Festival Day

From hacking robot dinosaurs to calculating the probability of spacecraft being hit by space debris, Dr Lucy Rogers is an engineer and maker with a wide experience of solving problems. She makes gadgets and gizmos, runs workshops, gives lectures and blogs and vlogs her making experiences.

Lucy is also a judge on BBC Robot Wars. She is well known and well connected in the Maker community, both in the UK and Internationally. She studied Mechanical Engineering at Lancaster University, and was also awarded her PhD (for studying bubbles) from the same department.

Originally a Dry Stone waller from Burnley, Dave Lynch is now an artist, director and inventor working at the intersection of moving image, large scale interactive installation, performance and projection. His practice combines elements of art, science, military, maker and media cultures as part of it’s tactics, technologies and production. He has performed over 360 live shows, over 25 large scale installations including the World’s once largest room, Europe’s largest indoor climbing wall, a 20 storey cylindrical building, a 90m high quarry and seamless 360º 4D projections onto cars and complex 4m crystal clusters.  Works have been featured on BBC 2, Wired.co.uk, The New York Times, VICE, New Scientist amongst others.

Rachel Coldicutt is an expert on the social impact of new and emerging technologies, and executive director of research consultancy Careful Industries and its sister social enterprise Promising Trouble.

She was previously founding CEO of responsible technology think tank Doteveryone where she led influential and ground-breaking research into how technology is changing society and developed practical tools for responsible innovation. Prior to that, she spent almost 20 years working at the cutting edge of new technology for companies including the BBC, Microsoft, BT, and Channel 4, and was a pioneer in the digital art world. Rachel is an advisor, board member and trustee for a number of companies and charities and a member of the Ofcom Content Board. In 2019, Rachel was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours for services for the digital society.

She is currently writing a book about careful innovation.

Phillip Roberts is a researcher working with the National Media Museum and University of York. He is writing a history of the magic lantern in the 19th century, aiming to show the many interrelated causes of the late-century lantern industry and its ongoing effects on visual media over the following decades. He is currently cataloguing and documenting a large collection of slides, lanterns and other objects at the National Media Museum, most of these for the first time. His research aims to develop a more detailed understanding of the magic lantern in the 19th century and provide a nuanced understanding of the operations of historical media systems and their interrelation with other cultural spheres.

Phillip has published work in Film History, Cultural Politics, The Magic Lantern and Early Popular Visual Culture and is the editor of two special issues on media culture

Hwa Young Jung is a multidisciplinary artist working in the arts, cultural and sciences, facilitating collaborative workshops and projects. Based in Manchester, she has been involved in grassroots led community spaces, makers and artists in the North and internationally for over five years – running hackathons, exhibitions, workshops and few laser cut trophies along the way

She is ¼ of Re-Dock, a artist collective working with people and technology based in Liverpool & Manchester. She is ⅓ of Domestic Science, a collective of artists using interactive non-fiction to explore narratives around science and data that surrounds us everyday.

Giles Edwards is an inquisitive analytical chemist, engineer and musician who has embarked on a career centred around a passion for characterising the material world using mass spectrometry. After completing a master’s degree in chemistry Giles worked at Liverpool John Moores University running a whole variety of analytical techniques including thermal analysis, nuclear magnetic resonance and the mass spectrometry service. Having worked in the past as an IT service engineer for the NHS Giles’ ability to trouble shoot various systems progressed from computers to more sophisticated scientific analytical instrumentation.

In 2009 Giles co-founded the Recycling Organisation for Research Opportunities (RORO) which is a registered charity that specialises in the donation of mass spectrometry systems including installation and training for academics in developing nations. Giles has worked on key projects in Pakistan, Ghana, Oman, Kenya, Mongolia, Egypt and Nepal.

More recently Giles worked as director of the multidisciplinary scientific research centre at the University of Nizwa in Oman. He now lives locally in Eastwood and is finishing off his PhD at the University of Manchester advancing bioanalytical laser ionisation mass spectrometry for imaging applications.

Irini Papadimitriou is Digital Programmes Manager at the V&A, mainly responsible for programmes such as, the annual Digital Design Weekend, an event that brings together artists, designers, engineers, technologists and other professionals with the public to present intersections of art, design, science and technology, and engage in dialogue about the impact of technology in society and culture; the monthly Digital Futures, an open platform for displaying and discussing work, bringing together people from different backgrounds and disciplines with a view to generating future collaborations.

Irini is also Head of New Media Arts Development at Watermans, an arts organisation presenting innovative work and supporting artists working with technology, where she is curating the exhibition programme and an annual Digital Performance Weekender exploring networked performing practices.

Irini is also one of the organisers for London's Mini Maker Faire, and one of the co-founders of Maker Assembly, a critical gathering about maker cultures.

An award-winning television news journalist, Geoff White’s exclusives have covered everything from fraud in the internet dating industry to the shadowy world of Russian cybercrime gangs.

He is currently employed by Channel 4 News, with a focus on tech security, personal data, privacy.

He created the Data Baby project, a unique experiment which used a fictional online identity to expose how our personal data is being used – and abused – online.

His current project, the Dot Com Crime series, centres on cybercrime and the dark web.

Seb Lee-Delisle is a digital artist and speaker who uses computers to engage with people and inspire them.

As an artist, he likes to make interesting things from code that encourage interaction and playfulness from the public. Notable projects include Lunar Trails, featuring a 3m wide drawing machine, and PixelPyros, the Arts Council funded digital fireworks display that toured nationwide.

Andy Finney was a radio and TV producer when he discovered interactivity around 1980. He helped to found the BBC Domesday Project, which was published on videodiscs 30 years ago this November, and has worked on various interactive and data-driven projects ever since. 

He started in BBC local radio and his varied career has also included being a radio DJ, co-authoring the standard text on management of interactive projects, devising a highway code for copyright, documenting the early history of a seminal American record label, producing the first consumer optical disc to include data, reviewing projects for the European Commission, resurrecting recordings of a Panzer commander’s war trial, introducing Can to Virgin Records, exploring infrared photography, and managing data on radio and television networks.

Amy Mather has grown up in Manchester’s tech community. After her first brush with technology at the Manchester Science Festival at age 11, her interest in coding and making has taken her to amazing heights.

Now 17, Amy encourages others to try STEM activities by highlighting the creative side of technology. She uses code to solve real life problems and was honoured with the European Commission's first European Digital Girl of the Year Award in 2013.

Amy has spoken in front of expert audiences at industry events all across the country, these include The ODI Summit, Wired Next Generation, Campus Party at London's O2 Arena and The Royal Institution. This year she was the coding expert on two BBC Live Lesson broadcasts for the Micro:Bit

Dr Laura James is an engineering leader who builds practical and innovative internet tech systems and organisations in diverse contexts. She is Engineering Director at Overstory, and a co-founding trustee at CoFarm.co and board chair at Now Play This.

Recent roles include CTO at the OPEN (supporting progressive campaigns around the world), Head of Delivery at lowRISC (open source silicon), and Technology Principal at Doteveryone (the responsible technology think tank). Previously Laura was CEO of Open Knowledge, and co-founded Cambridge Makespace. She has worked in technical leadership roles at humanitarian manufacturing NGO Field Ready, conversational AI startup True Knowledge/Evi (which became Alexa), and pioneering connected home startup AlertMe. Laura holds MEng and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge, and is a Chartered Engineer.