 | Michael is a senior urban regeneration expert, specialising in Strategic Planning, Development Policy, Urban Regeneration, and Economic Development. As Head of Development Policy at the London Development Agency, he played a leading role in developing London’s Thames Gateway strategy and chaired the client group for the Lower Lea Regeneration Framework. His previous experience includes Head of Regeneration and Leisure at London Borough of Merton and Chief Executive of Leaside Regeneration Ltd.
He has delivered complex regeneration programmes though public/private partnerships with experience gained in East London, Park Royal, and North West England. Michael understands how place-based strategies can deliver long tem economic advantages.
|
Raj Anand is the technical director of Kwiqq.com, a web 2.0 start-up based in the Sussex Innovation Centre at the University of Sussex.
 | Kyran Joughin is a lecturer and researcher in film and time-based media, concentrating on the interaction between film, public art and architecture. |
 | Kieran Long is an architecture journalist, critic and teacher in London. At the beginning of July, he became editor of the Architects’ Journal. He was the launch deputy editor of Icon magazine in 2003, and its principal architecture critic for three and a half years. He is also the former deputy editor of Building Design and World Architecture magazines. His work has appeared in The Guardian and Independent newspapers, Architects Journal, Art Review, Wallpaper, Modern Painters, Baumeister (Germany), A+V (Spain), The Architects Newspaper (USA), Dwell (USA), Forum AID (Sweden), Rum (Sweden) and a variety of other journals and magazines.
He has taught design and history and theory of architecture at several architecture schools in London (including Greenwich, Kingston, Bath and London Metropolitan). He has been an invited critic in every school of architecture in London, as well as schools nationally and internationally. He has also taught on the Design Products course at the Royal College of Art.
He was the co-author of the book Architects Today (Laurence King 2004) and the author of New London Interiors (Merrell 2004). Kieran is also the author of a major forthcoming book on emerging architectural culture, to be published by Laurence King in early 2008. As a broadcaster, Kieran has appeared on BBC News 24, the Culture Show, Channel 4 News as well as BBC London Radio and most recently the World Service commentating on architecture, design and condiments. He studied English Literature at Cardiff University, and journalism at the University of Westminster. He won the IBP Architectural Critic of the Year award in 2004 (the year of the award’s inception) and was nominated again in 2005 and 2006. |
Hatch: The New Architectural Generation, Laurence King Publishing (2008)
 | John Fitzpatrick joined the Kent Law School in the University of Kent in 1991 having worked for many years in community law centres in Brixton and Hammersmith as a client, volunteer, management committee member and, mostly, a solicitor. Director, since 1992, of the Kent Law Clinic, which teaches Kent Law School students through the provision of a free legal service to those who need it. Lectures mainly on legal process and human rights law. In November 2007 the Law Clinic won the Times Higher Education Award for ‘outstanding contribution to the local community’, and in 2008 Kent University received a Queen’s Anniversary Prize in recognition of the ‘outstanding achievement and excellence’ of the Law Clinic. The Chair, since 2006, of the Law Centres Federation, which represents about 60 law community centres nationwide. |
 | Professor Malcolm Grant CBE, MA, LLD, HONMRTPI, HONRICS has been President and Provost of UCL (University College London) since 2003. He was previously Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and a Fellow of Clare College. He is the current Chairman of the Russell Group.
Born and educated in New Zealand, qualified as a barrister and solicitor in New Zealand, and as a barrister in England and Wales. He is a member of the Bench of Middle Temple. He has specialised in property and environmental law, and in urban planning. He is currently Chairman of the Standards Committee of the Greater London Authority and a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation. He has previously been Chairman (1996-2002) of the Local Government Commission for England, with responsibility for reviewing the structure, boundaries and electoral arrangements for local government in England and Chairman (2000-2005) of the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission, which had responsibility for giving strategic advice to the UK Government on the implications of biotechnology for agriculture and the environment. In that capacity he led the national public debate on GM crops in 2003.
|
Marc Glendening is campaign director of the Democracy Movement, an all-party EU-sceptical organisation, and founder of the Sohemeian Society, a group devoted to promoting the history and values of old Soho.
Mark Littlewood was Head of Media for the Liberal Democrats from December 2004 to May 2007, and Campaigns Director of human rights group Liberty from June 2001 until April 2004. This year he has set up Progressive Vision a non-party political think tank.
 | Alex Bigham is the Head of Communications & Projects at the Foreign Policy Centre. He is also heads up the FPC’s research programmes on Iran, Iraq and Pakistan and has been involved in research on the EU, the Special Relationship, faith and foreign policy and Latin America. He has appeared in the broadcast media, including BBC News 24, Sky News, CNN, 5Live and Voice of America. |
 | Dr Anna Krassowska is the research manager at the UK Stem Cell Foundation, with responsibility for the research portfolio. The UKSCF is a charitable foundation that was set up to fund stem cell research with the specific remit to translate basic science into clinical application. Her research background is in developmental and stem cell biology, with a BSc and PhD from the University of Edinburgh. |
 | Raymond Perrier is the campaign co-ordinator of Strangers into Citizens, campaigning for an earned amnesty for long-term migrants. He was formerly Project Director for the Jesuit Refugee Service in Uganda, and is a one-time international marketing consultant. |
 | Ann Rossiter has been director of the Social Market Foundation since July 2005. Since taking over she has broadened the range of SMF’s work, taking it into new areas of social and economic policy, and doubled the size of the organsation. She joined the SMF in July 2003 as Director of Research and is a specialist in reform of welfare and the public services. Other policy interests include employment and energy policy.
