the cultural heritage sector. She is a BRAID Research Fellow working on the project ‘Responsible AI for Heritage: copyright and human rights perspectives’ in partnership with RBG Kew. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRichard Combes\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRichard Combes is the Head of Rights and Licensing and Deputy Chief Executive for ALCS. His work focuses on the development of collective rights and licensing schemes in the UK and internationally\, aimed at providing writers with fair remuneration for the re-use of their work. This role involves a significant degree of partnership and collaboration with other UK writers’ organisations and licensing bodies as well as authors’ societies and collecting agencies around the world. \n\n\n\nRichard’s department is also responsible for engaging with UK and EU policy on copyright and authors’ rights – an area of growing prominence on the political agenda – by drafting responses to government consultations\, preparing Ministerial briefings and setting the agenda for the All Party Writers’ Group. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChair: Shannon Vallor\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProfessor Shannon Vallor serves as Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures in the Edinburgh Futures Institute. She holds the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence in the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Philosophy. Professor Vallor joined the Futures Institute in 2020 following a career in the United States as a leader in the ethics of emerging technologies\, including a post as a visiting AI Ethicist at Google from 2018-2020. She is the author of The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (Oxford University Press\, 2024) and Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (Oxford University Press\, 2016). She serves as advisor to government and industry bodies on responsible AI and data ethics. She is also Principal Investigator and Co-Director (with Professor Ewa Luger) of the UKRI research programme BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides)\, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/technomoral-conversations-ai-creative-labour/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Making Waves: Spring 2025,Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/250410_TechnomoralConversations.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250402T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250402T173000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20250318T185315Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250318T185317Z
UID:10000247-1743609600-1743615000@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Repurposing media for collective inquiry: notes from the Public Data Lab
DESCRIPTION:Repurposing digital media for collective inquiry – notes from the Public Data Lab (2017-2025) \n\n\n\nThe Public Data Lab was founded in 2017 as an interdisciplinary network exploring what difference the digital makes in attending to public problems. It aims to develop materials and formats for collective inquiry with and about digital data\, digital methods and digital infrastructures. \n\n\n\nThis talk will provide a walkthrough of a smorgasbord of projects and publications undertaken with the Public Data Lab\, including around “fake news” and misinformation\, air pollution\, tax justice\, climate denial\, COVID-19 testing\, conspiracy cultures\, fact-checking\, data journalism\, nature-based solutions\, political bots\, forest fires\, forest restoration\, ecological listening\, diasporic solidarity and collective identity formation. \n\n\n\nIt will reflect on what we have learned from these cross-institutional\, interdisciplinary collaborations\, highlighting the role of social sciences\, arts and humanities research in repurposing digital media for collective inquiry. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nJonathan W. Y. Gray\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJonathan W. Y. Gray is Director of the Centre for Digital Culture and Reader in Critical Infrastructure Studies at the Department of Digital Humanities\, King’s College London. He is also co-founder of the Public Data Lab and Research Associate at the Digital Methods Initiative (University of Amsterdam) and the médialab (Sciences Po\, Paris). He has taught with the School for Poetic Computation in NYC. More can be found at jonathangray.org. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLiliana Bounegru\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLiliana Bounegru is Senior Lecturer in Digital Media\, Culture and Society at the Department of Digital Humanities\, King’s College London. She is also co-founder of the Public Data Lab and affiliated with the Digital Methods Initiative in Amsterdam and the médialab\, Sciences Po in Paris. More about her work can be found at lilianabounegru.org.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/repurposing-media-for-collective-inquiry-notes-from-the-public-data-lab/
LOCATION:Room 2.35\, Edinburgh Futures Institute\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF
CATEGORIES:Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Repurposing-media-for-collective-inquiry.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250402T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250402T170000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20250319T125657Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250324T110817Z
UID:10000248-1743609600-1743613200@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Emerging Futures for Tokenised Licensing in the Creative Industries
DESCRIPTION:About this event\n\n\n\nWith the growing impact of online platforms and emerging technologies such as generative AI\, creators and end-users face continuous challenges to their authorship and ability to control content across the creative media supply chain.In this online one-hour webinar hosted by DECaDE’s partner\, Digital Catapult\, they will be introducing a report by DECaDE on a novel tokenized licensing framework known as ORA. Panellists will discuss tokenisation and standards such as C2PA. Discover how these developments might influence the cultural and creative economy\, offering new approaches to managing and valuing creative assets in the changing digital landscape.  \n\n\n\nWho should attend?\n\n\n\nThis webinar is designed for individuals and organisations across the creative industries who are navigating the evolving landscape of digital content management and licensing. \n\n\n\nIt will be particularly valuable for: \n\n\n\n\nCreators and Artists\n\n\n\nCreative Industry Professionals\n\n\n\nTechnology Developers\n\n\n\nPlatforms\, Policy and Legal Experts\n\n\n\nAcademics and Researchers.\n\n\n\n\nWhy attend?\n\n\n\nExplore the granular challenges regarding digital ownership\, licensing\, and attribution Hear more about emerging technologies such as the C2PA metadata standard and tokenisation and what roles these could play in the digital creative economy  Discuss the wider impact of these types of protocols for cultural economy and learn more about the DECaDE’s work in this field.  \n\n\n\nPanelists\n\n\n\n\n\nChris Elsden\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCo-Investigator on the DECaDE project\, Chris’s research is rooted in the field of Human-Computer Interaction\, but is fundamentally inter-disciplinary\, applying design research methods to understand the human experience and social meanings of data-driven services. \n\n\n\nUsing and developing innovative design research methods\, his work undertakes diverse\, qualitative and often speculative engagements with participants to investigate emerging relationships with technology – particularly data-driven tools\, FinTech and blockchain technologies. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\nFrances Liddell\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDr. Frances Liddell is a Research Associate in Design Informatics\, University of Edinburgh and working on the DECaDE project. Frances has a background in arts management and museum studies\, and her PhD research was one of the first empirical studies to examine the impact of blockchain technologies on museum practice. \n\n\n\nFrances’ research interests focus on themes such as participation\, digital materiality\, and ownership design and is interested in the way that emerging technologies such as Web3 can challenge and reshape perceptions around value and ownership. Together with Chris Elsden\, she is leading the qualitative fieldwork for the ORAgen project which explores how decentralised technologies might shape and address challenges on attribution\, rights and ownership in the digital creative community. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJohn Collomoss\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJohn Collomosse is a Professor of Computer Vision and AI at the University of Surrey where he is the founder and director of DECaDE\, the UKRI Research Centre for the Decentralized Digital Economy. Signal Processing (CVSSP). \n\n\n\nHe is concurrently a Principal Scientist and distinguished inventor at Adobe Research\, where he manages the cross-modal representation learning (XRL) research group. He leads research for Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) and is a core technical advisor to the initiative since his involvement in its inception in 2019. \n\n\n\nJohn’s research intersects Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)\, with focus on media provenance to fight misinformation and online harms\, and on improving data integrity and attribution for responsible AI.   \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKar Balan\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEdited with Afterlight\n\n\n\n\n\nPost-graduate researcher within the Centre for Vision and Speech processing\, currently working on the DECaDE project. With a diverse background initially rooted in the film and animation industries\, Kar has cultivated a blend of technical and creative skills and now conducts research at the intersection of computer vision and blockchain technologies with a focus on digital content provenance. \n\n\n\nHis work addresses complex issues within the realms of copyright\, privacy and attribution in the Generative AI space. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nGuest panelists\n\n\n\n\n\nDavid Oxley\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA UK-based creative technologist and artist\, blending technology and art to craft interactive experiences\, immersive installations\, and blockchain-enhanced digital art. David founded Numeriq Ltd\, offering website development while also exploring creative technology and independently pursuing artistic projects focussed on real-time AI\, WebXR\, generative art\, and immersive storytelling. \n\n\n\nDavid is interested in ORAgen as an approach to decentralised licensing and attribution and how initiatives explored in ORAgen\, like C2PA\, may address authenticity and provenance in digital media. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nYayoi Shionoiri\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nYayoi Shionoiri is the VP of External Affairs and General Counsel at Powerhouse Arts\, a Brooklyn fabrication facility for artists.  She also serves as U.S. Alliance Partner to City Lights Law\, a Japanese law firm that represents creators; and as Board Director to Startbahn\, a Japanese blockchain company.   \n\n\n\nYayoi has degrees from Harvard University\, Cornell Law School\, and Columbia University.  Yayoi writes frequently on legal issues related to copyright\, art NFTs\, AI\, and ethics. 
