Don’t forget that details about tickets are available here and that you can follow the 15 speakers and everyone involved on the night via our twitter list. Without further a do we’d like to introduce you to another fine set of speakers for #igniteLDN6 on 3rd May 2012.

Helen Arney & Rob Wells

Domestic Science

Rob and Helen do science at home, they can’t stop themselves.

Helen is a musical comedian and geek songstress. Rob is a teller of jokes and lover of science.

Jim O’Donnell

Set the controls for the heart of the Sun

"Space weather has been in the news recently, with the Sun currently reaching one of its 11-year peaks in activity.

Solar flares, Northern Lights, Coronal Mass Ejections and electrocuted Victorian telegraph operators are some of what’s in store.”

Jim is a former astronomer, now a web developer. With a PhD in astrophysics he also helped build solarstormwatch.com for the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

Femi

Got a problem to solve? How your favourite music album can be the ultimate creative solution

“Basically, the answer to all problems lies in music. We just need the right key to unlock the way to use it….I travelled a lot as a child and music was the steadiest thing in my life. Eventually I began to use it to make decisions, solve problems.”

Femi is an introverted extrovert with ambitions to be the first real superhero.

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 is a software engineer and sailor who races and cruise yachts, mostly in the Solent and the Aegean.  Although in 2007 she crossed the Atlantic, sailing from the Canaries to Brazil.

Makayla Lewis

The unforeseen effects of changing your website on people with disabilities

“What are the experiences and challenges faced when people with disabilities use online social networks.  Along with any changes to website layouts that prevent and/or slow down their ability to communicate online.”

Makayla Lewis is completing her PhD in Human-Computer Interaction funded by EPRSC.  Her passion for her research is due to a personal connection to disability and accessibility. She is also a Guinea Pig breeder and fanatical Star Wars Lego builder.

Andrew Bulhak

After Peak Rock

“My talk will be looking at two intertwined conditions which arose after World War 2 and, after about half a century of being the definition of normality, are now in retreat: cheap oil and rock’n'roll.”

Andrew is originally from Australia and spoke about The Psychogeography of Creativity at Ignite London 3.

Tristan Roddis

Quantum Electrodynamics

Tristan has a right challenge on his hand as he wishes to explain the most complicated scientific concept.  Be amazed as in 5 minutes the theory of the interaction between light and matter will all become clear.

Tristan is a web developer by trade, but also a lapsed scientist with a PhD in Atmospheric Chemistry. He spoke about British Sea Forts at Ignite London 2. 

Duncan Geere

Colours Of Noise

“White isn’t the only colour of noise you can get. There’s also pink, blue, brown, violet, grey, orange, black and green noise. How do they differ, and what are they all used for?“

Duncan Geere is a London-based enthusiast. He’s fanatical about weather, digital music, videogames, web culture and maps, and is also the News Editor of Wired.co.uk.

We are delighted to have Duncan on board along with the rest of our wonderful speakers, so keep an eye out for tomorrow’s blog post where we will announce the final set.

Don’t forget that details about tickets are available here and that you can follow everyone involved on the night via our twitter list. Without further a do we’d like to introduce you to 7 of our 15 speakers for #igniteLDN6 on 3rd May 2012.

James Hoffmann

The well kept secret of delicious coffee

James was named World Barista Champion in 2007. He admits to spending way too much time thinking and talking about coffee.

“People drink a lot of coffee, it is increasingly popular, and yet very few people have any idea of just how tasty it can be. Coffee is an incredible, global and thoroughly interconnected industry and is absolutely fascinating. Mostly we get the peasant and the donkey coffee grower guilt trip – there is so much more…”

Michael Reeve

Dead Cosmonauts Don’t Count

Michael returns after speaking about The Dice Man at Ignite London 4. He thinks it went down pretty well and how can we forget the argument inducing D100!

“(I’d like) to talk about my personal favourite conspiracy theory – Lost Cosmonauts. All about the evidence that the Soviet Union did actually manage to get men into space before Yuri Gagarin, but they either didn’t come back, or crash landed in some way that didn’t show the country in the positive light that they were striving for in the Cold War.”

Hemmy Cho

Why do I love to fly?

Hemmy’s currently training for a Private Pilot’s License. Her talk is around why she loves flying with historical, philosophical and cultural ideas behind why human beings aspire to fly.  She’s an “incorrigible optimist & loves imagining the future with my rose-tinted glasses on, but not as much as I love the present moment."

Gwyn Morfey

…The Hell You Doing Here?

A big, loud and angry exploration of why ‘mission statements’ aren’t always bullshit, why willpower is worse than useless, and how to avoid the only thing worse than death: failure.

In Gwyn’s "spare" time, he is Fire Hazard’s fearless leader.  “Oh, and nine-to-five I run a web design company. There’s not as much shouting there.”

Andrew Holding

Forgotten Knowledge

Andrew’s a research scientist who loves to be involved in science communication, so much so her was a Fame Lab regional finalist in 2011.

“Of all the slang names for the British, none is more iconic than ‘Limey’… The results of James Lind’s work on the HMS Salisbury in 1747, which led to a cure, without doubt saved innumerable lives. Yet in Cherry-Garrard’s account of Robert Falcon Scott’s 1911 expedition to the South Pole Lind’s results seemed to have been forgotten?”

Monika Szczygiel

The future? It’s here already.

Monika’s a Londoner by choice, web developer who grew up reading science fiction and dreaming about the future.

"Remember watching Minority Report? Now wave at your Kinect…Or the tablets in Star Trek? Everyone has an iPad now. Someone built a working tricorder. The future we used to read about in science fiction books or watch in films is already here, not all of it just yet, but it became part of our lives.”

Derick Rethans

Crowdsourcing a Map of the World

Derick’s a PHP internals exert and a mapping enthusiast with OpenStreetMap,

“Good map data is either expensive or closed. Is it possible to create an openly licensed map, which also allows you to access the data? And can this compete with commercial maps so that users actually switch over? This talk shows that it *is* possible, and that it is lots of fun as well.”

Ryan O'Connell at Ignite London 4 © paulclarke.com

Ignite London will be back for #igniteLDN6 on Thursday 3rd May 2012 at  93 Feet East.

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

Tell us what you’re passionate about! We’re after a mix of funny and serious, social and personal, high and low tech, crafty, webby, environmental, quirky and mainstream. You have  20 slides. 15 seconds a slide. It’s timed, so there’s no stopping.
What do you want to tell people in 5 minutes?

How to submit a Proposal

Complete the online submission form on our Speak page.

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.  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 Friday 30th March.  We will 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.

The Format

Ignite events are not about self-promotion. We are interested in talks that are driven by passion, not by sales. There is no limit to the kind of topics you can talk about from technology and science to the arts and humanities and everything in-between. If you’re 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. You get 20 slides. 15 seconds a slide. Timed, so there’s no stopping. Check out previous talks on our vimeo channel to get some ideas!

Making us laugh is a good thing, making us think is even better! We want our speakers to be as diverse and stimulating as the city that we live in. Whatever you’re passionate about, we’d love to hear about it . Enlighten us, but make it quick!

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 haven’t been covered at previous Ignite London events. We’ll let you know very 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!

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

________________________________________

Dr Chris Lintott

What to do with 500,000 scientists

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

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

Ben Fields

Ale or Lager and Other False Choices

Ben is talking about beer. Need I say more?

________________________________________

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.

_______________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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…

________________________________________

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.”

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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!

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

Alasdair Allan

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

________________________________________

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!

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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?

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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?

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.

________________________________________

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.