Before joining the SMF, her career included a number of advisory roles in politics and policy making. She spent four years at the BBC in the Political Research Unit and in political programming, followed by four years working in parliament for Rt Hon John Denham MP and Glenda Jackson MP, on pensions and transport policy. Prior to joining the SMF, Ann was a Board Director of Fishburn Hedges, the corporate communications consultancy. Ann studied philosophy at Birkbeck College, London University and is a contributor to the Dictionary of Labour Biography (Politicos 2001).
|
 | Before taking up post as Director of Arts and Creativity for the British Council, 8 weeks ago, Venu was leading the development of a new Creative Innovation Unit at the South Bank Centre, Europe’s largest cultural centre. Former posts include: Fellowship Director at The UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts; Chief Executive at the Nottingham Playhouse; and Producer (Mobile Touring) at the Royal National Theatre. In 1999 she was appointed as the inaugural Chair of the East Midlands Cultural Consortium by the Secretary of State at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport a role she held until 2002. She has been awarded the prestigious Asian Woman of Achievement Award for her contribution to the Arts and Culture. She is or has been a: Trustee of the Theatres Trust; a Governor of Guildford Conservatoire; a Council Member of Loughborough University; a Member of the Institute of Ideas; a member of Chatham House; a member of the London 2012 Culture and Education Committee and the European Cultural Parliament. She is a patron of the Asha Foundation and the Minorities of Europe. |
William M Gumede writes a blog on global politics for the Washington Post. He is on the faculties of the Graduate School of Public & Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; and the Democracy & Diversity Institute, New School for Social Research, New York.
Until 2003, he was Deputy Editor of The Sowetan newspaper. Before, he was a founder and chairperson of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, in Johannesburg. He worked extensively in South Africa’s trade union and civic movement, including as a Communications Officer of the Congress of South African Trade Unions - the country’s largest trade union federation. He was a researcher and writer on the groundbreaking 2004 United Nations Human Development Report for South Africa, which measured the country’s human development progress since apartheid.
He is author of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC. The updated and international edition of the book was released in the US in October by Palgrave MacMillan. His forthcoming book, The Democracy Gap - Africa’s Wasted Years, Zed Books is released in April 2008.
He has won a number of awards, including the South African Courageous Journalism Award (1997), the Forum for Black Journalists’ Excellence in Business Journalism Award (2000); and the continental Diageo African Business Reporting Award (2007).
 | Shaun Kelly is the Safeguarding Manager for NCH, and has strategic responsibility for safeguarding across the organisation. He has worked in welfare services for children and young people since 1981, in residential care, field social work, family centres and as chair of child protection conferences. NCH is one of the largest children’s charities in the UK – it is the largest provider of children’s services in the UK today delivering services across this country and abroad. They work with over 160,000 children and young people, some of the most vulnerable in our society, through nearly 500 projects, which include Children’s Centres, fostering and adoption services, work with care leavers and homeless young people, short breaks for disabled children, residential schools and many other support of welfare services to children, young people and their families.
Shaun’s role includes developing policy and practise for both direct services to children and young people, and support services including training and selction and recruitment practice. Whilst working for NCH Shaun has had a number of functions regarding safeguarding: this has included being strategic lead for work relating to adults abused as children whilst in residential care. Before working for NCH Shaun has had considerable experience of work in local authority social work, both in practise, management and in a consultative role.
|
 | Raymond Snoddy is a freelance journalist who writes for the Independent and other publications, and is the presenter of BBC’s NewsWatch. He previously presented Channel 4’s award winning series, Hard Talk and Media Monthly on Sky News. He has also written a number of books, including a biography of media tycoon Michael Green and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, about ethics in the newspaper industry. Educated at Larne Grammar School and Queen’s University in Belfast, Raymond worked on local and regional newspapers before joining The Times in 1971. He moved to the Financial Times in 1978 and reported on media issues for 19 years before returning to The Times as media editor. |
 | Ian Archer-Watters, ballet dancer and freelance fundraising consultant, danced for Les Ballets Grandiva, an all-male comedy ballet performing as Ashley Merrill-Lynch. He has danced in Serenadiana, Star Spangled Ballerina, Go For Barocco, La Bayadere, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty Party, Pas de Quatre, and Raymonda Variations in 40 cities a year in Japan with additional performances in Seoul. The company’s Italian debut was at the Malibran Theatre, Venice. Additionally, Ian secured the opportunity to dance at the annual music festival in St Barthelemy. In 2006, Ian and 3 “divas” went on a press tour of Japan being interviewed by 40 newspapers, magazines, and appeared on a number of Japanese morning TV shows. The highlight of his dancing career was news that Dance magazine would run a featured article on his return to dancing after six years and that he would be on the cover (Nov 2005), photography by Lois Greenfield. In June 2008, Cambridge Who’s Who named Ian Professional of the Year in Performing Arts. For five years, Ian worked in major gifts at New York City Ballet, Longy School of Music, and Handel & Haydn Society.He danced for Fort Worth Ballet and Saint Louis Ballet. Ian graduated with a BA, English, and a minor in theology from Saint Louis University.He spent a summer at Exeter College, Oxford.Ballet training was from Alexandra School of Ballet and San Francisco Ballet School. Ian serves on the board of the NY International Ballet Competition. He’s been a fundraising volunteer for St. Bartholomew’s Church, Callen-Lorde Medical Center, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and Longy School of Music. Ian resides in New York City with husband, Jack Watters and labrador, Oakley. London is their second home. |
 | A former Geoffrey Parsons Junior Fellow at the Royal College of Music, Caroline Jaya-Ratnam has accompanied in the Wigmore Hall, the Purcell Room, and the Royal Festival Hall. She has worked at ENO with Alfie Boe, Michael Ball, Donald Maxwell and Richard Hickox and has performed for the BBC on several occasions including Radio 3’s ‘In Tune’ with Sean Rafferty. |
Inua Ellams is the author of Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales , and has performed at Glastonbury and Latitude Festivals and on the Generation Txt Tour. Imagine the lyrical love-child of Keats and Mos Def and you’re not far from Inua’s unique versifying.