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/emerging-futures-for-tokenised-licensing-in-the-creative-industries/
CATEGORIES:Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/DECaDE_Frances-Liddell.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250401T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250401T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20250205T124933Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250317T113804Z
UID:10000222-1743530400-1743535800@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Culture is Bad for You
DESCRIPTION:Culture is Bad for You offers a powerful call to transform the cultural and creative industries\, by examining the intersections between race\, class\, and gender in inequalities in cultural occupations. Exclusion from culture begins at an early age\, the authors argue\, and despite claims by cultural institutions and businesses to hire talented and hardworking individuals\, women\, people of colour\, and those from working-class backgrounds are systematically disbarred. Since its publication in 2020 the book has proved a powerful provocation to policymakers and cultural practitioners\, and found resonance in cultural policy and sociology researchers internationally.  \n\n\n\nTo mark the publication of a new\, updated edition\, this event will bring together scholars from around the world with the authors to discuss the mechanisms of exclusion in cultural work and how they are mirrored in other national and policy contexts.  \n\n\n\nThis event is hosted in partnership with the Edinburgh Centre for Data\, Culture & Society (CDCS).  \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nOrian Brook\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOrian Brook is Chancellor’s Fellow in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh. She studies social and spatial inequalities in the creative economy\, and holds an ESRC ADR Fellowship exploring earnings of creative graduates. She is co-author of the book Culture is Bad for You and the report ‘A Class Act: Social mobility and the creative industries’ published with the Sutton Trust. She is a member of the College of Experts for the Department for Culture\, Media and Sport.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDave O’Brien\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDave O’Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries at the School of Arts\, Languages and Cultures\, University of Manchester. He is the co-author of Culture is bad for you\, and has written numerous papers on the contemporary creative economy. His policy research includes a role in the AHRC-funded Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre\,  the co-authored Panic! report\, and the Creative Diversity APPG’s Creative Majority and the Making the Creative Majority reports. He has twice been an advisor to the House of Commons’ Culture\, Media and Sport Select Committee\, and is currently on a research secondment to the UK government’s Department for Culture\, Media and Sport.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nantonio cuyler\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nantonio c. cuyler\, PhD (he/him/his) is Professor of Music in Entrepreneurship & Leadership\, Faculty Associate in Voice & Opera in the School of Music\, Theatre & Dance (SMTD)\, and Faculty Associate in the African Studies Center at the University of Michigan. Dr. cuyler’s scholarship interweaves curiosities and inquiries about arts administration\, entrepreneurship\, leadership\, management curricula\, creative justice\, cultural policy\, and experiential learning. The central question of his consulting\, research\, service\, and teaching portfolio is\, “in what ways can the creative sector ensure and protect the creative justice of historically and continuously low casted\, othered\, and subalterned peoples?” Routledge will publish his forthcoming book\, Achieving Creative Justice in the U. S. Creative Sector\, in March. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nElysia Lechelt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nElysia Lechelt is a Lecturer in the School of Art History at the University of Edinburgh. Specialising in cultural policy\, her research questions how we might begin to (re)imagine cultural policy in ways that move it away from dominant imperatives and notions of cultural value and towards issues of social justice and human flourishing. Her expertise encompasses urban and regional cultural policy practices\, creative industries\, and cultural labour. Furthermore\, she has authored and presented work on participatory (or co-produced) cultural policy processes. Elysia is committed to investigating the essential role of art and culture in promoting a more equitable and sustainable society. Currently\, she is examining how a capability approach can be utilised to understand the arts’ potential to enhance collective well-being and drive transformative policy change. Before entering academia\, Elysia gained experience in the cultural sector\, working with organisations such as Contemporary Calgary\, where she managed public programming\, audience development\, and community outreach initiatives. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBeata Kowalczyk\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBeata M. Kowalczyk is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Sociology\, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań\, Poland\, and an associated researcher at the Institutions et Dynamiques Historiques de l’Économie et de la Société (Paris 1 Panthéone Sorbonne). Currently\, she is a Nawa Bekker Research Fellow at the School of Social and Political Science\, University of Edinburgh. She has conducted multi-sited fieldwork on the working conditions in the arts\, with a focus on Japanese musicians navigating the professional landscape of the classical music industry in Warsaw\, Paris\, and Tokyo. Her research has been published in Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques\, Work\, Gender & Organization\, Men and Masculinities and other outlets. She is also the author of Transnational Musicians. Precariousness\, Ethnicity and Gender in the Creative Industry (Routledge\, 2021). \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nInés Ruiz Alvarado\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nInés Ruiz Alvarado is UNESCO Chair in Public Policy and Cultural Management at the Universidad Científica del Sur\, and Co-Chair of the Executive Committee of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Peru. Her research focuses on social and gender inequalities\, particularly examining the intersections of gender\, race\, and class. Her career spans key areas such as gender studies\, human rights\, and community communication. Her doctoral research examined the consequences of forced sterilization campaigns on the lives of affected women\, culminating in the book Pájaros de Medianoche. Las esterilizaciones forzadas en el Perú y la lucha de sus víctimas por ser reconocidas (Editorial Planeta) and the documentary A Futile Voice\, which delves into their struggles for recognition and justice. Her work bridges academic research and creative expression\, advocating for transformative change in social landscapes. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChair: Kirsten Lloyd\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKirsten Lloyd is a Senior Lecturer in the School of History of Art at The University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on late 20th and 21st art and mediation\, including lens-based practice\, participatory work and realism. She is a Research Fellow with the ‘Feminism\, Art\, Maintenance’ project\, funded by the Swedish Research Council\, a member of the Glasgow Housing Struggles collective and the Academic Lead for the University’s Contemporary Art Research Collection. Kirsten is currently working on the next phase of the collaborative exhibition and research project Life Support: Forms of Care in Art and Activism with Glasgow Women’s Library and a book called Contemporary Art and Capitalist Life which has been supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/culture-is-bad-for-you/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Making Waves: Spring 2025,Talk/Discussion
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250325T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250325T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20250205T120000Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250327T110147Z
UID:10000220-1742925600-1742931000@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Creating to Celebrate: the Edinburgh Seven Tapestry
DESCRIPTION:Join us to celebrate the Edinburgh Seven Tapestry and its installation in 2024 at its new home: the Edinburgh Futures Institute. This event will feature Artist Christine Borland and Dovecot Master Weaver Naomi Robertson in conversation with Professor Andrew Patrizio\, and will be introduced by Professor Marion Thain\, Director of EFI and Celia Joicey\, Director of Dovecot Studios. As one of the first of several events exploring the Tapestry\, they will discuss creativity\, collaboration and what it means to make a piece of artwork that honours the achievements of important\, and potentially overlooked\, women in history.   \n\n\n\nDovecot Studios in Edinburgh is the UK’s oldest tapestry studio\, which has enjoyed global acclaim for artworks created in collaboration with artists from David Hockney and Chris Ofili to Helen Frankenthaler and Alberta Whittle.  \n\n\n\nTheir latest commission\, a triptych designed by Christine Borland and woven by Dovecot using traditional techniques and innovative materials\, celebrates The Edinburgh Seven\, the first women to matriculate at any UK university.  \n\n\n\nThe Edinburgh Seven Tapestry is the first major artwork to be installed in Edinburgh Futures Institute. It is an extraordinary tribute to pioneering students who showed resilience and determination when their path to education was blocked. They overcame these challenges in different ways – with some continuing their studies in other countries and others becoming valued supporters of women’s education and medical practice.     \n\n\n\nInterdisciplinarity\, collaboration and data are core to the work of Edinburgh Futures Institute and many disciplines and professional roles were essential to the creation\, production and installation of the tapestry. It has been produced with care\, commitment and respect and inspires those who work\, study and view it\, both online and in person. Although none of the Edinburgh Seven had a chance to practice medicine in the building\, we are pleased that the tapestry allows us to bring these women home.   \n\n\n\nCommissioned by Dovecot Studios\, with funding from Sir Ewan and Lady Brown.  \n\n\n\nRead more about the tapestry here. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nChristine Borland\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChristine Borland is an artist based in Argyll\, Scotland\, known for her pioneering critical\, cross-disciplinary collaborations that explore the relationships between human and non-human ecologies. Christine is a Professor at Northumbria University she co-lead the research group\, ‘The Cultural Negotiation of Science. In 2016 she was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) from the University of Glasgow and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 2020. Her works have been shown in numerous international exhibitions\, including The Turner Prize and the Venice Biennale\, and are permanently sited in public spaces and collections world-wide.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNaomi Robertson\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPhotograph: Mike Wilkinson\n\n\n\n\n\nNaomi Robertson is a Master Weaver and Head of the Tapestry Studio at Dovecot Studios. After graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 1990 with a BA(Hons) in Tapestry\, Naomi joined Dovecot Studios as a Weaver and was appointed Studio Manager in 2013. Naomi has worked on some of the studio’s highest-profile design and weaving commissioned projects. These have included the R. B. Kitaj tapestry in the British Library\, the Butterfly tapestry created in collaboration with Alison Watt for the Theatre Royal\, and ‘Entanglement is More Than Blood’ with Alberta Whittle for the 59th Venice Biennale \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCelia Joicey\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCelia Joicey joined Dovecot as Director in September 2017. She is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Royal College of Art. Prior to her appointment as Director of Dovecot Studios\, she was Head of the Fashion and Textile Museum\, and before that\, Head of Publications at the National Portrait Gallery in London and Editor of the RSA Journal and Head of Publications at the Royal Society of Arts.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChair: Andrew Patrizio\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProfessor Andrew Patrizio holds the Chair of Scottish Visual Culture at the University of Edinburgh. He teaches and writes on Scottish post-1945 art and on ecological artists\, themes and methods\, culminating in his book The Ecological Eye: Assembling an ecocritical art history (Manchester University Press\, 2019) and the forthcoming Methods for Ecocritical Art History (co-edited with Dr Olga Smith\, Manchester University Press\, 2026). Much of his work is interdisciplinary\, from Anatomy Acts (2006\, winner of the Medical Book of the Year from the Royal Society of Medicine) to Ilana Halperin. STEINE (Berlin\, 2012). Prior to his academic career\, he had full-time curatorial posts at the Hayward Gallery\, London and Glasgow Museums. He is a Trustee of Little Sparta (Ian Hamilton Finlay’s garden)\, on the Academic Committee of Edinburgh University Press and a founding member of the European Forum for Advanced Practices. He first worked with Christine Borland in 1990 (Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum) and has written many times on her work (most recently ‘Desiccation\, Suspension\, Extraction: The Inhuman Art of Christine Borland’\, in Post-Specimen. Encounters between Art\, Science and Curating\, Ed Juler and Alistair Robinson (eds.) Intellect Books\, 2020) and commissioned new work from her for the above mentioned Anatomy Acts and Art Unlimited: Multiples of the 1960s and 1990s from the Arts Council Collection (Hayward Touring\, 1994-5). 
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/creating-to-celebrate-the-edinburgh-seven-tapestry/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Making Waves: Spring 2025,Talk/Discussion
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250321T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250321T190000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20250205T120000Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250415T151106Z
UID:10000219-1742580000-1742583600@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Fern Brady in conversation with Michael Pedersen
DESCRIPTION:A conversation between comedian Fern Brady and poet\, University of Edinburgh writer-in-residence\, and Edinburgh Makar Michael Pedersen. Fern and Michael will discuss comedy\, creativity and books\, including Fern’s hilarious and heart-breaking memoir Strong Female Character. Covering the years from realising she had autism in her teens to her diagnosis at 34\, Fern tells the story of how being female can get in the way of being autistic and how being autistic gets in the way of being the ‘right kind’ of woman’.  \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nFern Brady\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFern Brady is a woman. She is also autistic. She was born in Scotland (no\, not Glasgow). She has no presets for being a ‘good woman’ – she never hated her body or indulged in messy millennial shame. She now lives out of wedlock in London. She has zero children. Fern’s caustic wit\, exceptional writing and electric stage craft has made her one of the UK’s hottest comedy stars. As seen on Live from the BBC\, Live from the Comedy Store\, The Russell Howard Hour\, and Live at the Apollo. She’s had viral success with her BBC Life Lessons and supported Frankie Boyle and Katherine Ryan on tour. She can currently be seen on Taskmaster on Channel 4. Her triumph of a debut book\, Strong Female Character\, won\, among other accolades\, Best Non-Fiction at the Nero Book Awards and the Books Are My Bag Awards 2023\, and was the winner of the Audiobook of the Year 2024 at the British Book Awards. She has just announced a second book\, High Energy Unpleasant\, due for release in 2026.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChair: Michael Pedersen\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMichael Pedersen: is a prize-winning Scottish poet and author\, the Writer in Residence at The University of Edinburgh\, and the Edinburgh Makar (Poet Laureate). His prose debut\, Boy Friends\, was published by Faber & Faber to rave reviews and was a Sunday Times Critics Choice 2022. He’s unfurled three collections of poetry\, the most recent being The Cat Prince & Other Poems – which won the Books Are My Bag Readers Award for Best Poetry 2023. Pedersen has been shortlisted for the Forward Prizes for Poetry and The Scottish National Book Awards and won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. His work has attracted praise from the likes of: Stephen Fry\, Bernardine Evaristo\, Kae Tempest\, Irvine Welsh\, Nicola Sturgeon and many more. His debut novel\, Muckle Flugga\, will be published by Faber in May 2025. 
