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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241029T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241029T193000
DTSTAMP:20260430T111714
CREATED:20240829T095200Z
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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:20241023T171500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241023T183000
DTSTAMP:20260430T111714
CREATED:20241002T094111Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241002T094114Z
UID:10000199-1729703700-1729708200@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:Inaugural Lecture of Professor Shannon Vallor
DESCRIPTION:The School of Philosophy\, Psychology and Language Sciences is very proud to announce the inaugural lecture of\, Professor Shannon Vallor\, which will take place in the Edinburgh Futures Institute\, with a private reception to follow. \n\n\n\nHer lecture is entitled\, ‘In a Mirror\, Dimly: Why AI Can’t Tell Our Stories\, and Why We Must’. \n\n\n\nThe event is open to the public and all colleagues\, friends and students are welcome to attend. \n\n\n\nSpeaker Biography\n\n\n\n\n\nShannon 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 (EFI)\, and is Programme Director for EFI’s MSc in Data and AI Ethics. She holds the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence in the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Philosophy.  \n\n\n\nProfessor 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/inaugural-lecture-of-professor-shannon-vallor/
LOCATION:Edinburgh Futures Institute\, Level 0 Event Space\, 1 Lauriston Place\, Edinburgh\, EH3 9EF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Shannon-Vallor-Inaugural-Lecture.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241021T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241021T200000
DTSTAMP:20260430T111714
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:20260430T111714
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
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/241015-RaceED-scaled-e1724929769708.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241008T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241008T190000
DTSTAMP:20260430T111714
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
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/241008-Evaristo-e1724929532715.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20241007T180000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20241007T193000
DTSTAMP:20260430T111714
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
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/241007-Winterson-and-Ameca-e1724929655788.png
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