Jon is a founder member and the artistic director of Unlimited Theatre. For Unlimited he has directed and performed in Static, Neutrino (both awarded Fringe Firsts for “innovation in theatre and an outstanding production"), Could It Be Magic? (with Sheffield Theatres), Tangle (with The Corn Exchange, Newbury) and The Ethics of Progress (with Oxford Playhouse). Also for Unlimited and Sheffield Theatres he has directed Safety by Chris Thorpe and Zero Degrees & Drifting (nominated for Best Fringe Production in the MEN Theatre awards). As an actor he has recently appeared in An Oak Tree with Tim Crouch and played The Man in the BBC Radio 4 production of Chris Thorpe’s Static. Jon has worked as a visiting lecturer in colleges and universities throughout the UK and run workshops with students, theatre professionals, journalists, soldiers and passers-by across the world. He is an associate artist of Sheffield Theatres and the father of two small boys.
 | Parminder is the Executive Editor of Times Online. He has been a journalist for 13 years covering a variety of beats at The Times and Financial Times. Before becoming a journalist, Parminder was a development economist. He also goes on electoral observation missions for the Organisation for Security and Development in Europe (OSCE) and has been to Kosovo, Macedonia and Ukraine in this capacity. |
 | Tristram Hunt is a lecturer in modern British history at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of The English Civil War: At First Hand and the critically acclaimed Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City. A regular history broadcaster, he has authored numerous radio and television series for the BBC and Channel 4, including most recently The Protestant Revolution for BBC4. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Trustee of the Heritage Lottery Fund, he is currently working on a biography of Friedrich Engels. |
Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City (Phoenix, 2005)
The English Civil War: At First Hand (Orion, 2003)
 | Claudia Molitor, born in 1974, studied Music and Media at Sussex University, went on to do an MA in Music at City University, London and completed her PhD in Composition with Michael Finnissy in 2004. In March, 2006, Oh Du Kleines Kabinett, commissioned by Queens’ College Cambridge, was premiered by Anton Lukoszevieze and musicians of Queens’ college. This piece was short-listed for a RPS Music Award this year. Her piano piece, Tango, was short-listed by spnm in 2004-5 and was performed by Rolf Hind at the music festival fuseleeds06. The Norwegian accordionist Frode Haltli performed Even if the world is infinitely complex as part of spnm’s HINDSIGHT series at Wapping Hydraulic Power Station in London during April 2006. That May, Who kissed my head?, for live electronics and acoustic instruments, was performed by players from the London Sinfonietta in collaboration with Sound Intermedia. She was commissioned by CoMA (Contemporary Music Making for Amateurs) to write a flexibly scored piece called I had to protest for their 2006 Open Score Project. It descends occasionally, Kürbis and For Leone were performed earlier this year by the Kürbis ensemble in London and at Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard and there were performances of Leek in London and Manchester by the BackBeat Percussion Quartet. She is currently taking part in spnm’s 2006/07 Adopt a Composer scheme which pairs amateur ensembles, in this case the City of Southampton Orchestra, with a composer for a year. The piece will be performed at Southampton’s Guildhall in November. Other future performances include Untitled [fizzy painting makes me happy] for Apartment House during Wien Modern in Vienna, Austria, in November and lorem ipsum for the vocal ensemble EXAUDI for a concert in Gerona, Spain, also in November. Current work includes a piece for recording and broadcast by the German radio station WDR Cologne in March 2008 by Apartment House, a collaboration with the 3D filmmaker Brian McClave, an oboe solo for Christopher Redgate for the Wild Dog Festival in 2008 and a preparation of her Flicker Book Scores for publication in The Liberal. She has just released her first CD Lopsided. A piece from the CD was recently broadcast on Radio Reverb. Her work has been performed, amongst others, by Michael Finnissy, Frode Haltli, Rolf Hind, Philip Howard, EXAUDI, the Gemini Ensemble, Anton Lukoszevieze and the Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien, and has been featured in the Brighton Festival Fringe, the London New Wind Festival, fuseleeds, Spitalfields Festival, York Late Festival and the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice in Boston, USA. Leek was recently broadcast on BBC Radio3 and Das Schwein, das Schwein will be broadcast later this month on Hear & Now. Articles about her work have been published in the BBC Music Magazine and the Observer Review. She has just released her first CD Lopsided. A piece from the CD was recently broadcast on Radio Reverb. Together with Sophie Appleton and James Weeks she is founder of the Kürbis ensemble. Claudia is also the festival director of Soundwaves Festival which she founded together with Patrick Harrex. The festival took place in June 2007 for the first time. |
 | Bill Drummond was born in 1953. Since leaving Liverpool College of Art in 1973 he has used various ways to investigate and converse with the cultural landscape. These investigations and conversations have found expression via the written word, pop music and actions. His written words include the following books: The Manual (1989), Bad Wisdom (1996), 45 (2000), How To Be An Artist (2002), and The Wild Highway (2005). The pop music (1977 - 1992) comprised of various projects, from Big In Japan to The KLF, the details of which have now faded into the twilight world of pub pop quiz questions and car boot sale bargain box oddities. The actions have been the one constant in his practice. There have been hundreds over the years, nearly all carried out anonymously and left unrecorded. Recently Drummond’s activities have included the instigation of The 17, the production of a pack of cards titled Silent Protest, the foundation of The Intercontinental Twinning Association, the making of The Soup Line and setting up the websites www.mydeath.net, www.youwhores.com, www.openmanifesto.com, and www.the17.org. He has had numerous one-man exhibitions in major UK regional galleries. Since 1998, all Drummond’s work has been framed within the context of The Penkiln Burn. To have a better understanding of what this is please visit www.penkilnburn.com. |