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/fern-brady-in-conversation-with-michael-pedersen/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Making Waves: Spring 2025,Talk/Discussion
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250320T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250320T180000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20250213T125201Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250213T125251Z
UID:10000244-1742488200-1742493600@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Voices for Transgender Equality: Trans Rights Activism Under Trump
DESCRIPTION:Transgender rights have emerged as an important topic of everyday conversation across the country in recent years and become\, in many ways\, the flashpoint du jour of the American culture wars. During the first Trump administration in particular\, transgender people were thrust onto the center stage of US politics. Faced with unrelenting hostility and an increasingly complicated media system\, transgender activists crafted new communication strategies to fight for their equality\, stall attempts to undermine their rights\, and win the support of large swathes of the public.  \n\n\n\nIn this talk\, TJ Billard offers an insider’s view into transgender activism during the first two years of the first Trump administration. Drawing on extensive on-the-ground observation at the National Center for Transgender Equality\, Billard shows how these activists developed an unlikely blend of online and offline strategies to saturate a diverse ecology of national news outlets\, local and community media outlets across the country\, and both public and private conversations across multiple social media platforms with voices in support of their cause.  \n\n\n\nMoreover\, these activists navigated the complex flows of information and ideas among these different domains of the communication system as they worked to shape the national conversation on transgender rights. As Billard argues\, this movement occurred at a very particular time in the development of the media system\, with “new” media shaping the movement in important ways that are both generalizable to other social movements and unique to transgender activism. Facing a second Trump administration that promises further battles over transgender rights\, Billard provides key insights into the new business-as-usual of mediated politics and valuable lessons for more effective activism.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/voices-for-transgender-equality-trans-rights-activism-under-trump/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Talk/Discussion
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250226T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250226T173000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20250115T151434Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250115T151436Z
UID:10000233-1740585600-1740591000@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Reconstructing the Roman Transport Network: New Methods and Approaches to Modelling Mobility from the R3UrbN Project
DESCRIPTION:R3UrbN is an MSCA funded project aimed at modelling the transport network of the Roman Empire. The project employs innovative modelling methodologies to understand mobility and connectivity across the Roman world\, with a particular focus on urbanisation and the reconstructing the complex transport network that connected the urban centres of the Empire. The model centres around a temporal cost surface and cost corridors to construct a network across the entire Roman world. The methodology is widely applicable to periods and regions beyond the immediate focus of this project\, and it is hoped that a robust and up to date tool for modelling specific journeys across the Roman Empire will be produced at the project’s conclusion. \n\n\n\nIn this discussion\, Andrew McLean places the project in the wider context of the archaeology of the Roman Empire\, and how computational approaches are being applied in the field. He then outlines what has been achieved during the first year of the project\, with some smaller scale case study examples. The focus is on the methodologies applied\, particularly the innovative approach to cost surface and cost corridor generation and some of the initial results of testing the model. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biography\n\n\n\n\n\nAndrew McLean\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAndrew McLean is an archaeologist with experience excavating in Italy\, Turkey and most recently directing a new project in Croatia. He completed his PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2022. His thesis centred on modelling the economy of the Roman Adriatic region\, with a particular focus on mobility\, both terrestrial and maritime. From 2021-2023 he worked as a Training Fellow at the CDCS\, primarily offering training in R\, basic statistics and GIS. Since December 2023 he has been a Marie Curie fellow on the R3UrbN project in Spain\, initially at the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC) and now at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre. His primary research interests are the economy of the Roman Empire and computational approaches to mobility in archaeology more broadly.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/reconstructing-the-roman-transport-network-new-methods-and-approaches-to-modelling-mobility-from-the-r3urbn-project/
LOCATION:Room 2.55\, Edinburgh Futures Institute\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF
CATEGORIES:Talk/Discussion
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250206T170000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250206T183000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000011
CREATED:20241219T153908Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250203T092822Z
UID:10000216-1738861200-1738866600@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:How Platforms Fail Democracy
DESCRIPTION:This event is organised and hosted by the School of Political Science. \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n“Platforms fail democracy. They fail in countries with comparatively stable governments and free and fair elections. They fail in states where leaders try to hold onto power even when they are voted out. This talk argues how and why they must do better.  As democratic backsliding takes root around the world\, I argue that technology companies must serve as democratic gatekeepers and adopt “democracy-worthy” platform policies. I outline how platforms should understand democratic threats and prevent the manipulation of their technologies by antidemocratic forces. I show how autocrats and autocratizing forces in countries ranging from Brazil\, Hungary\, India\, and Turkey to the United States weaponize expression and social media to undermine or rollback elections and democratic institutions. I argue that this happens according to a well-established playbook that we have seen time and again. Leaders in these countries\, rather consistently and routinely\, delegitimize electoral processes and encourage or incite political violence. They conduct disinformation campaigns that spread harmful conspiracy theories and silence and harass the political opposition. They justify power grabs through strongman appeals to safety and security. And\, these autocrats mobilize dominant groups through fear against racial\, ethnic\, religious\, or other minority group ‘others.’  \n\n\n\nAs this talk shows\, this is a well-established playbook. That very consistency means that guardians of democracy – including platforms – can and must effectively counter these campaigns. I argue that platforms should adopt democracy-worthy policies that elevate public over individual rights\, put people over politicians\, account for power\, and draw a red line around election disinformation.” \nProfessor Daniel Kreiss\n\n\n\n\n\nProfessor Daniel Kreiss\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDaniel Kreiss is the Edgar Thomas Cato Distinguished Professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the faculty director\, a principal researcher\, and co-founder of the UNC Center for Information\, Technology\, and Public Life\, a global leader in disinformation research.  Kreiss is the author or co-author of five books and the co-editor of Media and January 6th (Oxford University Press\, 2024). Kreiss’s last volume\, a co-written textbook entitled Platforms\, Power\, and Politics: An Introduction to Political Communication in the Digital Age (Polity\, 2024)\, has been translated into multiple languages and adopted in numerous courses in the U.S. and Europe. Kreiss co-edits the Oxford University Press book series Journalism and Political Communication Unbound and is an associate editor of the field-leading Political Communication journal. At the Hussman School\, Kreiss is the director of the Political Communication Certificate. Kreiss is an affiliated fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and received a Ph.D. in Communication from Stanford University. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/how-platforms-fail-democracy/
LOCATION:Lecture Theatre A\, 40 George Square\, Edinburgh\, EH8 9JX\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Talk/Discussion
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241212T170000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241212T200000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20241104T132954Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241105T142219Z
UID:10000212-1734022800-1734033600@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:How to Find the Soul of a Sailor: Artist Talk and Opening Event
DESCRIPTION:Kasia Molga\, an acclaimed interdisciplinary artist\, designer and storyteller invites you to explore her first iteration of How to Find the Soul of a Sailor\, a deeply personal and innovative project that fuses the past\, present\, and future through the lens of artificial intelligence and memory. This work is the result of The New Real 2023-2024 commission “Uncanny Machines” supported by the Scottish AI Alliance. Hosted at Inspace Gallery with additional support from Arts Council England\, this unique early access version runs from December 12-21\, 2024\, and January 6-11\, 2025. \n\n\n\nImmerse yourself in a deeply personal journey to the future of our oceans and sailors’ time at sea. Experience the Mediterranean sea through the eyes of Molga’s late father\, Tadeusz Molga\, a devoted sailor. During his voyages\, he meticulously documented his passion for the ocean\, a love he shared with young Kasia as she accompanied him on his ship. Fifteen years after his passing\, Molga is left with a profound sense of loss and a collection of his cherished diaries. When the memories of their time together begin to fade\, she turns to these diaries\, clinging to the remnants of his voice and their shared experiences at sea. Molga’s work captures an emotional and environmental journey highlighting the fragility of our oceans\, the ever-changing work conditions of sailors\, and speculates on the future and what her father would say. \n\n\n\nMolga uses The New Real’s specialised experiential AI platform\, The New Real Observatory\, to reimagine her father’s words\, projecting them 50 years into the future. This project is a powerful fusion of memory and technology\, blending generative AI tools with climate data to create an emotionally charged narrative that visualises both the past and future of our oceans. \n\n\n\nMolga’s exhibition uniquely combines English and Polish\, creating a bilingual experience that delves into the profound topics of personal connection to climate change and the digital afterlife. Her work not only honours the enduring power of memory but also showcases the potential benefits and drawbacks of various artificial intelligence tools to preserve and transform our personal histories. \n\n\n\nThis exhibition is a must-see for those interested in the intersections of art\, technology\, and the environment\, offering a poignant reflection on the future of our planet and the boundless possibilities of human-AI collaboration. \n\n\n\nArtisit Talk and Opening Event Details\n\n\n\nThis event will feature an Artist Talk and light refreshments will be provided. Tickets are limited. Please reserve a ticket here. \n\n\n\nExhibition Details\n\n\n\nDates: Thurs – Sat| 12-21 Dec 2024 ; Mon – Sat | 6 -11 Jan 2025 (closed on Sundays)Time: 10:00 – 17:00 | Free/Drop-InLocation: Inspace\, 1 Crichton St\, Newington\, Edinburgh EH8 9AB \n\n\n\nArtist\n\n\n\nKasia Molga (UK/PL) has refused to be labelled – design fusionist\, artist\, environmentalist\, creative coder and technologist who for over a decade has sought ways of collaboration with nature\, predominantly focusing on the ever-changing human relation to and perception of the natural environment and fellow ‘earthlings’. Her award winning work has been exhibited worldwide (i\,e. Ars Electronica\, Tate Modern\, MIS (BR)\, Centre Pompidou and more). Kasia has taken part in many international art & science residencies and has lectured and mentored regularly in the EU and UK. An affinity with the ocean is evident in Kasia’s work\, born from her time growing up on merchant navy vessels with her sailor father and she is the proud holder of a diving licence. studiomolga.com \n\n\n\n*Please register your seat for the Artist Talk and Opening Event. The exhibition is open to drop-In. \n\n\n\nFor more information\, please contact Courtney Bates\, Project Manager of The New Real at c.bates@ed.ac.uk. \n\n\n\nFor inquiries about accessibility\, please contact the DI team at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk or visit the Access webpage for more venue information: https://inspace.ed.ac.uk/venue-access/ \n\n\n\nAbout The New Real:\n\n\n\nThe New Real is a leading research hub on arts and AI at The University of Edinburgh\, fostering innovative projects at the intersection of technology\, creativity\, and society. The New Real explores how AI impacts life at a profound level\, often interacting with us in fascinating and unanticipated ways\, and illuminates how emerging technology can become a creative\, playful and deeply impactful part of everyday living. The New Real is developed in partnership with The Alan Turing Institute\, Edinburgh College of Art\, and The Edinburgh Futures Institute. \n\n\n\nAbout Scottish AI Alliance:\n\n\n\nScotland’s national Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy was launched in March 2021 and set out a vision for Scotland to become a leader in the development and use of trustworthy\, ethical and inclusive AI. \n\n\n\nThe Scottish AI Alliance is tasked with the delivery of the vision outlined in Scotland’s AI Strategy by empowering Scotland’s people\, supporting Scotland’s businesses and organisations\, and influencing policy impacting Scotland. The Scottish AI Alliance is a strategic collaboration between The Data Lab and the Scottish Government and is led by a Minister-appointed Chair and overseen by Senior Responsible Officers from The Data Lab (CEO) and the Scottish Government (CDO). Its activities are overseen and advised by governance and outcomes focussed advisory groups with representation across society and Scotland’s AI community. \n\n\n\nAbout Inspace:\n\n\n\nInspace is part of the Institute for Design Informatics and is a collaborative hub\, commissioning and producing creative activity. Our public programme connects data\, research and creative talent. We host events and exhibitions where people can explore\, learn\, debate and create. Our programme unlocks digital technologies\, tools and data and explores their role in society through a creative lens. We are home to Inspace City Screens\, a unique seven screen street front projection space visible from Potterrow in Edinburgh. \n\n\n\nAbout Arts Council England : \n\n\n\nArts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. They help people in every corner of the country to experience and benefit from creativity. They do this by investing in artists and organisations that make and deliver exceptional\, inspirational work for our communities.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/how-to-find-the-soul-of-a-sailor-artist-talk-and-opening-event/
