Katie Birkwood at Ignite LDN 4 By paul_clarke paulclarke.com

There was a amazing response to our call for speaker proposals for the upcoming Ignite London 5. We had some absolutely brilliant submissions so we had our work cut out to make selections. Thanks very much to everyone who took the time to put in a proposal!

Here’s a taste of who’s going to telling us brilliant stuff  on 8th November 2011, 7pm at 93 Feet East

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Dr Chris Lintott

What to do with 500,000 scientists

Chris will be telling us about the development of the citizen science projects.

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Alby Reid

To be confirmed

Alby will telling us about all the ways that humans confuse themselves: optimism bias, temporal discounting, the Dunning-Kruger effect, the Pollyanna Principle etc.

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Ben Fields

Ale or Lager and Other False Choices

Ben is talking about beer. Need I say more?

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Dominic Joyner

Power of the Peloton: Beyond the Tour de France

A brief introduction to the sport of professional cycling, beyond the Tour De France. From spring cobbles to autumn leaves. The races, the riders, the rest.

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Jon Wills

Multiple Choices, Multiple Endings: How small choices can shape a digital world

Ever wondered how Nintendo helped form one of its biggest rivals? How a simplistic game from Russia created a capitalist gold rush? How an American Football coach helped start some of the world’s biggest sports games? Well Jon will explain it all.

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Kass Schmitt

The Language of Ships

Have you ever heard a ferry sounding its horn? How many blasts did it make? Were they long or short? Each is significant and recognised instantly by seafarers of every nation. Kass going to talk about the unseen conventions and communications that prevent ships running into each other.

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Keith Kahn-Harris

How a childhood spent collecting building societies taught me to celebrate the power of obscurity

Keith as a child ‘collected’ obscure building societies, sadly he doesnt collect them anymore but he is still obsessed with obscurity and discovering new worlds. In fact, it’s more than an obsession, it’s an ideological statement.

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Mauricio Reyes

Adventures in rehab: 5 minute primer on how to survive inpatient rehab

Mauricio will be sharing the experiences of having a stroke and how technology helped in rehab.

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Michael Story

London’s 66,000 guns.

Michael will be giving out the real statistics on guns in London and providing a pointer on what risks they really face, and from where.

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Nicki Le Masurier

Little Miss Olympics

This is the story of how a girl with no discernable athletic prowess (bar the ability to twirl a baton) came to love the Olympics and how she plans to be part of them.

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Paul Ardeleanu

It’s all about the data

There is a war taking place right now across the interwebs: web advocates are crossing swords with iOS developers, Android advocates and pretty much anyone what is “threatening” the openness of the web.
But Paul believes they got it wrong…

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Paul Parry

Life in the Grotto

Paul is a professional Father Christmas. It’s one of the most demanding jobs there is.” You are God to lots of little people, and have to be ready to go with whatever weird personal traditions that parents/kids have decided on. I’ve done it in London in kids’ department stores, for various events, various charities, and even in an upmarket erotic boutique. It’s better paid than being an elf, but not that good for being a deity. It’s quite a seasonal role, so I haven’t done it for a few months now. I will not dress as Santa when I do my Ignite talk. I can’t stand it when people dress as a Santa whilst drinking/partying/smoking/messing about. It’s unfair on the little people (the kids, not dwarves/elves).
I have a morbid fear of hearing the tune “It’s beginning to look at lot like Christmas”. I have heard Bing Crosby sing this line an estimated 84,500 times. This is too much.
So in short I will cover experiences of mine in the grotto, and to be Santa.”

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Sian Meades

The Science of Smiling

Sian will be talking about the science of smiling, what makes us happy, why we smile, how we can make people smile, and basically improve our days. Just with a smile.

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Tim Caynes

My Face, My Bike

Tim will be telling A short story describing how photos of his face funded the purchase of his bike.

Chris will be telling us what to do with 500,000 scientists.  You can find out more about Chris over on http://chrislintott.net/ or even on his wikipedia page!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Lintott

Now to get those creative juices flowing here is some inspiration! This is one of my favourite Ignite London talks from the very first Ignite London.