Wild Highway (Creation Books, 2005) (with Mark Manning)
45 (Abacus, 2001)
Bad Wisdom (Creation Books, 2002) (with Mark Manning)
The Manual (KLF Publications, 1989)
 | Maria Misra is Lecturer in Modern History at Oxford University and a Fellow of Keble College Oxford. She presented a television series, called An Indian Affair, which was broadcast on Channel 4. She is also the author of Business, Race and Politics in British India. Dr Misra has written on the politics, culture and economics of nineteenth and twentieth-century imperialism and colonialism. She is currently writing a new history of modern India for Penguin. Her broader interests lie in the comparative impact of colonial ideas and ideologies on post-colonial Asia. |
 | Luke Kennard is researching the transatlantic tendencies of the prose poem since 1973 and working on his third collection of poetry. Luke Kennard is a writer, critic and PhD student at the University of Exeter. He won an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2005 and published his first collection of prose poems The Solex Brothers with Stride Books that same year. His second collection, The Harbour Beyond the Movie, was published by Salt Books in 2007 and made him the youngest poet ever to be shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. The Solex Brothers has since been reissued by Salt in a special edition with much needed explanatory notes. He regularly collaborates on theatrical work and has had two plays performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He is currently working on his first novel and ignoring bitchy poetry message boards. |
The Solex Brothers (Redux): And Other Prose Poems (Salt Books, 2007)
The Harbour Beyond the Movie (Salt Books, 2007)
 | Naresh Fernandes is an experienced journalist and author on Indian life. Since winning the New York Foreign Press Association student award in 1997, he has gone on to work as the Bombay correspondent for Associated Press, as copy-editor on the overseas news-desk of the Wall Street Journal and then as joint news editor on The Times of India before becoming editor-in-chief of Time Out India, in charge of the Delhi and Mumbai editions. He has contributed to and edited several anthologies of new Indian writing, as well as co-authoring The Murder of the Mills - an examination of the links between Bombay’s thriving real estate business and industrial sickness in textiles factories, and providing coverage of the religious riots in When Bombay Burned. He is author of the title essay of Bombay Then and Now, a forthcoming coffee-table book. |
Bombay, Meri Jaan: Writings on Mumbai (co-editor) (Penguin Books India, 2003)
 | Richard Barrett, born in Swansea in 1959, studied composition principally with Peter Wiegold. He taught electronic composition and performance in the Institute of Sonology in The Hague from 1996 to 2001; during 2001-02 he was a guest of the DAAD Berlin Artists’ Programme, remaining in Berlin until 2006 when he became a professor at Brunel University. His work encompasses both composition and improvisation, ranging from chamber music to innovative uses of live electronics and collaborations with visual artists. Recent projects include NO, commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and premiered in February 2005 at the Barbican Hall in London, conducted by Tadaaki Otaka, and the ensemble pieces Melos and Island, both premiered by the Elision ensemble in November 2006 and both part of CONSTRUCTION, a two-hour work for voices, ensemble and electronics commissioned by Liverpool Cultural Capital to be premiered complete in 2008. His current commissions also include new works for the London Sinfonietta and for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Richard Barrett also continues his twenty-year collaboration with Paul Obermayer in the electronic duo FURT and performs regularly with vocalist Ute Wassermann, saxophonist Evan Parker, cellist Arne Deforce and numerous ensembles from both compositional and improvisational areas, including the vocal/instrumental/electronic octet fORCH which he and Paul Obermayer formed in 2005. His work as composer and performer is documented on over 20 CDs, including four discs devoted to his compositions and four by FURT. |
 | Jonathan Barnbrook is one of the UK’s most active graphic designers. Pioneering the notion of graphic design with a social conscience, Barnbrook makes strong statements about corporate culture, consumerism, war and international politics. Working in both commercial and non-commercial spheres, Barnbrook combines originality, wit, political savvy and bitter irony in equal measures. Founding his studio in 1990 and Virus Foundry in 1997, Barnbrook is perhaps best known for his provocatively named fonts, such as Mason (originally released as Manson), Exocet, Bastard, Prozac, Nixon and Drone. The controversy surrounding this work stems from its subversive nature and strong social commentary. Barnbrook multi layers meaning and style - working with language and letterforms in an ingenious way. He uses advertising to reveal anti-corporate messages and exhibitions to promote non-commercial work. With an international presence and local impact, Barnbrook’s work is definitely of the times. Since graduating in graphic design from Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, Barnbrook has developed a multifaceted practice which includes graphic design, typeface design and motion graphics. He has worked with clients as diverse as Damien Hirst and anti-corporate collective Adbusters. |
 | Sean Lang is a lecturer in history at Anglia Ruskin University. He has taught history in secondary schools and sixth form colleges and lectured at university level both in history and in education. He has reported on history teaching for the Council of Europe, and advised both government and opposition on policy towards school history. He has twice been Honorary Secretary of the Historical Association and debated issues on history teaching on television and radio. He led the Historical Association’s influential Curriculum Development Project: History 14-19 and recently produced the History Practitioners Advisory Team report on History 11-16 for the Shadow Education team. In 2007 he launched a Downing Street petition calling for history to be made compulsory to 16. He is editor of 20th Century History Review and writes regularly for TES and BBC History Magazine. He has published on British policy in nineteenth-century India and has also written two popular history books for a general audience, British History for Dummies and European History for Dummies.