LOCATION:Inspace\, 1 Crichton Street\, Edinburgh\, Edinburgh\, EH8 9LE\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Exhibition,Talk/Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241203T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241203T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240829T094950Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241209T104846Z
UID:10000168-1733248800-1733254200@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:The Future of AI at School
DESCRIPTION:How are school leaders\, policymakers and teachers planning to work with AI in the classroom? What does AI mean for the way we teach\, assess and understand learning and the cultures and practices of schooling? This event will bring together key figures from the Scottish education landscape to talk about AI in schools and our education futures. \n\n\n\nThe event will be public-facing\, and carefully designed to provoke active discussion and debate with the audience. It will build on research taking place over recent years at the University of Edinburgh with the Data Education in Schools and BRAID research programmes and draw on the wide network of schools and sector leads who have cocreated this work . It will provide audiences with engaging insights from colleagues working with AI at the chalk-face of teaching and policy development\, opening up debate to a wider public audience. \n\n\n\nThe event will be relevant to anyone with an interest in schools\, schooling and education policy futures. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nLouise Hayward\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLouise Hayward is Professor Emerita of Educational Assessment and Innovation (University of Glasgow) and Honorary Professor (UWTSD). Originally an English teacher\, her research focuses on improving future assessment policy and practice and she has published widely on Assessment and Processes of Change.  In 2018\, Louise founded the International Educational Assessment Network (researchers and policy makers from twelve nations across four continents).  She has worked with OECD on the Learning 2030 programme and with UNESCO on Assessment in STEM education. Recently\, Louise chaired two Independent Reviews of Qualifications and Assessment- the first in England  (A New ERA\, 2021) and most recently  in Scotland (It’s Our Future\, 2023). \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOllie Bray\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOllie Bray is currently Strategic Director at Education Scotland. Education Scotland is a Scottish Government executive agency charged with supporting quality and improvement in Scottish education. At Education Scotland Ollie has overall strategic responsibility for National Improvement Initiatives and Professional Learning and Leadership. This includes major national initiatives\, such as the review of the Scottish Curriculum (the Curriculum Improvement Cycle); Digital Learning & Teaching (including Glow) and National Professional Learning and Leadership Programmes. Immediately before rejoining Education Scotland he was Global Director: Connecting Play and Education at the LEGO Foundation (www.legofoundation.com) where he led the Foundations work related to education improvement through the use of technology and play. As part of this role he also led the Foundations COVID-19 distance learning response stream. Prior to joining the LEGO Foundation in November 2018 he was headteacher of Kingussie High School\, Scotland. He has over 25 years experience in all aspects of education. As well as his philanthropic\, school and systems leadership work he has also been an award winning teacher\, Scotland’s former national advisor for emerging technologies in learning and a non-executive director at Inverness College: University of the Highlands & Islands and was until recently Chair of the Board at the International School of Billund\, Denmark. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTheodore Pengelley\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTheodore Pengelley is a Digital Manager at the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA)\, within its Digital Assessment Services team. Theo has a diverse background of delivering innovative digital services spanning the private\, public\, and third sectors. \n\n\n\nCurrently\, he oversees SQA’s digital learning provision\, while exploring new opportunities to use emerging technologies across SQA’s qualifications and assessments. As the chair of SQA’s Artificial Intelligence and Emergent Technology Group\, he is at the forefront of addressing the opportunities and challenges posed by AI and other evolving technologies. Through rigorous research\, engagement across the Scottish education system\, and cross-sector collaboration\, this groups explores the impact of adopting these technologies within learning\, teaching and assessment. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJudy Robertson (chair)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProfessor Judy Robertson has been researching and developing technology with and for children for over twenty years. She is Chair in Digital Learning at the University of Edinburgh\, in the School of Informatics and Moray House School of Education and Sport. She has active research projects in exploring children and young people’s views on AI in school\, and in documenting early adopter teachers’ use of AI.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/the-future-of-ai-at-school/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Learning Curves: Autumn 2024,Talk/Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241126T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241126T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240829T095009Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241204T141236Z
UID:10000170-1732644000-1732649400@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:The Future of Education: AI
DESCRIPTION:Artificial Intelligence is the latest in a long series of high-profile technology ‘disruptors’ of education. What futures for education does it promise\, and are these desirable? Who is driving the discussion about its potential? And what might it mean for the act and profession of teaching? Current debate on AI in education is intense\, and often torn between competing visions of education’s social purpose. This panel brings together researchers\, writers and thinkers working in the area of AI to discuss what a future of education permeated by AI might look like\, what it should look like\, and how it might support education for public good. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nJohn Warner\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJohn Warner is a writer\, editor\, speaker\, researcher\, and author of eight books\, including Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities (Johns Hopkins UP) and The Writer’s Practice: Building Confidence in Your Nonfiction Writing (Penguin). John has been blogging about higher education at Inside Higher Ed for over a decade\, and writes weekly about books and reading culture at the Chicago Tribune and his associated newsletter\, The Biblioracle Recommends. His ninth book\, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI (Basic Books)\, will be published in the U.S. in February 2025. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAraba Sey\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAraba Sey is a researcher and educator whose work examines digital technologies\, socioeconomic development\, and social equity. As Deputy Director at Research ICT Africa\, she leads research evidence-building for policymaking on digital and data governance across Africa. Her research includes studies of the relationship between digital and social inclusion\, gender digital equality\, artificial intelligence for development\, misinformation and disinformation in Africa\, and inclusive research design and decision-making for community development. She is motivated by an interest in resolving disconnections between rhetoric\, action\, and realities around the potential of new technologies to foster human development in Africa and beyond. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDr Ben Williamson\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDr Ben Williamson is a Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. He has conducted research on digital technologies\, data and artificial intelligence in education for more than ten years\, with books including Big Data in Education: The Digital Future of Learning\, Policy and Practice\, and the edited collection Digitalisation of Education in the Era of Algorithms\, Automation and Artificial Intelligence. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJL Williams\n\n\n\n\n\n\nImage Credit: Gintare Kulyte\n\n\n\n\n\nBooks by JL Williams include Condition of Fire (Shearsman\, 2011)\, Locust and Marlin (Shearsman\, 2014)\, House of the Tragic Poet (If A Leaf Falls Press\, 2016)\, After Economy (Shearsman\, 2017) and Origin (Shearsman\, 2022). Published widely in journals\, her poetry has been translated into numerous languages. She has read at international literature festivals and venues in the UK\, Sweden\, Germany\, Denmark\, Turkey\, Cyprus\, Canada\, Hungary\, Romania\, Montenegro and the US. \n\n\n\nShe wrote the libretto for the opera Snow which debuted in London in 2017\, was awarded a bursary to develop a new opera with composer Samantha Fernando at the Royal Opera House and was a librettist for the award-winning 2020 covid-response Episodes project by The Opera Story. She was commissioned to write the 2023 English Touring Opera children’s opera\, The Wish Gatherer. Williams is hopeful about the simple and mysterious power of poetry that allows us to know ourselves\, each other and the world more deeply. www.jlwilliamspoetry.co.uk \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChair: Sian Bayne\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSian Bayne is Professor of Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh\, where she is Director of the Centre for Research in Digital Education\, and leads on Education Futures in her role as Assistant Principal. Her research is critical and interdisciplinary\, currently focused on higher education futures\, AI\, utopia and theories of ‘enhancement’. http://sianbayne.net
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/the-future-of-education-ai/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Edinburgh Futures Conversations,Learning Curves: Autumn 2024,Talk/Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241122T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241122T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240829T095019Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241204T135043Z
UID:10000171-1732298400-1732303800@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Future Library and Futures Literacy: Making Futures from Where We Are
DESCRIPTION:To mark the 10-year anniversary of Katie Paterson’s 100-year artwork\, Future Library\, we gather to discuss what it means to be “futures literate”. We explore relationships between place\, knowledge\, imagination and time in making meaning from and engaging with different futures. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nKatie Paterson\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKatie Paterson (born 1981\, Scotland) is widely regarded as one of the leading artists of her generation. Collaborating with scientists and researchers across the world\, Paterson’s projects consider our place on Earth in the context of geological time and change. Her artworks make use of sophisticated technologies and specialist expertise to stage intimate\, poetic and philosophical engagements between people and their natural environment. Combining a Romantic sensibility with a research-based approach\, conceptual rigour and coolly minimalist presentation\, her work collapses the distance between the viewer and the most distant edges of time and the cosmos. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRichard Sandford\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRichard Sandford is Professor of Heritage Evidence\, Foresight and Policy at UCL’s Institute for Sustainable Heritage\, where his research explores the relationship between heritage and the future\, drawing on notions of care\, maintenance and repair to develop alternative orientations towards the future\, and developing an account of the particular capacities of heritage practices to shape the future. Before joining UCL\, Richard led horizon-scanning teams in the UK Civil Service\, developing the capacity of strategy and policy groups across government to work with long-term change and uncertainty. His previous research in education futures addressed young peoples’ ideas of the future\, futures literacy\, and the place of new media technologies in learning. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAnne Beate Hovind\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAnne Beate Hovind. Fotografert forskjellig steder i Bjørvika\n\n\n\n\n\nAnne Beate Hovind is an urban developer who commissions and produces art in public spaces for more than 20 years. She holds several board positions and is senior lecturer II at the Faculty of Technology\, Art and Design at OsloMet. Hovind has extensive management experience primarily in the private sector\, but also in the public sector. She has held project management roles with responsibility for development work and change processes in large organizations\, led innovation and development projects\, and sat in the project management of land-based construction projects. In 2018\, she received the Oslo Municipality’s Artist Award for her work with art in the city. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAnja Hendrikse Liu\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAnja Hendrikse Liu (she/they) is a 2024 graduate of Edinburgh Futures Institute’s MSc Narrative Futures: Art\, Data\, Society. They are a co-organizer of a group of students and recent graduates working on projects that bring together Edinburgh Futures Institute and Future Library — hopeful\, collaborative\, narrative-driven commitments to the future and to each other. As a speculative fiction writer\, Anja also explores these infinite hopeful (not perfect) futures for AI\, climate\, and our collective experience as humans living in the world. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJen Ross (chair)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJen Ross is Professor of Digital Culture and Education Futures at the University of Edinburgh. She researches and writes about speculative methods for researching education futures\, exploring a variety of topics including museum engagement\, AI in education\, surveillance and trust\, and online distance learning. She is co-director of the Centre for Research in Digital Education\, and recently developed and launched the MSc in Education Futures at Edinburgh Futures Institute.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/future-library-and-futures-literacy-making-futures-from-where-we-are/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Learning Curves: Autumn 2024,Talk/Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241119T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241119T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240829T095028Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241125T161114Z
UID:10000172-1732039200-1732044600@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Technomoral Conversations: What the Majority World Can Teach Us about AI