The Renaissance Masters and their Mistresses by Ben Hammersley – Ignite London 18 November 2009 from chichard41 on Vimeo.

Think you can do better?  Yes? Awesome. Now go and complete the online submission form on our Speak page.

We’ve been quiet for a while, but the tinder has well and truly been lit! We’re back and raring to go! Ignite London will be back at 93 Feet East in Shoreditch on the 8^th November!

We are now looking for speakers. If you had five minutes on a stage what would you say?

If there’s a topic you are passionate about and you want to spend five minutes telling a very enthusiastic audience all about it then this is your chance.  We’re after a mix of high-energy, funny and serious, social and personal, high and low tech, crafty, webby, environmental, quirky and mainstream. Making us laugh is a good thing, making us think is even better! The only thing we insist on is No Sales Pitches.  To get an idea of the wide range of previous talks take a look at the videos of previous Ignite Speakers.

So go on, “Enlighten us, but make it quick.”

How to submit a Proposal

Complete the online submission form on our Speak page.

Please include as much information about your proposed talk as you can, as this will help us determine who is chosen for the line-up.  We will endeavour to respond to your proposal as soon as we can to confirm we’ve received it.

By submitting a proposal, you are agreeing that we may use your name and the title of your talk within Ignite London promotional material.

Deadline

Proposals must be received by 6 pm on Friday 7^th October 2011.  Based on the previous events we expect to receive many more submissions than can be accommodated so the more information about your talk you can give the better.

The Selection Process

Talks will be selected based on whether the topic is interesting, inventive, creative and unique. We will also make an attempt to select a wide range of topics, so that there isn’t too much overlap in terms of content and subjects that have been covered at previous Ignite London events.  We’ll let you know soon after the deadline whether your proposal has been successful in order to give you as much time as possible to prepare.

We look forward to reading your proposals and good luck!

Alasdair Allan

Alasdair Allan

Dr. Alasdair Allan is a senior research fellow in  Astronomy at The University of Exeter.  He describes  himself as as yet another hacker, pretending to be an  Astronomer, pretending to be a hacker.  When not gazing at stars he also has a company which develops iPhone Apps and has published two books about programming for the  iPhone. Check out Alasdair’s blog at The Daily Ack

Ant Miller

Ant Miller

Ant Miller is BBC’s dilettante geek, as Senior Research manager in the BBC R&D department he works on projects such as archiving all the video forever in digital format.  In the meantime, he also tries to work out who is doing what in mobile at the BBC, and flies rockets and kites.  In the wee small hours he plays with computer games and toy soldiers. Check out his blog.

Maxwell Roberts

Max Roberts

Maxwell Roberts is a psychologist at the University of Essex, originally researching into intelligence and logical reasoning.  He is interested in good design, especially wayfinding and schematic maps. Max is a designer of many novel maps of Metro networks around the world. Author of acclaimed “Underground Maps After Beck”, a history of the London Underground Map.  Max has also exhibited his map designs internationally.  Max’s website is here

Tom Scott

Tom Scott

Ignite London are very pleased to welcome back Tom Scott.  Tom presented “Flash Mob Gone Very Wrong” at Ignite London 2, and since the video has appeared on Ignite Show in November 2010 it has had over 200,000 plays and is the second most popular Ignite video of all time!!  We look forward to what magic this part time pirate will conjure up for us again. Check out Tom’s blog here

Ignite London looks forward to welcoming these and our 12 other fantastic speakers on stage as part of Global Ignite Week.  It’s going to be an amazing evening and hope to see you there! Remember to please be in before 7:30pm, or risk missing your place in the audience.

igniteLDN4 Post it Notes

There was a fantastic response to our call for speaker proposals for the upcoming Ignite London 4. We had some absolutely brilliant submissions so we had our work cut out to narrow them down.  Thanks to the power of post it notes fore getting us through! Thanks very much to everyone who took the time to put in a proposal – your time, effort and energetic creativity are greatly appreciated.