|
 | Minette Marrin is a journalist, broadcaster and fiction writer. Formerly a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, she is now a columnist for the Sunday Times, shortlisted for Columnist of the Year at the 2004 Press Awards. She has also written for the Spectator, the Guardian, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Asian Wall Street Journal, the Observer, the Literary Review, Granta and others, on subjects from current affairs to books, food and arts and contributes to television and radio programmes. Previously, after a BBC TV traineeship, she worked in documentaries for several years and co-presented the arts programme Saturday Review, a precursor to the Late Show. While at university she won a Granta short story competition and the Vogue Talent Competition. She is the author of The Eye of the Beholder (Faber & Faber). Minette has a special interest in learning disabilities and was a trustee of The Home Farm Trust (which provides services for people with learning disabilities) from 1996 to 2005. She was also, until May 2006, a member of the Ethics Committee of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists. In 2000-01 she was a contributing member of the Working Party, producing ‘Women in Hospital Medicine, Career Choices and Opportunities, A report of a working party of the Federation of Royal College of Physicians’. She is a member of the council of the Centre for Policy Studies. |
 | Kierra Box is a 22 year old youth worker from London. She became involved in youth action through the youth press agency Children’s Express (Now Headliners) at 11, before going to to take part in and coordinate a number of youth protests in London and nationally. In 2003 Kierra and friends set up Hands Up For Peace, on of the UK’s foremost youth anti-war movements. Since then, she has gone on to develop the key ideas behind Hands Up into an online resource and community portal for young people, aiming to offer non-directional advice and information to young people interested in doing something amazing. Kierra is a Patron of the NYA and a trustee of the Young People Now Foundation. In 2006 she won a Sheila McKechnie Foundation award for campaigning. Kierra currently works in a local area renewal partnership co-ordinating youth participation activities and provision in the area, while continuing to develop her website at www.handsupfor.org. |
 | Tony Neal was elected onto the General Teaching Council by teachers in Spring 2000 and nominated onto the Council in 2004 by the Secondary Heads Association. Tony began his career as a maths teacher in Hertfordshire: he has a total of 38 years teaching experience including 25 years in Head and Deputy Head roles. Tony has brought to the GTC his understanding of teaching and school leadership as well as his extensive experience over 15 years as county, and then national officer for the SHA. Tony was national President of SHA in 2001/2. He has published two books under the SHA imprimatur - Managing Targets and Managing Value-Added - as well as numerous articles on educational matters. Tony is proud to have been involved in the earliest years of the GTC. He looks forward to raising the profile of the Council in influencing national educational policy. Tony is Chair of the GTC’s Policy and Research Committee. |
 | Joe King is an artist working across the field of moving image using innovative techniques and animation to combine and manipulate photography, film, video and sound. His work has been screened around the world, broadcast internationally and has won awards both home and abroad. Joe has produced and directed his own commissioned pieces and also works as a director for a production company, Slinky pictures. Recent work includes moving visuals for bands such as U2, advertising and music promos as well as personal work such as Survey. Joe’s recent film was a collaboration with fellow film maker Rosie Pedlow, with whom he founded Folk///Projects. The film entitled Sea Change has won best experimental film at SXSW and Hull film festivals and best lighting at Ann Arbor film festivals, while also gaining special mentions. Joe has also worked with sound design and editing. Joe works between digital and more traditional technologies mixing techniques using lo- or no- tech film making with hi-tech digital methods. Landscape and architecture has informed much of his subject matter. He has an interest in non-conventional narratives and works with both live action and animation Current projects include working with medical scan to produce an animated piece of work. Another project is a multi-disciplinary and cross-platform artwork for contemporary media entitled The City Speaks. It is collaborative audio visual artworks that will form a centre-piece of the BBC Radio 4 season in July 2007. The project uses the city of London as a central theme and is a collaboration between writers film-makers and sound designers. |
 | Vivienne Parry is a writer and broadcaster. She has a weekly column in The Times Body & Soul section and is their medical science correspondent.
Vivienne contributes features to The Times as well as the Guardian, Mail on Sunday and many other newspapers. She is science editor of Good Housekeeping and writer-in-residence for the Foresight Obesities Project at the Office of Science and Innovation. Her most recent book, The Truth About Hormones was critically acclaimed and shortlisted for the 2006 Aventis Science Prize. |
 | Sarnath Banerjee is an Indian graphic novelist, artist and film maker. Banerjee was born in Calcutta and lives and works in Delhi, India. He studied image and communication at Goldsmiths College, University of London. His novel, Corridor (2004), published by Penguin Books, India, was India’s first graphic novel. His second novel The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers was published in 2007. Sarnath has also provided illustrations for novels by other authors. He drew the cover for Upamanyu Chatterjee’s novel, Weight Loss. He is the co-founder of comics publishing house Phantomville, together with his friend Anindya Roy. His website is at www.sarnathbanerjee.net. |
The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers (Penguin Books India, 2007)
Corridor: A Graphic Novel (Penguin Books India, 2004)
 | Orlando Gough was a founder member of the bands The Lost Jockey and Man Jumping. He writes music mostly for the theatre - operas, plays, dance pieces, music-theatre - and for choirs. His recent work includes We Turned On The Light, for 500 singers and orchestra (Proms); Swarm, for marauding chorus (Barbican); The Finnish Prisoner, an opera (The Paddock / Finnish National Opera); Critical Mass, a music-theatre piece (Almeida Opera Festival); One, Two, a music-theatre piece (Dartington Summer School). He works regularly with the theatre director Rufus Norris, providing music for Peribanez (Young Vic); Blood Wedding (Almeida); Festen (Almeida, Lyric Shaftesbury Avenue); Tintin (Barbican).
Future projects include commissions for the Scottish Ballet, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, Stavanger 2008, Brighton Festival, and Royal Opera House.