DESCRIPTION:Artificial Intelligence models ‘learn’ and reproduce biases as a result of their training data\, which is largely drawn from websites based in the US and other Western countries\, and is heavily skewed towards English language sources. At the same time\, the work of training AI models and making them ‘safer’ for human consumption is outsourced to precarious and under-supported workers in developing countries. Tech companies in Silicon Valley and Western governments such as the EU currently dominate the global conversation on AI. Yet there is much that the Majority World has to teach us about AI\, and this perspective is too often marginalised in the discussion of what a future with AI ought to look like. In this Technomoral Conversations panel\, we will hear from leading voices from the Majority World on what they have learned from and about AI\, and the issues and visions they would like to see taken up more broadly as society grapples with the social and ethical implications of these emerging technologies. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nTarcizio Silva\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTarcizio Silva is a researcher based in São Paulo and focused on promoting decolonial and afrodiasporic lenses to understand and influence internet\, A.I. and emergent technologies governance. They are a Tech Policy Senior Fellow at Mozilla Foundation and PhD candidate at UFABC. http://tarciziosilva.com \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKingsley Owadara\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKingsley Owadara (He/Him) is the founder and an AI Ethicist at the Pan-Africa Center for AI Ethics\, a dedicated not-for-profit organization committed to fostering the development and deployment of AI in a manner that prioritizes human-centric values. At the heart of his role\, he spearheads the initiative to craft and refine ethical frameworks\, ensuring that artificial intelligence technologies are developed and deployed with a strong emphasis on human values\, ethics\, and inclusivity. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTara Fischbach\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTara Fischbach is the Public Policy Manager for Community Engagement and Advocacy for the Middle East at Meta. She has worked in public policy\, development and media with a strong background in research. She has experience working with government agencies\, international NGOs\, and community level organizations in research\, communications\, and development projects. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCo-chair: Morshed Mannan\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDr Morshed Mannan is a Lecturer in Global Law and Digital Technologies at Edinburgh Law School. He was previously a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute\, where he was part of the ‘BlockchainGov’ ERC project. His research focuses on blockchain governance and cooperative governance. In addition to his several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on these topics\, his latest co-authored book Blockchain Governance was published by the MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series (August 2024). He completed his PhD at Leiden Law School\, Leiden University. Morshed is a Research Affiliate of the Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy at The New School in New York City. He is enrolled as an Advocate by the Bangladesh Bar Council\, and has been called to the Bar of England & Wales. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCo-chair: Shannon Vallor\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEdinburgh\, UK – 20th March 2023. (Photograph: MAVERICK PHOTO AGENCY)\n\n\n\n\n\nProfessor Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) at the University of Edinburgh\, where she is also appointed in Philosophy. She directs the Centre for Technomoral Futures in EFI\, and is co-Director of the UKRI’s BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) programme. Professor Vallor’s research explores how AI\, robotics\, and data science reshape human moral character\, habits\, and practices. Her work includes advising policymakers and industry on the ethical design and use of AI\, and she is a former Visiting Researcher and AI Ethicist at Google. She is the author of Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (Oxford University Press\, 2016) and The AI Mirror: Reclaiming Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (Oxford University Press\, 2024).
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/technomoral-conversation-what-the-majority-world-can-teach-us-about-ai/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Learning Curves: Autumn 2024,Talk/Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241118T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241118T173000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20241101T100101Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241101T100326Z
UID:10000208-1731945600-1731951000@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Here Be Dragons: The Challenges of Pursuing Responsible AI
DESCRIPTION:Reid Concert Hall\, Bristo Square\, Edinburgh EH8 9AL \n\n\n\nOver the last decade\, a range of practices have emerged as scholars\, practitioners\, and regulators attempt to ensure that AI investments don’t go off the rails. Practices like red-teaming marry earlier approaches to content moderation and security\, but others are being developed specifically for the Generative AI space. Many of these fit under the broader rubric of “responsible AI.” How sociotechnical systems are designed\, developed\, and deployed is not inevitable. It behooves us all to grapple with known pitfalls\, minimize risks\, and nudge the systems towards constructive ends. In this talk\, danah will explore the range of traps that those seeking to minimize harm have\, are\, and will face as they attempt to ground fast-moving developments and offer frameworks for thinking about the present moment. \n\n\n\nIn this talk\, danah boyd will discuss the ways risks and harms are being addressed in AI development. She’ll explore the range of traps that those seeking to minimize harm have\, are\, and will face as they attempt to ground fast-moving AI developments and offer frameworks for thinking about the present moment. \n\n\n\nBio\n\n\n\ndanah boyd is a Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology and society\, with an eye to how structural inequities shape and are shaped by technologies. She is currently conducting a multi-year ethnographic study of the US census to understand how data are made legitimate. Her previous studies have focused on media manipulation\, algorithmic bias\, privacy practices\, social media\, and teen culture. Her monograph “It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens” has received widespread praise. She founded the research institute Data & Society\, where she currently serves as an advisor. She is also a trustee of the Computer History Museum\, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations\, and on the advisory board of Electronic Privacy Information Center. She received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Brown University\, a master’s degree from the MIT Media Lab\, and a Ph.D in Information from the University of California\, Berkeley. \n\n\n\nHosted by the Critical Data Studies Cluster\, with the Bridging AI Divides (BRAID) programme
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/here-be-dragons-the-challenges-of-pursuing-responsible-ai/
LOCATION:Reid Concert Hall\, Bristo Square\, Edinburgh\, EH8 9AL\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image001.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241112T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241112T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240829T095100Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241113T150532Z
UID:10000174-1731434400-1731439800@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Contesting Computing: Imagining Feminist Technofutures
DESCRIPTION:Image: Siddhi Gupta \n\n\n\nWe know that technology is not neutral. The development\, production and use of hardware and software has created and reinscribed exclusionary and harmful power dynamics: from the omission of women from the history of computer science\, to the dominance of ‘tech bros’ in the platform economy\, to the gendering and global outsourcing of low paid digital and data work\, to the shipping of e-waste to informal economies in the global south. As we begin to understand the harms caused by algorithmic biases and AI\, the ways in which inequalities are fundamentally encoded into technology is also becoming increasingly clear. This roundtable discussion will consider the role that education has played in developing our technological landscape and the roles it can and should play in working towards a fairer and more equitable future as well as reflect on how we are “educated” into dominant modes of thinking and knowing through technologically mediated worlds. \n\n\n\nThis event is hosted in partnership with the Centre for Data Culture and Society and GENDER.ED. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nUsha Raman\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nUsha Raman is Professor and Head\, Department of Communication\, University of Hyderabad. Her academic interests span podcast studies\, journalism pedagogy\, cultural studies of science and health\, children’s media\, feminist media studies\, and digital cultures. In addition to edited books\, journal articles and book chapters\, she writes regularly for the popular media on issues related to health\, gender and education. and edits a monthly magazine for school teachers\, Teacher Plus. She has been a visiting fellow at the University of Sydney (Australia)\, MIT (USA) and University of Bremen (Germany). She is co-founder of the IDRC funded initiative FemLabCo\, which explores the future of women’s work. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMar Hicks\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMar Hicks is an author\, historian\, and professor doing research on hidden histories of computing\, as well as the history of labor and technology. Hicks is currently an Associate Professor at The University of Virginia’s School of Data Science\, in Charlottesville\, teaching courses on the history of technology\, computing and society\, and the larger implications of powerful and widespread digital infrastructures. Their research focuses on how gender and sexuality bring hidden technological dynamics to light\, and how the experiences of women and LGBTQIA people change the core narratives of the history of computing in unexpected ways. Hicks’s multiple award-winning book\, Programmed Inequality\, looks at how the British lost their early lead in computing by discarding women computer workers\, and what this cautionary tale tells us about current issues in high tech. Their new work looks at resistance and queerness in the history of technology. Hicks is also co-editor of the book Your Computer Is On Fire (MIT Press\, 2021)\, a volume of essays about how we can begin to fix our broken high tech infrastructures. Other writing and more information can be found at: marhicks.com. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAisha Sobey\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDr Aisha Sobey (she/her) is a Research Associate at the University of Cambridges’ Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence\, where she works on the construction of systemic power within technology. She is concerned with the treatment of the non-normative body in AI systems\, and how the quantification of bodies through technical knowledges can marginalise those seen as deviant. Her site of focus is the fat body and how this frame intersects with other systems of oppression. She is passionate about championing inclusivity and access in her work\, and she Chairs her centre’s Research Ethics Committee and Wellbeing\, Inclusion\, Diversity and Equality Group. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSharon Webb (chair)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSharon Webb is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities at the University of Sussex and serves as a Director of the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab. As a historian\, she specialises in Irish associational culture and nationalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and is an active digital humanities practitioner. With a disciplinary background in both history and computer science\, Sharon has cultivated a research career within the expansive field of critical digital humanities and archives. Her research delves into critical digital humanities and archives\, with a focus on community archives from both theoretical and practical perspectives\, and employs feminist\, queer\, and decolonial methods to develop their work. In addition\, their research in the broad area of feminism and technology\, has led to innovative and critical interventions in funded projects\, such as Full Stack Feminism in Digital Humanities\, and Women in Focus.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/contesting-computing-imagining-feminist-technofutures/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF
CATEGORIES:Learning Curves: Autumn 2024,Talk/Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241104T110000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241104T130000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20241031T154442Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241031T155302Z
UID:10000207-1730718000-1730725200@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Beyond Precarity: Imaginaries\, Constraints\, and the Meaning of Platform Work
DESCRIPTION:This talk will analyse the daily routines and economic pressures faced by today’s digital workers. By critically examining how their trajectories adapt to powerful infrastructures and economic forces within the technological landscape\, the presentation uncovers the complexities of “platform subjectivities”\, ways of perceiving the world shaped and configured by these platforms. I aim to compare different types of platform work\, breaking down traditional silos. By intertwining narratives from gig workers\, influencers\, e-commerce sellers\, and musicians in Chile\, the exploration seeks to unveil shared experiences and nuanced distinctions.  \n\n\n\nVenue\n\n\n\nRoom 1.55Edinburgh Futures Institute1 Lauriston PlaceEdinburghEH3  9EF
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/beyond-precarity-imaginaries-constraints-and-the-meaning-of-platform-work/
CATEGORIES:Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/lz9A1XsM_400x400.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241101T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241101T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240829T095152Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241106T100944Z
UID:10000178-1730484000-1730489400@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Video Games: Play and Pedagogy
