The role of AI in Space Exploration

What can we trust AI to do in Space and will it better our lives back on Earth? 

This was the question we tried to answer for Manchester Science Festival this year! Here was the brief

Take a journey into the unknown with our expert panel and discover how AI could be applied to Space exploration.

Sit down with STEM champion, social entrepreneur and computer scientist, Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE, and the UK Space Agency's Head of Space Exploration, Libby Jackson OBE, as they discuss how their worlds collide in this interactive forum.

Joined by Professor Andy Miah PhD, Chair of Science Communication and Future Media at the University of Salford, our panel explores the endless opportunities of this evolving technology, from rover navigation, satellite design and lasering space junk, to the weather and television communications.

Is the future already here, or are we just talking science fiction?

Future of Media Manchester

It was a pleasure to speak at the first FoMM event in Manchester at the end of last month, giving a lightning talk on IMMERSIVE INTELLIGENCE. It was a fantastic event, very well organized and massive!

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Creative Conference manchester

It was a pleasure to speak at the Pro-Manchester Creative Conference 2024 over at UA92, discussing how creative innovation is shaping Greater Manchester!

SEG3 Culture x Technology

It was a pleasure to be back again at the SEG3 conference taking place in London, having the opportunity to discuss the future of technology with Herman Narula. We covered a lot of ground, but the one area that struck me most was the part of the discussion that focused on values and how a metaverse can be a place where new value systems around digital living can image. This seems crucial at a time when there is significant concern about data expolitation.

Sport Accord

This year, I was really happy to be back at Sport Accord, speaking about all things technology. We covered artificial intelligence, immersive tech, and gaming to talk about the future of sport. You can find one of my talks acrhived on YouTube here

Edinburgh Science Festival

This year, I was delighted to host an event within ESF focused on the future of artificial intelligence, featuring Madhumita Murgia, AI Editor for the Financial Times.

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

What a fantastic week at The University of Salford. We had our The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures livestream event with great talks from Marieke Navin, Dr Helen Whitehead, and Dorien de Vries, each discussing how artificial intelligence is shaping their work.

We even managed to align that event with the Greater Manchester Institute of Technology inaugural conference, which brought students and staff from across the colleges and university together. I was delighted to give the keynote talk and proud to have so many of our colleagues supporting the event. It was fantastic to hear from Jo Purves, Claire Foreman, and GCHQ about all the exciting things that are happening.

Finally, we went up to the STEM Learning UK and met Séverine Trouillet FRSA and the incredible team to take part in the second of the The Royal Institution livestreams.

So many people helped to make all of these events happen, especially anthony stephens, Tina H-Mistry, Andre Davies, Maria Dickinson, Daniel Williamson.

We also launched our Salford 360 campaign, which brings together each of our schools to speak about key areas of interest. This month, we've focused on artificial intelligence and you can read
https://lnkd.in/e58n8qu4

One more week to go! Have a great weekend everyone!

https://lnkd.in/ez4hjJFM

Greater Manchester Institute of Technology Inaugural Student Conference

I was delighted to be the keynote for this amazing, first event, bringing together all of our college partners to talk about the latest innovations in science and technology. We focused a lot on artifcial intelligence and immersive technologies.

The BRILLIANT Festival

It was a pleasure to speak at the Brilliant Festival in Liverpool, where we got into all the ways in which technology is fostering new skills within education. This new event is likely to develop a major legacy for the region, so well worth a follow.

SciCom23 Luxembourg

I was delighted to give the keynote at this year’s Luxembourg National Research Fund science communication conference, speaking about artificial intelligence and immersive worlds. Such a fantastic community with some incredible work. Find more about them here

Science Communication in the Metaverse

Fantastic visiting Oxford University to speak about innovative practices in science communication, harnessing the potential of digital to engage people differently.

SEG3

Very pleased to Chair a panel at the SEG3 conference in London, focused on the metaverse.

Panel: The Road to an Interoperable Metaverse

Thursday, June 29

An open metaverse is the long term goal of many within the space, but what would this look like, and how can it be achieved? This session will explore:

The technological framework that needs to be in place to support the vision

The timelines to achieving an open metaverse

The role of blockchain

The role of universal game development standards

Ownership of digital assets in web2 and web3 environments

The impact of interoperability on consumers and enterprise

Global Esports Summit (London)

I was delighted to be the host of the Global Esports Summit, which took place again this year in London.

You can take a look at all the exciting sessions that took place.

Discover more on esports here.

Host City 2022 Glasgow

Some thoughts ahead of #HostCity2022 next week.

"COVID has brought about a step change in audience expectations, which must be seen in the context of a longer history of making our live and remote experiences increasingly immersive, flexible, and technologically enabled. The Web2 era nurtured this desire and COVID embedded the expectation, readying us for web3.

For sure, the error we make is concluding that this is a move away from the importance of physical space as a crucial component of a compelling experience, but what's changing is the capacity to level up the physical world with immersive integrations which have been prototyped during COVID. Audiences expect to be more active and the data driven event economy finds a crucial extension through volumetric and locative audience data.

The future of the elite event experience is phygital - e.g watching digital content layered over a physical swimming pool and seeing the projection of Olympic swimmers live into the space, as it happens, or the transition of triathlons into arena based virtual worlds, or running in your gym alongside athletes as they compete. These are our clues which shed light onto the future and it's as big a shift as was the design of the amphitheatre in ancient Greece.

In this context, rights holders need to massively rethink what they do and what they are in relation to their audience. Simply staging something isn't enough anymore. The Olympic Channel is a great example of how institutions are experimenting to find their feet in a world where the media proposition around events is vastly different. The MVP in this future is to wrangle the innovation community that can remake events for a vastly different set of audience expectations."

Join us for Host City in Glasgow next week!

ESPORTS at New Scientist Live

“If you liked what you heard at NSL, then follow these accounts to get involved.” Prof @andymiah

TEDx University of Salford

Well this was an absolutely phenomenal event! Over 1500 households registered for the event and you can watch back my presentation on the TEDx platform here.

The ethics of virtual sports

I've really fallen behind on updating my website, so I'm going to blitz through the last 3 months!

Way back in March, I gave a talk for the doctoral school of the University of Lausanne about ethics and xr sports. It was a great way to think through some new ideas and you can find the entire session here.

Will Artificial Intelligence Kill the Drama in Sports?

A talk for the Global Alliance for Responsible AI

Global Sports Week

Global Sports Week took place last week, led out of Paris, France. I gave a Masterclass on Esports and, while so much was online, a huge amount of activity tool place. Here’s a bit about how it felt.

COVID-19 and the Scottish Parliament

I was really honoured to be part of a session organized by the Scottish Parliament to advise the Scottish Government on their public communication strategy. The session was a really good opportunity to think about how we evaluate government communications, especially in times of urgent need for clear messaging and quick public reactions. I hope this may develop into some further research on the subject and may well need some international collaborators to get it done.