His work is published by Boosey and Hawkes. |
 | Paul Evans is one of the co-founders of Poptel Technology Ltd. Many of their projects are designed to motivate sections of society that currently do not use the internet. Local councillors are one such group, and the Councillor.info project has worked with over thirty local authorities, encouraging councillors to become active managers of personal websites. Paul has also specialised in promoting web technologies to the labour movement. He has worked on website projects for almost all of the major unions and many of the smaller ones. Previously, Paul worked as an assistant to an MEP, specialising in the regulation of Digital TV. In his spare time, he helped the New Statesman to establish the first New Statesman New Media Awards in 1998. |
 | Alexander Cockburn is co-editor with Jeffrey St. Clair of the twice-monthly muckraking newsletter CounterPunch, whose Web site, www.counterpunch.org, now has a world audience in the millions. Born and raised in Ireland, son of Claud and Patricia Cockburn, Alexander Cockburn was educated in Ireland, Scotland and England. He graduated from Oxford in 1963. He worked in London for a decade on the Times Literary Supplement, the New Statesman and New Left Review. He emigrated to the United States in 1973, worked on the Village Voice and began to contribute to a wide range of publications including the New York Review of Books, Harpers, and the Atlantic. He has established a reputation as one of the foremost reporters and commentators of the left by writing newspaper and magazine columns for three decades. Cockburn’s areas of interest include the American political scene, economics, the environment, labour issues and international policy, the perils of conspiracism. The author of a bi-weekly column for The Nation called ‘Beat the Devil’, Cockburn also writes a syndicated newspaper column that is distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate and has appeared regularly in such papers as the Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Examiner, Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Detroit Free Press. In 1987, Cockburn authored a highly successful collection of essays, some autobiographical, entitled Corruptions of Empire, for which he was called ‘the most gifted polemicist now writing in English’ by the Times Literary Supplement. His diary of the late 1980s and early 1990s, The Golden Age Is In Us, drew enthusiastic reviews from many sources, such as the New York Times, which wrote of Cockburn, ‘a warrior freethinker, armed with courage and gifted prose to cut down the hypocrisies of tyrants.’ He lives in Humboldt county, northern California. |
I, Claud: Memoirs of a Subversive (AK Press 2008)
End Times: Death of the Fourth Estate (with Jeffrey St Clair) (AK Press, 2007)
Imperial Crusades: Afghanistan, Iraq and Yugoslavia (with Jeffrey St Clair) (Verso, 2004)
The Politics of Anti-Semitism (with Jeffrey St Clair) (AK Press, 2003)
Jeffery Taylor is the only ex-professional dancer writing on dance and the arts in the national press, and contributes to virtually every major title, including the London Evening Standard, the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Mirror, the Daily Mail and OK! magazine. He is currently dance critic and arts feature writer for the Sunday Express.
After starting dancing at 11 years old in Manchester, Taylor trained at the Royal Ballet Senior School in London, graduating into the Covent Garden Opera Ballet and appearing briefly in the main company at the Royal Opera House. During a twenty year career in the theatre, he was a founder member of Western Theatre Ballet and worked in musicals (Hello, Dolly! and The Great Waltz etc.) in the West End, films (Song of Norway etc.) and television, (Sunday Night at the London Palladium etc.) as well as guesting with ballet companies all over Europe. He subsequently appeared as an actor in television and West End plays (with Albert Finney in Chez Nous and Jim Dale in The Card etc.).
Taylor left the theatre and following a number of years engaged in various endeavours until in 1986 he became the Mail on Sunday‘s first Ballet Critic, and later that paper’s first arts correspondent. He was jointly responsible for launching the Mail on Sunday‘s Review Section, which rapidly became one of the most influential and popular arts review sections in the national press. His first book, Irek Mukhamedov: The Authorised Biography, the life story of the Bolshoi and Royal Ballet star, was published in 1994 by Fourth Estate.
In January 2001, Taylor co-founded the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards, Britain’s only dance specific dance award ceremony.
He is married to Joanna Denise, teacher, choreographer and former dancer.
 | Born in Chennai, India and now living in London, Shobana has produced numerous works for stage, theatre and television. Her recent work includes site specific performances created for Greenwich Hall (with a live webcast from Bangalore, India), the café at Waterman’s Arts, Brentford (with DJ Mukul Patel) and for The City Hall, London. She has also made work for Sonia Sabri Dance Company and Random Dance. Shobana was awarded a London Dance and Performance award in 1988, received three Digital Dance Awards and, in 1993, an Arts Council Women in the Arts Project award in acknowledgement of her valuable contribution to the arts over the past decade. She has also been awarded two Time Out Dance Awards and in 1993 her Company was the overall winner of the prestigious Prudential Award for the Arts. Her dancework Palimpsest was nominated for the South Bank Show Awards in 1996. In 1997 the Company was the subject of a BBC documentary entitled, In Between: 3 Dance Pieces by Shobana Jeyasingh. Shobana Jeyasingh was awarded an MBE in January 1995 for services to dance and holds an honorary MA from Surrey University and an honorary doctorate from De Montfort University, Leicester. She is also a Research Associate at ResCen - Centre for Research into Creation in the Performing arts at Middlesex University and a NESTA Dream Time Fellow. |
 | Marcus Lanyon is the President of the Royal College of Art Student’s Union. He studied MA Ceramics & Glass at the Royal College of Art and BA (Hons) Visual Art with Visual Culture at the University of Gloucestershire. His practice utilises a hybrid language of materials to create a ‘seductive disquiet’; a simultaneous sense of attraction and repulsion. He is one of the four finalists in the Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s art prize, ‘4 New Sensations’. |
 | ‘Dapo Oyewole is executive director, Centre for African Policy & Peace Strategy |
 | Catherine Ewart is Head of Corporate Communications at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). She is responsible for leading a programme of communications activities aimed at raising the profile of the STFC and achieving brand recognition with its key stakeholders in academia, industry, government, political institutions and the wider scientific establishment. She manages the teams in STFC responsible for media relations, public affairs, internal communications, marketing & brand management, corporate events and publications. Catherine also represents the STFC on the Space Communications Group for the British National Space Centre (BNSC). Prior to her current role, Catherine was Head of Corporate Affairs for the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC). She has a PhD in Plant Sciences and an MSc in Science Communication. |