DESCRIPTION:Video games have emerged as a powerful educational tool\, one of the most significant ways in which the public engages with the past. Moreover\, games and immersive digital experiences offer historians of visual culture a way to shape more inclusive and authentic public perceptions of the past by making academic research widely accessible to audiences outside the academy.In this panel event bridging video games and education\, our guest speakers neuroscientist and physicist Kelly Clancy\, Islamic art historian Glaire Anderson (Digital Lab for Islamic Visual Culture & Collections\, University of Edinburgh)\, Maxime Durand (Ubisoft/Assassin’s Creed Discovery Tour)\, and Chris van der Kuyl (Minecraft)\, will discuss topics such as the role of video games in shaping our world and human development\, and the gamification of education – including how video games are making education and knowledge widely accessible\, and informing public perceptions of the past. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biographies\n\n\n\n\n\nDr. Glaire Anderson\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDr. Glaire Anderson is Senior Lecturer in Islamic Art in the School of History of Art and Founding Director of the Digital Lab for Islamic Visual Culture & Collections at the University of Edinburgh\, where she is also Programme Director for the MSc in History of Art\, Theory\, and Display (HATD). An award-winning author\, her most recent book A Bridge to the Sky: The Arts of Science in the Age of Abbas Ibn Firnas was published by Oxford University Press in 2024. She works across the academic\, games\, and GLAM (Galleries\, Libraries\, Archives\, Museums) sectors and was an historian for Assassin’s Creed Mirage (Ubisoft\, 2023) and its educational Codex feature\, ‘History of Baghdad’. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKelly Clancy\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKelly Clancy\, PhD\, is a neuroscientist and physicist who has held research positions at MIT\, Berkeley\, University College London\, and DeepMind. She develops novel brain-computer interfaces with the aim of understanding the principles of intelligence. Her writing has appeared in Wired\, Harper’s and The New Yorker. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMaxime Durand\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMaxime Durand is an award-winning world-design director for the videogame company Ubisoft. Graduated in history\, he has collaborated on inspirational authenticity for multiple games of the blockbuster Assassin’s Creed franchise. Maxime co-created and directed the Discovery Tour series\, a research-led public history project made in partnership with educators & museums. Having previously collaborated with the University of Edinburgh’s teams at the Digital Lab for Islamic Visual Culture & Collections\, Maxime is pursuing under their guidance a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship to further collaborate at the intersection of technology and public engagement. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChris van der Kuyl\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChris van der Kuyl is one of Scotland’s leading entrepreneurs working across the technology\, media\, gaming and entertainment sectors. Chris is most notably co-founder and chairman of multiple award-winning games developer 4J Studios\, best known for developing Minecraft for Microsoft\, Sony and Nintendo games consoles. He and fellow co-founder Paddy Burns launched Chroma Ventures\, the investment arm of 4J Studios\, in 2021.Chris is chairman of; Broker Insights\, Puny Astronaut\, Stormcloud Games and Ace Aquatec and sits on the boards of; Parsley Box\, Blippar\, Ant Workshop and ADV Holdings. He is also a non-executive director of the Ballie Gifford US Growth Trust.Alongside his commercial roles\, he was the founding chairman of Entrepreneurial Scotland and is currently a member of multiple advisory and local charity boards. Elected as one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2013\, Chris was also formally recognised for his contribution to technology in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2020\, becoming a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE). \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChair: Caroline Parkinson\n\n\n\n\n\n\nImage Credit: Eoin Carey\, 2022\n\n\n\n\n\nCaroline Parkinson is Director of Creative for the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) and works with the Scottish creative and cultural industries to innovate with academia. She developed the EFI plan for developing data-driven innovation within the creative industries and has worked closely with flagship project – Creative Informatics Cluster from 2018-2024. She was Director of Film\, TV\, Music\, Creative Industries\, Skills & Innovation for Creative Scotland from 2010-2014\, and from 2005-2010 she was Director\, Scotland & Northern Ireland for the new sector skills association\, Creative & Cultural Skills.She serves on the Board of Architecture & Design Scotland\, and for 7 years has served in a voluntary capacity as Strategic Director and Presenter of the MOVE Summit\, Scotland’s Animation and VFX Gathering.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/video-games-play-and-pedagogy/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF
CATEGORIES:Learning Curves: Autumn 2024,Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/01.11.24-Video-Games-Play-and-Pedagogy-1-e1724930201116.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241030T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241030T173000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20241023T152816Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241023T155001Z
UID:10000205-1730304000-1730309400@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:A digital economy in crisis: Palestine’s tech sector and the road to economic recovery
DESCRIPTION:The Palestinian tech sector has long been vibrant and resilient. It has flourished in the West Bank despite the violence of the Israeli occupation and its restrictions of movement\, and remains one of few sources of employment and hope for skilled youth in the Gaza Strip. Even as the current onslaught in Gaza has killed more than 41.600 people and destroyed or damaged around a quarter of buildings and infrastructure\, some Palestinians in Gaza continue to work as online freelancers and remote workers against all odds. Since 2011\, Gaza Sky Geeks has provided freelancers\, founders\, and coders with the technical training and support they need to earn an income online and remotely. It remains one of Palestine’s most important bridge builders between a young skilled workforce and a global digital marketplace.  \n\n\n\nThis public event brings Gaza Sky Geeks in conversation with researchers at the University of Edinburgh in response to a pressing key challenge: How can Palestine’s digital economy remain resilient in the current crisis and what role will it play in the road to economic recovery? \n\n\n\nThis event is hosted by the Digital Economy and Society (DES) Research Cluster at the Edinburgh Futures Institute\, which is directed by Andreas Hackl and Mohammad Amir Anwar. \n\n\n\nKey speakers\n\n\n\nAlan El-Kadhi\, Director of Gaza Sky Geeks at Mercy Corps \n\n\n\nHaneen Bader\, Gaza Sky Geeks Community and Mentorship Officer \n\n\n\n Andreas Hackl\, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology of Development\, University of Edinburgh \n\n\n\nModerator: Mohammad Amir Anwar\, Senior Lecturer in African Studies and International Development\, University of Edinburgh \n\n\n\nPlease book your advance ticket here as capacity for in-person attendance will be limited and pre-registration is required for online participation.  \n\n\n\nThe event is followed by a reception to allow for further discussion and networking.  \n\n\n\nA call for action\n\n\n\nAs part of the event\, Gaza Sky Geeks has called for collaboration and support in these difficult times.  \n\n\n\nThis call is addressed to: \n\n\n\n\nMembers of the international tech community to help Palestinians improve their technical and employability skills to increase their chances of finding work\n\n\n\nEmployers and universities who can offer outsourcing work and/or remote internships to the talent pool of Gaza Sky Geeks\n\n\n\nBusiness Advisors who can help Palestinian tech companies access new international markets & customers.\n\n\n\nUniversities that can offer scholarships to Palestinians.\n\n\n\nHumanitarian Legal advisors who can advise Gazans who have relocated to Egypt but now need help to relocate to other countries.\n\n\n\nPsycho-social support experts to support Gazans recover from their extreme levels of trauma.\n\n\n\norporates\, Foundations and Governments who can provide financial support for GSG’s programmes in Gaza and West Bank. \n\n\n\n\nPlease get in touch with: info@gazaskygeeks.com
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/a-digital-economy-in-crisis-palestines-tech-sector-and-the-road-to-economic-recovery/
LOCATION:MacLaren Stuart Room (G.159)\, University of Edinburgh\, Old College\, South Bridge\, Edinburgh\, EH8 9YL
CATEGORIES:Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Digital-Economy-in-Crisis-30-Oct.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241030T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241030T173000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240913T132221Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240913T132224Z
UID:10000197-1730304000-1730309400@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:The Politics of Numbers: Queer Data and the Counting of LGBTQ Communities
DESCRIPTION:Whether we use surveys or interviews\, ethnographies or focus groups – the methods we deploy as researchers do not arrive with us as some sort of apolitical or ahistorical artefact. They do not collect information about the outside world that is static\, fixed and simply waiting to be uncovered. Rather\, methods are crafted\, tweaked and changed to serve the particular interests of individuals\, organisations or ways of thinking. \n\n\n\nSo what does this mean for projects investigating the lives and experiences of LGBTQ communities? Do methods equally convey the experiences of the most minoritised and least minoritised in minority groups? And might the methods we deploy in our research construct ideas about the groups under investigation? \n\n\n\nDeparting from the idea that we always need to collect more or better data\, Dr Kevin Guyan will share his work on queer approaches to the collection\, analysis and presentation of data and pose critical questions about neutrality\, biases\, politics and power. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biography\n\n\n\n\n\nKevin Guyan\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDr Kevin Guyan is a researcher and writer whose work explores the intersection of data and identity\, particularly as it relates to LGBTQ people in the UK. He is author of the book Queer Data: Using Gender\, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action (Bloomsbury\, 2022) and works as a Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/the-politics-of-numbers-queer-data-and-the-counting-of-lgbtq-communities/
LOCATION:Room 2.35\, Edinburgh Futures Institute\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF
CATEGORIES:Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Kevin-Project-Deep-Dive.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241029T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241029T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240829T095200Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241104T160145Z
UID:10000166-1730224800-1730230200@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:The Future of Education: Utopia
DESCRIPTION:Visions for fair\, inclusive and democratic education futures have long been expanded through the work of UNESCO and others. However global education policy is still powered by visions of economic growth and operates through the day-to-day machinery of measurement and performance management. This panel brings together a group of high-profile academics\, activists and creatives to debate what kind of alternative education futures are desirable. What do we need to unlearn in education\, as we work toward more just and sustainable futures? How might we re-think measurement and standardisation? What is the role of education for democracy in an increasingly polarized world? Can education become a living utopia\, and what waystations are available to us as we build it? The event will also include the launch of a newly commissioned work from the award-winning poet Joelle Taylor. \n\n\n\n\n\nKoumbou Boly Barry\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDr. Koumbou Boly Barry is the adviser to the Director General of ICESCO Dr. Salim M. AlMalik. She is a United Nation Former Special Rapporteur on the right to education. Dr. Boly Barry holds a PhD in Economic History from Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal. She is the former Minister of Education and Literacy of Burkina Faso and has consulted widely for various governments and international institutions on the right to education. She was also appointed Ambassador of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Dr. Boly Barry has been an advocate on gender issues in education. She also has ample knowledge and experience in training and research\, as a visiting professor at University of Nottingham\, United Kingdom\, University of Louvain La Neuve\, Belgium\, and as a lecturer at Ouagadougou University\, Burkina Faso\, Vitoria University\, Brazil\, Georgetown University in United States and Fribourg University\, Switzerland. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRadhika Gorur\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRadhika Gorur is Associate Professor in the School of Education at Deakin University. Her research spans education policy and reform; global aid and development in education; data infrastructures and data cultures; accountability and governance; large-scale comparisons; and the sociology of knowledge. She is interested in the social and political lives of data and in how policies get mobilised\, stabilised\, circulated and challenged. Radhika is a founding director of the Laboratory of International Assessment Studies\, convenor of the Deakin Science and Society Network\, and a founding member of the international STudieS network. She is an editor of the journal Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJoelle Taylor\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJoelle Taylor is the author of 4 collections of poetry and one novel. Her most recent collection C+NTO & Othered Poems won the 2021 T.S Eliot Prize\, and the 2022 Polari Book Prize for LGBT authors. C+NTO is currently being adapted for theatre with a view to touring. She is a co- curator and host of Out-Spoken Live at the Southbank Centre\, and tours her work nationally and internationally in a diverse range of venues\, from Australia to Brazil. She is also a Poetry Fellow of University of East Anglia and the curator of the Koestler Awards 2023. She has judged several poetry and literary prizes including the Jerwood Fellowship\, the Forward Prize\, and the Ondaatje Prize. Her novel of interconnecting stories The Night Alphabet was published recently and was followed by a UK tour of a staged version of the novel\, directed by Neil Bartlett. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature\, and the 2022 Saboteur Spoken Word Artist of the Year. In 2024 she was honoured by DIVA magazine for her work and was added to the Guardian’s Pride Power List. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSotiria Grek (chair)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSotiria Grek is Professor of European and Global Education Governance at the School of Social and Political Science\, University of Edinburgh. Sotiria’s work focuses on the field of quantification in global public policy\, with a specialisation in the policy arenas of education and sustainable development. She has received funding from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council\, as well as from the Swedish Research Council. In 2017 she was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant\, entitled “International Organisations and the Rise of a Global Metrological Field” (METRO\, 2017-2022). She is also the recipient of an ERC Consolidator Grant\, which focuses on ‘Art and Policy in the Global Contemporary: Examining the Role of the Arts in the Production of Public Policy’ (POLART\, 2024-2029). She has co-authored (with Martin Lawn) Europeanising Education: Governing A New Policy Space (Symposium\, 2012) and co-edited (with Joakim Lindgren) Governing by Inspection (Routledge\, 2015)\, as well as the World Yearbook in Education: Accountability and Datafication in Education (with Christian Maroy and Antoni Verger; Routledge\, 2021). Her most recent books (with Justyna Bandola-Gill and Marlee Tichenor) are Governing the Sustainable Development Goals: Quantification in Global Public Policy (Springer\, 2022) and The New Production of Expert Knowledge: Education\, Quantification and Utopia (Palgrave\, 2024).