Here’s a taste of who’s going to be speaking on 8th February 2011, 7pm at 93 Feet East!

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Aden Davies

Can Sillicon Valley/Roundabout/any other geographic location where tech companies live, disrupt the world of banking?

Aden is an Innovation Technician for a bank, he has also recently become a father and changes an awful lot of nappies. . So if you want to know how new technologies and trends could apply to banking, then Aden’s your man.  With everything and its dog becoming social can the ever so private world of finance make the leap? Well Aden will tell us.

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Andrew Betts

How standards changed the world

Andrew is going to be telling us about How standards changed the world! He is going to convince us that Standards are exciting.  No really.

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Alasdair Allan

Alasdair is a Guest Speaker – A bio will go up forthwith.

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Ant Miller

Ant is a Guest Speaker – A bio will go up forthwith.  Woah we have a lot of speakers beginning with A. Not intentional we promise!

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Charlotte Young

How To Be An Artist

Charlotte is an artist, comedian and writer and will be telling us about Art Bollocks!  What’s Art Bollocks? Well you guessed it, it’s a term for the pseudo-intellectual language used by critics, etc. to talk about art in seemingly impenetrable ways, but actually saying little, if anything.

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Hayley Sudbury

The surprise economy and the British food revolution

Hayley will be talking about the British food revolution. Molecular gastronomy or experimental cooking has hit the mainstream and diners want more! Hayley will be asking if this is merely a passing fad or a fundamental shift to the way we experience food and drink.

Hayley launched The Tasting Sessions which aims to redefine the way people experience food and drink in London.

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Jemimah Knight

The Knight Patisserie

Jemimah is a blogger, broadcaster, baker, comic book fan, writer, student (learning to code) and a lover of really bad jokes. She also makes the radio show and podcast Outriders for BBC Radio 5Live.

Guess what Jemimah is going to be talking about Cake!! Hooray!  Well to be more precise, baking and technical creativity.

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Katie Birkwood

Just a room full of stuff? Why library are great.

Katie is a knitting musician librarian. Her talk is about why Library’s are great and why we shouldn’t take them for granted.

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Leila Johnston

Making Things Fast

Leila will be talking about the trick to “Making Things Fast”.  Leila’s talk aims to get people fired up about throwing away old projects and take on new, exciting ones! As well as editing Hackers!, the newspaper about doing things you’re not supposed to, she often writes for publications such as WIRED UK. She has previously had two humour books published, and currently writes a weekly column on the BBC Comedy website. She is also one half of the funny geek podcast Shift Run Stop.

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Mark Wubben

Building Interactive Installations in Five Days

Mark is a Dutch web hacker. His aim is to build cool stuff. He will be talking about building interactive installations in 5 days at four hacker camps.

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Maxwell Roberts

Underground Maps, Design Challenges and Challenging Designs

The London Underground map is now somewhat of an icon, but how easy is it to use, especially if you are new to the city?  Our guest speaker Maxwell is a psychologist who is interested in good design and maps.  He will be talking about the London (and other cities) Underground Maps. The design of the current London Underground map can be traced back to 1933 when Henry Beck first tamed the twisting, sprawling network using horizontal/vertical/45 degree lines. Since then, over 100 new stations have been squeezed onto the map, and it the original elegance and simplicity have been lost.  Maxwell will be telling us about whether the map design can be salvaged, or if fresh approaches are required for the complex networks of today, in London and other cities around the world?

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Michael Reeve

Does The Dice Man Play God?

Michael will be talking about Luke Rhinehart’s 1971 book ‘The Dice Man’, the problem with it, and his attempts to live randomly and become a Dice Man.

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Paul Clarke

Music is mostly about cheating

Paul takes a lot of Photos, and is does digital strategy, is a storyreader and a lover of music theory. He will be telling us that Music is mostly about cheating. He mentions Fudge in his proposal. A good thing in my book.