 | Peter Smith is the Director of Tourism at St. Mary’s University College, Twickenham, London. He is currently researching the sociology of volunteer tourism, with particular emphasis on the perceptions of development within the alternative tourism sector. Before embarking on an academic career Peter worked in the independent travel sector for many years. He is robust defender of mobility in all its forms and regularly appears in the media and at public events discussing travel and mobility related issues. |
 | Mark Henderson is Science Editor of The Times. As well as reporting extensively on all aspects of science, he writes the Junk Medicine column on Saturdays, which seeks to take an evidence-based look at topical health issues, and is a regular contributor to comment pages. He takes a particular interest in genetics and reproductive medicine, including IVF, PGD, personal genomics and stem cell research. Recent stories he has broken in this field include news of the first application to screen embryos for the BRCA1 gene under the HFEA’s revised policy. He won the Medical Journalists’ Association news story of the year award in 2005. He joined The Times as a trainee, and has been covering science since 2000. His first book, 50 Genetics Ideas You Really Need to Know, will be published by Quercus early next year. |
 | Dr Christine Hauskeller is a senior lecturer at the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society (Egenis), University of Exeter. She has a grounding in Critical Theory, and describes her area of research and expertise as ‘Critical Philosophy of the Life Sciences’, which covers both her areas of research in conventional terms, philosophy of science and bioethics. She studied Philosophy, Sociology, and Psychoanalysis at the University Frankfurt on Main and finished her PhD in philosophy with a book on contemporary modes of conceptualising the subject. Her area of interest then shifted toward the philosophy of biomedical science and technology. In collaboration with Professor Wolfgang Bender she completed several ethical and sociological research projects on stem cell science in various interdisciplinary groups in Germany before coming to the UK in 2002. Her current post in Egenis brings together the different strands of her training, curiosity and professional experience. Presently she concentrates on the mutual interaction between science development, regulation and social and ethical attitudes, with respect in particular to genomics and stem cell research. |
 | Ruth Chadwick is Distinguished Research Professor at Cardiff University, and Director of CESAGen. She is based in Cardiff Law School. She held positions in Liverpool, Cardiff, Preston and Lancaster before joining the University in 2006. She co-ordinated the Euroscreen projects (1994-6; 1996-9) funded by the European Commission, and co-edits the journal Bioethics. |
 | Andrew Brighton was formerly Senior Curator for Public Programmes at Tate Modern. He contributed to Art for All? Their Policies and our Culture and Culture Vultures: Is UK arts policy damaging the arts? Other publications includes articles in Art in America, London Review of Books and the Guardian. He has curated exhibitions, written books on Francis Bacon and Picasso and taught both art practice and history at various universities. His recent/forthcoming publications include 'The Managerial State: Culture without Art' (Printed Project, Editor: Munira Mirza Issue 8, October 2007) and 'Peter's Joke: Art and the Nonconformist Conscience' (Critical Quarterly, Volume 50, Number 1, 2008)
|
 | Onyekachi Wambu is a journalist, editor and television producer. Born in Nigeria in 1960, Onyekachi arrived in the UK after the Biafran war. Educated at the universities of Essex and Cambridge, he has worked as a journalist since 1983 and was Editor of the leading Black newspaper The Voice at the end of the 1980s. As a TV producer and director he has made documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4. His two hour PBS documentary special screened across the US in 2001, Hopes on the Horizon: the Rise of the New Africa, received the Golden Dhow Award 2002 for Best Documentary.
He is currently Information Officer for the African Foundation for Development (AFFORD), a charity established to expand and enhance the contributions Africans in the diaspora make to Africa’s development. Wambu’s publications include Empire Windrush: Fifty Years of Writing About Black Britain (ed.) and Under the Tree of Talking: Leadership for Change in Africa (ed.).
|
 | Firoze Manji, a Kenyan, has more than thirty years of experience in international development, health, and human rights. He previously worked as regional representative for health sciences in Eastern and Southern Africa for the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Nairobi. Prior to that he was chief executive of the Aga Khan Foundation (UK) and was Africa programme director at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. He is currently visiting fellow at Kellogg College and associate tutor in International Human Rights for the Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford. He has published on health, social policy, human rights and political sciences, and has authored a number of textbooks and interactive training manuals for NGOs and human rights organisations in Africa. He is editor of Pambazuka News (www.pambazuka.org), and senior editor of the ‘Learning for change’ series published by Fahamu in association with the Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford. A member of the editorial board of Development in Practice, he is also a member of the steering committee of the Network for Equity in Health in Southern Africa. Originally trained as a dentist (BDS) in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he holds an MSc and PhD from the University of London. He is co-director of Fahamu |
 | Chris Meade is Co-Director of the Institute for the Future of the Book. He is currently studying for an M.A. in Creative Writing & New Media at De Montfort University, and is a member of the FLO Literature Leaders Consortium. From 2006-2007 Chris was Executive Director of Booktrust, the national agency promoting books and reading. As part of his work at Booktrust, Chris secured government funding for the Bookstart scheme, launched the Booktrust Early Years Awards, Booktrust Teenage Prize and the National Short Story Prize and initiated Get London Reading, a major citywide promotion. As Director of the Poetry Society from 1994-2000, Chris established the Poetry Café at the Society’s Covent Garden HQ and devised the Poetry Places scheme which received a major lottery grant to fund projects throughout the community. He was Principal Officer Arts Development & Marketing for Birmingham Library Services (1989 - 94), co-coordinator of Opening The Book (1984 - 89) with Rachel Van Riel, and ran the Opening The Book Festival in Sheffield 1989.
Chris is author of The Thoughts of Betty Spital (Penguin, 1989), winner of the 1984 George Orwell Prize for his play We Two Boys (performed at the Edinburgh Festival, New End Theatre, Leadmill Sheffield) and in 2000 was commissioned to write a pilot of a sitcom for BBC1. His cartoon strip OVERLEAF can be seen at www.misteroverleaf.blogspot.com. With Paris-based theatre designer Julie Dalmon Riou he has worked on the script for Gigogne, a performance piece which they have been devising through a long-term on-line collaboration (http://missgigogne.free.fr/).