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/the-future-of-education-utopia/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Edinburgh Futures Conversations,Learning Curves: Autumn 2024,Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/241029-EFC-Utopia.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241021T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241021T200000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240829T095210Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241028T101942Z
UID:10000165-1729533600-1729540800@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:The Future of Education: Crisis
DESCRIPTION:The intersecting\, planetary-scale crises we face bring new urgency to the debate about the purpose of education. Climate catastrophe\, widening inequalities\, conflict\, pathogen spillovers\, new diseases\, failures of governance and technology acceleration all challenge us to ask again what education might be\, and what we need it to do. The first conversation in the series will focus on education through the crises of war\, emergency\, unrest and exclusion. It brings together a panel of high-profile leaders and campaigners for education in such contexts and will include the opportunity to hear from students who have lived through education in crisis in Pakistan and Gaza. It will also feature the launch of a new commissioned work from the Iranian poet Marjorie Lotfi\, based on the words of displaced and excluded women in Scotland. \n\n\n\n\n\nYasmine Sherif\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nYasmine Sherif is the Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)\, the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. A lawyer specialized in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law (LL.M)\, she has over 30 years of experience with the United Nations and international NGOs.Ms. Sherif has served in some of the most crisis-affected areas of the world\, including Afghanistan and the Middle East\, the Balkans\, Cambodia\, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. She has also led teams in New York and Geneva – from where she continues to conduct regular missions to countries affected by armed conflicts\, forced displacement\, climate-induced disasters and other crises. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSir Julian Smith\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJulian was recently appointed Executive Chair of the International Finance Facility for Education. Developed by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown\, IFFED is a Geneva-based foundation providing a financing engine for global education. It is specifically designed to tackle the education crisis in lower-middle-income countries. \n\n\n\nJulian has been the Member of Parliament for Skipton and Ripon since 2010. He was a Ministerial aid in the Department for International development from 2010-2015. From 2017-2019 he was Government Chief Whip during the Brexit period and led efforts to resolve the parliamentary impasse in Government and across parties in parliament. \n\n\n\nJulian was appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in July 2019. On behalf of the UK Government\, he led the negotiations that culminated in the “New Decade\, New Approach” which restored devolved Government to Northern Ireland. He was awarded Spectator magazine’s Minister of the Year in 2020 following the deal. \n\n\n\nDuring his time as Secretary of State\, Julian delivered same sex marriage and abortion legislation\, bringing Northern Ireland’s social laws into line with the rest of the UK. In addition Julian led the introduction of the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) (Northern Ireland) Act 2019 which established the Historical Institutional Abuse Redress Board and which delivered a redress scheme and compensation to victims of child abuse who had waited for decades for resolution. \n\n\n\nMore recently Julian has advised Prime Minister Rishi Sunak including on the Windsor Framework UK/EU reset deal and the recent restoration of government in Northern Ireland. He acted as mediator between the Royal College of Nurses and the Government to resolve the recent nurses strike and has worked on a number of other industrial and commercial disputes in Government. \n\n\n\nJulian currently Chairs the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero Taskforce on  Alternative Dispute Resolution for Electricity Network Infrastructure. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of Bath in the recent 2024 dissolution honours list for political and public service. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKainat Riaz\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKainat Riaz is an education advocate whose journey on this path began when her school-van was attacked by the Taliban. She decided to seek education as a revenge against that attack. Today\, she is an advocate for girls’ education and education in general\, and a co-founder and Director for girls’ education at ‘Beydaar Society’\, an NGO working in Pakistan to help promote peace & harmony by using education as a tool. Among other recognitions\, she has been decorated with a national award granted by the President of Pakistan\, Tamgha e Shuja’at (National Medal of Bravery)\, Human Rights Defender Award\, GG2 Award\, Ladies Fund Awards\, etc. She believes that through education this world can become a better and more peaceful place. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMarjorie Lotfi\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMarjorie Lotfi was born in New Orleans\, moved to Tehran as a baby with her American mother and Persian father\, and fled Iran with one suitcase and an hour’s notice during the Iranian Revolution. After waiting with family for her father’s return in her mother’s tiny hometown in Ohio\, she lived in different parts of the US before moving to New York as a young lawyer in 1996 and then back and forth to the UK\, settling in the UK in 1999\, and in Scotland in 2005. Marjorie Lotfi’s poems have been published in journals and anthologies in the UK and US (including The Rialto\, Gutter\, Ambit\, Magma\, Rattle and Staying Human)\, included in Best Scottish Poems 2021 and performed on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Radio 4. Her pamphlet Refuge\, poems about her childhood in revolutionary Iran\, was published by Tapsalteerie Press in 2018. She was one of the three winners of the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize in 2021\, and her first book-length collection\, The Wrong Person to Ask (Bloodaxe Books\, 2023) is a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLaura Frigenti\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLaura Frigenti is a senior executive with 30 years of experience in global development gained through her service in multilateral organizations\, government\, nonprofit\, and more recently the private sector. She started her career at the World Bank\, where she worked for 20 years\, holding several technical and managerial positions in Africa\, Latin America and Eastern Europe. She was then appointed Director General of the Italian Overseas Development Agency\, with theresponsibility of setting up the newly created agency under the government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. \n\n\n\nPrior to joining GPE\, Laura led the Global Development Assistance Service Practice at KPMG\, which supports initiatives that create real value for investors and for society. In the aftermath of the pandemic\, an increasing amount of her work related to vaccine distribution and COVID-related issues\, as well as supporting governments in implementing various types of social protection measures to sustain the most vulnerable groups.  Her senior roles at the World Bank\, where she worked extensively in the human development sector\, ashead of a bilateral development agency\, and more recently as head of a large practice in a global consulting firm\, give her a deep familiarity with GPE\, the issues that GPE is trying to address\, and the global development space where its work is situated. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAmani Ahmed\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAmani Ahmed is a Ph.D candidate at Edinburgh University Business School and a Council for At Risk Academics Home (cara.ngo) Fellow. Amani trained as an electrical engineer  and worked as Head of the International Relations at the Islamic University of Gaza.  Since 2023 she is a member of the EU- Higher Education Reform Experts- Palestine chamber  (HEREs). She has a research interest in women’s digital entrepreneurship\, entrepreneurial ecosystems in conflict contexts\, as well as internationalisation of Higher Education under siege and in conflict context. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSarah Brown (co-chair)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSarah Brown is Chair of the global children’s charity Theirworld and Executive Chair of the Global Business Coalition for Education. Since she founded Theirworld in 2002\, its campaigns\, advocacy and ground-breaking programmes have been rooted in the belief that every child deserves the best start in life\, a safe place to learn and skills for the future.Working with government\, business\, philanthropy and civil society\, Sarah has succeeded in creating lasting change for the world’s most vulnerable children. As a passionate advocate that every child should have the opportunity of an education\, Sarah has shifted international political will on the provision of education in emergencies\, and on the need for innovative funding. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLiz Grant (co-chair)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLiz Grant is one of the University’s Assistant Principals with a remit for Global Health. She is Professor of Global Health and Development\, directs the Global Health Academy\,  convenes the Chaplaincy Committee and sits on the Advisory Board of the Academy of Sport and  on the Programme Board Education Beyond Borders. Liz co-directs the Global Compassion Initiative which explores the science and practice of compassion Her research spans global and planetary health and healthcare in contexts of poverty and conflict –   and compassion as the value base of the Sustainable Development Goals. She co-directs the MSc in Planetary Health in Edinburgh Futures Institute\, and the MSc Family Medicine in  the Usher Institute. 