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Paul Downey

I-Spy

Paul is a software hacker at Osmosoft . He will be recollecting the glory days of I-Spy books. How can something that was a huge phenomena can now have such a disproportionately small footprint on today’s Web?

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Peter Gasston

The Top 10 Best Biases

Peter is a web developer and user experience architect at Poke London.  He will be telling us about the top 10 best Biases.

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Ryan O’Connell

Pretending to be an expert

Ryan is a winemaker! He is going to talk about some of the pretentious stuff he used to do to convince people he was an expert on wine.  Then he will talk about the transition to a more honest person who very confidently proclaims he knows very little about wine.

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Steve Berry

How George Lucas’ empire destroyed the British toy industry

Steve is one of the founders of TV Cream, the web’s award-winning nostalgia destination site and author of TV Cream Toys which has been called ‘Funny and supremely Nostalgic’ by Jonathan Ross. Steve will be talking about how George Lucas’ tactics effectively closed down Britain’s small, rebellious toy manufacturers and created a monolithic, faceless US empire. Steve will also demonstrate how we can reverse this situation and return some fun to the toy industry. It’s time to blow up the Death Star.

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Tom Scott

I Know What You Did Five Minutes Ago

Tom was on stage at Ignite London 2, spinning a story about a flashmob that went very wrong.  The video has had over 209,630 views! He is the second most popular Ignite Show video of all time worldwide!  We are honored to have him back to grace the Ignite London stage once again!!  When he’s not igniting Tom does web stuff and is a part-time pirate.

Tom will be scaring us with the stuff he can find out from Facebook and Twitter and anything else he can get his algorithms on.

Mandy Saven speaking at IgniteLDN1 photo by oladybugo

There is still time to get your speaker submissions in! Get your thinking caps on over the weekend. Closing time for proposals is 6 pm on Monday 10th January 2011.

Do you have an idea that we’d like to see more of?

If there’s a topic you’re passionate about and willing to spend five minutes sharing it with an enthusiastic audience then complete the online submission form on our Speak page.

Go on, you know you want to…

igniteLDN3 - Photo by bowbrick

Ignite London will be back for #igniteLDN4 on Tuesday 8th February 2011 as part of Global Ignite Week at our brand new venue 93 Feet East.

We are pleased to announce that our call for speakers is now open.

If there’s a topic you’re passionate about and willing to spend five minutes sharing it with an enthusiastic audience including the whole world (via our vimeo channels and Ignite Show), then this is your chance. We’re after a mix of funny and serious, social and personal, high and low tech, crafty, webby, environmental, quirky and mainstream. Making us laugh is a good thing, making us think is even better! The only thing we insist on is no sales pitches. To get an idea of the wide range of previous talks take a look at the our videos of previous events.

How to submit a Proposal

Complete the online submission form on our Speak page.

Please include as much information about your proposed presentation as you can, as this will help us determine who is chosen for the line-up.  Please note that by submitting a proposal, you are agreeing that we may use your name and the title of your talk within Ignite London promotional material.

Deadline

Proposals must be received by 6 pm on Monday 10th January 2011.  Based on previous events we expect to receive many more submissions than can be accommodated, so the more information you can give about your talk, the better. We will endeavour to respond to your proposal as soon as we can to confirm we’ve received it.

How will selections be made?

Talks will be primarily selected based on whether the topic is interesting, inventive, creative and unique. We will also make an attempt to select a wide range of topics, so that there isn’t too much overlap in terms of content and subjects that have been covered at previous Ignite London events. It would be great to have more female speakers too.  We’ll let you know soon after the deadline whether your proposal has been successful in order to give you as much time as possible to prepare.

We look forward to reading your proposals and good luck!

Alby Reid

Alby will be telling us why we Should Decimalise Time, What the advantages/disadvantages are, how telling the time would change, what clocks would look like, the language changes that could occur.

and

Davide Della Casa

Davide will be speaking about social sites for online programming.  Telling us about the sites that allow you to program online, some of the basic principles and the main sites.