|
 | Jeremy Myerson is Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art, London, where he also leads the InnovationRCA network for business He is a writer, editor and academic specialising in the study of the work of designers in relation to social and technological change. Jeremy is a graduate of Hull University and of the Royal College of Art. In July 2008, he was named as the first holder of the Helen Hamlyn Chair of Design at the RCA. He began his working life on The Stage newspaper in the 1970s, before forging a career in design journalism during the 1980s. From 1986 to 1989 he was Founding Editor of Design Week, the world’s first weekly news magazine for designers and their clients - a publication that profoundly influenced how design firms in the UK operate. For much of the 1990s, Jeremy worked as an independent author, researcher and curator in design, often with the aim of linking design industry developments to those in higher education. From 1995 to 1998 he was Visiting Professor of Contemporary Design at De Montfort University. In 1999 he was invited to return to the RCA, to the Helen Hamlyn Centre, whose focus as a catalyst for socially inclusive design reflects much of his own interests in writing, research and exhibition curation. His many books include New Public Architecture; Making The Lowry, a study of a major Millennium design project in response to social change; Design Renaissance, an edited collection of essays setting out a humanist and inclusive agenda for design; and The 21st Century Office, exploring trends in workplace design. His exhibitions include the British Council touring show ‘Look Inside: New British Interiors for People, Doing at Dyson’ at the Design Museum; and ‘Rewind: 40 years of design and advertising from the D&AD Awards’ at the Victoria & Albert Museum. His latest publication is co-authored with Philip Ross, Space to Work: New Office Design. |
 | Fiona Johnson is director of communications for the General Teaching Council for England, the independent professional and regulatory body for school teaching in England. The GTC is supporting the Battle of Ideas festival for a third year, as part of its programme to engage with a wide public audience on standards of teaching and learning. Fiona has responsibility for the GTC's external profile, conference programme, web site and publications. The GTC has a live register of more than 500,000 qualified teachers in England and exists to support high standards of teaching and learning in the public interest. It works for children, through teachers.
The GTC was created in September 2000 as an independent regulatory and professional body for teaching; putting teaching on a par with other major professions. Fiona joined the GTC in April 2003, from a background in public sector public relations. Prior to joining the GTC, she was head of media relations for the British Medical Association and has also worked for the Royal College of Nursing and the National Union of Teachers. It is a source of some personal frustration that dialogue between public service professionals is not always well developed and Fiona particularly values events like the Battle of Ideas where those attending have the opportunity to break out of professional silos and also to debate on an equal footing with sixth formers and university students. A modern languages graduate, she has a continuing interest in the teaching of modern foreign languages and also in the public understanding of science and the future of science teaching at school and university level. She has two adult sons, graduates of the exemplary Graveney School in Tooting, south London. Her elder son is studying for a Masters in Physics at Manchester and the younger will be studying architecture at Oxford Brookes from September 2008.
|
 | Philip Walters, 54, is the Chief Executive of the Hodder Education Group, which is the educational business within Hachette UK. He has worked for Hodder since 1976, and he started his professional life as a graduate trainee. Hodder Education, as well as being a leading publisher for the school and college markets, is also one of the leading UK publishers of Consumer Education titles. These include the language courses of Michel Thomas and the Teach Yourself series, which is the oldest and the market-leading series of books for the home learning market in the UK. The Group also includes the prestigious Dictionary and Reference publisher Chambers Harrap. Additionally Hodder Education publishes in the Higher Education and Health Science sectors. Philip is also a Council Member of the charity, Book Aid international. |
Ian Foster is a professional camera person working with HD, digital and 16mm film formats in a range of challenging environments and countries around the world. He concentrates on documentary film making although his credits include fiction; examples of his work are the documentary Mine Your Own Business and the series entitled Pricking the Missionary Position. He also tutors youth and community groups in the making of documentaries; covering subjects such as film language, documentary film structure, video equipment, lighting, interviewing techniques, documentary production.
 | Professor Anthony Dunne is head of the Design Interactions Department at the Royal College of Art. He is also a partner in the design practice Dunne & Raby. He studied Industrial Design at the RCA before working at Sony Design in Tokyo. On returning to London he completed a PhD in Computer Related Design at the RCA. He was a founding member of the CRD Research Studio where he worked as a Senior Research Fellow. He also taught in Design Products where he jointly led Platform 3. His work with Fiona Raby uses design as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry and the public about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies. Their projects have been exhibited and published internationally and are in the permanent collections of MoMA and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Dunne & Raby have worked with Sony UK, Panasonic, France Telecom and the Science Museum. Anthony and Fiona have written several books including Design Noir (Princeton Architectural Press) and Hertzian Tales (The MIT Press). |
 | Tom Dunmore is editor-in-chief of Stuff (www.stuff.tv), the world’s best-selling gadget magazine. He is also a freelance journalist whose writing about technology and entertainment has appeared in a wide range of publications, from Zoo to The Sunday Times. After studying Film & Literature at Warwick University in the early 90’s, Tom began his career in journalism as a television listings sub-editor for the Press Association. In 1999, after five years in the glamorous world of listings, Tom got his big break, joining Haymarket Publishing’s Stuff magazine as sub-editor. He quickly rose through the ranks before taking over as editor in 2002. While editing Stuff, Tom also started moonlighting as a television pundit, with regular slots on BBC Breakfast, RI:SE and Gadget & Stuff, before landing a cushy role on Channel 5’s Gadget Show. After two years at the helm, during which Stuff became the fastest-growing men’s monthly in the UK, Tom moved within Haymarket to be launch editor of music magazine Rip & Burn. After the sad demise of Rip & Burn in 2005, Tom rejoined Stuff in the lofty position of editor-in-chief. He spends most of his time playing with shiny toys and giggling like a lunatic. |
 | Cheryl Hudson is an associate fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford and doctoral candidate in American history at Vanderbilt University, researching shifts in citizenship values and national identity in the twentieth century. She has contributed articles to The Times Higher Educational Supplement and American Studies Today and has guest-edited The European Journal of American Culture and Patterns of Prejudice. She has co-edited the forthcoming Ronald Reagan and the 1980s (Palgrave Macmillan). |
 | Diran Adebayo has been hailed as one of the most original literary talents around. His first novel, the acclaimed Some Kind of Black, a nineties’ coming of age story, broke new ground for the London novel, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and won him the Saga Prize, a Betty Trask Award, the Authors’ Club’s ‘Best First Novel’ Award, and the W |