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/the-future-of-education-crisis/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Edinburgh Futures Conversations,Learning Curves: Autumn 2024,Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/24.10.21-EFC-Crisis-updated-final-.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241015T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241015T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240829T095331Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241104T140103Z
UID:10000163-1729015200-1729020600@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Rooting Decolonial Education: Routes for Repair and Liberation
DESCRIPTION:As part of Black History Month\, the panellists will engage with Black presence and Black Studies in relation to education in different contexts around the world. The audience will be invited to engage in the exercise re-imagining Afrofutures\, Blackness and the transformative nature of reparations in education. \n\n\n\n\n\nDee Marco\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDerilene (Dee) Marco is creative feminist scholar who holds a Senior Lecturer position in Media Studies at Wits University in Johannesburg\, South Africa. Dee’s research pivots around social and cultural practices and experiences of the everyday\, particularly in relation to mothering identities\, person-making\, kin and caregiving as labour/ work. Dee has written on apartheid and post-apartheid South African cinema\, black women’s lives and stories and is the co-editor of Sasinda Futhi Siselapha (still Here): Black Feminist Approaches to Cultural Studies in South Africa’s Twenty Six Years Since 1994 (2021) and Transforming Pedagogy\, a workbook for parents (2023). Dee is the founder of the multimodal research project\, Mother.Lab\, which houses a mobile complaints space for mothers and caregivers\, called House of Complaints and an online data visualisation experience\, called Tiny Letters\, of women’s birth/ becoming mother stories as ethnographic experiences of memory. Dee is invested in alternative methods of research through thinking with the body and everyday stories\, in which there are many beautiful and scary moments of heavy theoretical lifting.   \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDr Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman is an historian of abolitionist ideas and currently research fellow at the University of Birmingham. Having mobilised global movements such as ‘Why Isn’t My Professor Black?’ and ‘Why Is My Curriculum White?’\, their anti-colonial archival research\, which treats colonial slavery as a disciplinary/educational institution\, asks ‘Why Isn’t Our Apprenticeship Abolished?’ A co-ordinating member\, in both 2015 and 2020\, of Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford\, a Cast in Stone research fellow interviewing Bristolians about the contestation of the statue of Edward Colston\, and a Henry Moore Institute podcaster explaining Britain’s neglected memorials to abolition\, they are a critic of what Frantz Fanon has denounced as Britain’s colonial ‘World of Statues’—obstinately retained and deceitfully explained.Their recent work includes convening ‘Undoing 2007; Preparing for 2038’—a game-changing public conversation\, reviewed in Museum Geographies and The Birmingham Dispatch\, about Abolition\, Birmingham\, and Commemoration\, and co-hosting\, as member of the Mayor of London’s Community Advisory Group\, the 2024 annual ceremony for the UNESCO Day for Remembering the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its Abolition. In November 2024\, they will respond to the book Britain’s Black Debt\, by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies\, during the University of Oxford’s Seminar on Reparations. Their research-informed public engagement is the basis of a book\, which they are writing\, titled The House by The Rivers Of Blood: Birmingham’s Hidden History of British Anti-Slavery\, in which they reimagine the story we should teach the next generation\, of how we got free—if we got free. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKatucha Bento (chair)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDr Katucha Bento is a Lecturer in Race and Decolonial Studies and Honorary Chaplain in Candomblé at the University of Edinburgh\, and the co-founder of the Free Afro-Brazilian University (UNAFRO). Her main inspirations are in quilombo and samba communities’ epistemologies and praxis\, reaching out to Black feminists and Queer subversive language to promote ethics of caring and power to the people. Guide-mother/auntie of Chizara\, Jaxon and Chibueze\, children of the Black diaspora. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVictoria Ogoegbunam Okoye (chair)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVictoria Ogoegbunam Okoye is Lecturer in Black Geographies at the University of Edinburgh. She is shaped from indigenous and diaspora Igbo heritages and her lived experiences in the US\, Ghana\, Nigeria\, and UK contexts. Her learnings\, collaborations\, and relations with extended family\, youth\, creatives\, artists and cultural workers inform her research and teaching\, which attend to the interdisciplinary spatial practices of Black life to inform and expand geographical notions of place. Her knowing is shaped by commitments to the relationality between African and African diasporic experiences and intellectual thought\, and she undertakes her work as a form of Black creative\, collaborative and spiritual practice.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/rooting-decolonial-education-routes-for-repair-and-liberation/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Learning Curves: Autumn 2024,Talk/Discussion
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241008T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241008T190000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240829T095356Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241009T124737Z
UID:10000162-1728410400-1728414000@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Literature is not a Luxury with Bernardine Evaristo
DESCRIPTION:‘Literature is not a luxury\, but essential to our civilisation’ said Bernardine Evaristo when she was elected President of the Royal Society of Literature. Alongside her career as an award-winning novelist\, Bernardine Evaristo is both a teacher and a huge advocate for the importance of arts education. Join her at the Futures Institute where she will be talking to Michael Pedersen\, Writer in Residence at The University of Edinburgh\, about arts provision in the education system\, the importance of creativity in young people\, and how creativity positively impacts society as a whole.  \n\n\n\n\n\nBernardine Evaristo\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBernardine Evaristo won the Booker Prize 2019 with her eighth book\, Girl\, Woman\, Other\, the first black woman and black British person to win it. Her novel Mr Loverman (2013) will be broadcast as an eight-part drama on BBC One this autumn\, adapted by Nathaniel Price. Her many arts inclusion programmes includes Black Britain:Writing Back for Penguin UK\, re-publishing books from the past. She is the current Literature Mentor for the Rolex Mentor & Protégé Initiative. She has received nearly 80 awards\, honours and nominations and is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and President of the Royal Society of Literature. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMichael Pedersen (chair)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMichael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish poet and author\, and the Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University. His prose debut\, Boy Friends\, was published by Faber & Faber in 2022 — it was a Sunday Times Critics Choice and shortlisted for Best Non-Fiction at Scotland’s National Book Awards. His third collection\, The Cat Prince & Other Poems (Little Brown)\, won the Books Are My Bag Readers Award for Best Poetry 2023. Pedersen has also been shortlisted for the Forward Prizes for Poetry and won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. His work has been praised by the likes of Stephen Fry\, Sara Pascoe\, Nicola Sturgeon\, Jackie Kay\, Alan Cumming\, Kae Tempest & many other fine minds.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/literature-is-not-a-luxury-with-bernardine-evaristo/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Learning Curves: Autumn 2024,Talk/Discussion
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241008T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241008T173000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240913T111246Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240913T111248Z
UID:10000196-1728403200-1728408600@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Wikidata\, biographical lives\, and linked infrastructures of women’s work 1870-1950
DESCRIPTION:The rise of Wikidata represents a quiet revolution in knowledge infrastructure. This paper enquires into this knowledge base as an infrastructure at the centre of contemporary knowledge ecosystems. Rather than read Wikidata at scale\, this paper employs a particular frame through which to explore the ideologies Wikidata has adopted and reproduces. This frame is Beyond Notability\, a knowledge base that seeks to document women’s work in archaeology\, history\, and heritage between 1870 and 1950 through original archival research. Beyond Notability draws on and responds to the Wikidata data model\, and this paper emerges from our experiences interacting with Wikidata to produce linked data biography. In foregrounding the tensions between historically specific phenomena and classificatory logics\, our work stresses the value of using practice-based ontology development to investigate large-scale knowledge infrastructures.  \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biography\n\n\n\n\n\nJames Baker\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJames Baker is the Director of Digital Humanities at the University of Southampton. A historian by training\, he works at the intersection of history\, cultural heritage\, and digital technologies. He is a Software Sustainability Institute Fellow\, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society\, a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College\, a convenor of the Institute of Historical Research Digital History seminar\, and a Trustee of the Programming Historian (Charity Number 1195875).   \n\n\n\nPrior to joining Southampton\, he held positions of Senior Lecturer in Digital History and Archives at the University of Sussex and Director of the Sussex Humanities Lab\, Digital Curator at the British Library\, and Postdoctoral Fellow with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. 
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/wikidata-biographical-lives-and-linked-infrastructures-of-womens-work-1870-1950/
LOCATION:Room 0.10\, Edinburgh Futures Institute\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF
CATEGORIES:Talk/Discussion
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241007T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241007T193000
DTSTAMP:20260511T000012
CREATED:20240829T095410Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241008T101214Z
UID:10000161-1728324000-1728329400@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Jeanette Winterson in Conversation with Ameca
DESCRIPTION:Artificial intelligence is advancing at an ever-increasing rate\, prompting questions about how these developments will impact all aspects of our society\, learning\, and the arts. What better way to tease out these questions than a conversation between an author and a robot. Join novelist Jeanette Winterson as she speaks with Ameca\, the most advanced humanoid robot. Their conversation will be followed by a panel event exploring these themes further. This is the opening event of our Learning Curves season\, held in partnership with the National Robotarium. \n\n\n\n\n\nJeanette Winterson\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJeanette Winterson CBE was born in Manchester. She published her first novel\, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit\, at twenty-five. Over two decades later she revisited that material in her internationally bestselling memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?. Winterson has written thirteen novels for adults and two previous collections of short stories\, as well as children’s books\, non-fiction and screenplays. She is Professor of New Writing at the University of Manchester. She lives in the Cotswolds in a wood and in Spitalfields\, London. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAmeca\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAmeca is an advanced humanoid robot based at the National Robotarium in Edinburgh. The world-leading centre for robotics and AI purchased Ameca – the first UK facility to do so – in their efforts to build public trust and adoption of robotics.Prior to this\, Ameca was based in Cornwall\, at Engineered Arts studios\, who created the cutting-edge humanoid robot. She is designed as a platform for AI and human-robot interaction research\, demonstrating the latest advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence. Ameca is particularly notable for her highly realistic facial expressions and ability to engage in natural conversations\, making her an ideal tool for exploring how robots can interact with humans in more intuitive and human-like ways. By showcasing Ameca’s capabilities through its public outreach and education programmes\, the National Robotarium will seek to break down barriers and build trust between humans and robots. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIngo Keller\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAs a software\, AI\, and robotics engineer with over 20 years of experience in science and industry\, Ingo is leading the National Robotariumʼs growing team of robotics engineers as they test and develop new technologies and systems to address real-world challenges. He has in-depth\, hands-on experience with many robotic systems\, including all phases of software development\, life-cycle management and DevOps tooling. Ingo co-founded and led engineering teams in robotics\, software architecture\, and database management systems at several start-up companies. Throughout this time\, he developed an understanding of the potential of emerging technologies for addressing industry challenges. Ingoʼs passion lies in disseminating the knowledge and expertise of the National Robotariumʼs talented team. His aim is to foster robotics skills across various sectors\, ensuring individuals are equipped with the necessary tools to operate and manage robotics and AI. He is also dedicated to advocating the positive impact of these technologies on society. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJL Williams (chair)\n\n\n\n\n\n\nImage Credit: Gintare Kulyte\n\n\n\n\n\nBooks by JL Williams include Condition of Fire (Shearsman\, 2011)\, Locust and Marlin (Shearsman\, 2014)\, House of the Tragic Poet (If A Leaf Falls Press\, 2016)\, After Economy (Shearsman\, 2017) and Origin (Shearsman\, 2022). Published widely in journals\, her poetry has been translated into numerous languages. She has read at international literature festivals and venues in the UK\, Sweden\, Germany\, Denmark\, Turkey\, Cyprus\, Canada\, Hungary\, Romania\, Montenegro and the US. She wrote the libretto for the opera Snow which debuted in London in 2017\, was awarded a bursary to develop a new opera with composer Samantha Fernando at the Royal Opera House and was a librettist for the award-winning 2020 covid-response Episodes project by The Opera Story. She was commissioned to write the 2023 English Touring Opera children’s opera\, The Wish Gatherer. Williams is hopeful about the simple and mysterious power of poetry that allows us to know ourselves\, each other and the world more deeply.
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/jeanette-winterson-in-conversation-with-ameca/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Learning Curves: Autumn 2024,Talk/Discussion
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