Don’t forget our last batch of tickets goes live today at 12.30.  They are going fast, so you will have to be quick.

The Ignite London 3 lineup is going to develop in the run-up to September 23rd at The Luminaire, but here’s a taste of who’s going to be speaking so far:
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Andrew Bulhak

Andrew moved to London from Melbourne, Australia in 2004 and has been engaged, at various times, in developing web applications, teaching computer science, taking photographs, making music and organising live music gigs. He also developed the Postmodernism Generator, a web-based program which generates meaningless though plausible-looking essays on postmodernism and cultural theory.

Andrew will be talking about The Psychogeography of Creativity; why some areas are more conducive to creativity than others, and what the factors that influence creativity are.
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Anjali Ramachandran

Anjali Ramachandran, currently a Londoner, was born in Wales but has lived in India for most of her life, with a few years in Saudi Arabia and a couple in New York thrown in for good measure. She works at digital strategy consultancy Made by Many, where she tries to disrupt the normal scheme of things in the office. Previously, she worked for Nike, did social research and helped manage a film festival in New York.

Anjali will be talking about Transmedia Film Experiences.

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Anne Welsh

Anne is a Lecturer in Library & Information Studies at University College London. She is interested in really old stuff; historical bibliography, manuscripts and incunables; and really new stuff (digital humanities). Anne was a real librarian for nearly fifteen years before becoming an academic. Anne will be talking about what the internet owes to farmyard animals.

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Dylan Beattie

Dylan is going to talk about what can actually happen in 5 minutes… for 5 minutes. Enough said.

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Liz Kearton

Liz is a qualified mental health social worker and works in psychiatric teams in the NHS.
She’s going to talk about anti-psychiatry and how it may be more helpful to think of it as post-psychiatry and why it’s so important to challenge the medicalisation of the human condition as espoused by mainstream psychiatric thought.
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Luke Murphy

Luke Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost. He works in digital PR, watches a little bit too much theatre, used to run his own cabaret joint and comes up with stupid things to do far too easily. Luke will be offering A quick introduction to his personal favourite ghosts of London after 6 months of ghost hunting around London.
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Martin Lupton & Sharon Stammers

Martin and Sharon both work in lighting.  Martin started his career in Lighting as a researcher at the Liverpool School of Architecture and Environmental Engineering. He then progressed into architectural lighting design and became design director of two of the UK’s leading independent lighting practices.  Sharon began working in stage lighting as a production electrician and, after gaining an MSc in Light & Lighting from the Bartlett, joined Lighting Design Partnership and more recently was an Associate Director at Lightmatters.They will be talking about leaving the comfort of the city to head to Shetland to participate in a community based arts project using Light, in the snow.

Peter Blackman

Peter is one of the driving forces behind Ignite Bristol and also runs his own design and marketing agency. Peter will be talking about Slogan tshirts. Every wondered why we walk around with writing on our clothes? And why we wear provocative slogans? Well Peter’s going to tell us.

Peter Fletcher

Peter counts and documents sneezes.  He has been counting and documenting his sneezes since 12 July 2007.  It started as a practical joke on, but has since turned into something rather more intriguing.

Rayan Jawad

Rayan thinks he talks too much, and works as an analyst at a Central London based Marketing Agency.  He claims to be an ‘average run-of-the-mill London worker’ but he will be showing us how to calculate large, somewhat scary looking sums in our heads – and how absolutely anyone can do it.

Roberta Wedge

Roberta will be telling the story of Mary Wollstonecraft; England’s earliest feminist philosopher.  After many years teaching at the chalk face of a university, Roberta Wedge left higher education to spend more time in the life of the mind (learning from the fine example of Tony Benn). She is now a  Lady of Leisure, and her first project is Mary Wollstonecraft, who leads the way, on this as so many things: remembered as a foremother of feminism, but also a war correspondent, a spiritual quester, a radical republican, a single mother, a passionate & law-breaking lover. Bodice-ripping sex, suicide attempts, and missing treasure ships abound. Her story is ripe for the telling.