Esports for Peace

Just before the summer, I was in Monaco giving a talk about how esports can contribute to peace processes. The event brought together many world leading athletes who have broken records for many years and it was great to have a chance to talk about the potential of esports for social good.

This will be worked up into a longer paper, but I’m passionate about the idea that esports can be a pipeline for all kinds of valuable social functions, from building greater innovation, to developing infrastructure, creativity, and community. These elements draw on the idea that digital rights are becoming a more crucial part of our world.

Altmetric Annual Conference

Last week, I spoke at the Altmetrics conference on how we may think about our role as scientists, not as professionals, but as citizens. Here’s what I said.

Virtual Reality and Esports

In Barcelona, I gave an opening keynote on Emerging Realities in Esports, for the Esports Regulatory Congress. Within the talk, I spoke about how new kinds of immersive realities are emerging that are changing how we define and play esports. Here’s a nice example…

The programme of work in esports that we are growing at Salford University is really exciting and the students are so switched on to what’s changing around our media culture. It’s a really exciting time to be working within this space, especially given the wide ranging of policy issues it engages where I think we can make a contribution.

Good Science Begins with Communication

Great to have been in Switzerland for the annual Science Comm conference. So many great people working hard to communicate fantastic research. Here’s a link to my talk, broadcast on Facebook Live.

Getting started at #ScienceComm19

Posted by Andy Miah on Friday, 20 September 2019

News Media Coalition

Last week, I was in Berlin speaking about emerging media technologies at the News Media Coalition annual meeting. It was great to be facilitating a conversation with young journalists about how they see the state of the industry, especially as one of them is part of the current Young Reporters cohort of the International Olympic Committee. It took be back to my role as mentor some years ago in what has to be one of the most remarkable experiences a person can get in sports reporting training.

My talk focused on artificial intelligence, virtual reality, drones, and esports, while examining the state of an industry that desperately needs to find a way to reposition itself around the technology innovation community that now underpins our media culture. How can news outlets best protect themselves? Be that innovation community and ensure ownership of change is retained.

Transhumanism @ BlueDot Festival

It was fantastic to be at Bluedot again this week, alongside Tom Shakespeare. I’ve known Tom for over a decade now and it’s always such a delight to be in his company. One of the rare academics who can use comedy within public talks to great effect.

Our discussion took us deep into the realm of transhumanism and spanned such areas as artistic practice and elite sport. I tend to be pretty liberal in how we approach this subject, not hell bent on humans having to embrace all technologies, but having the opportunity to do so. This means being allowed to choose a life that minimises the experience of biological suffering, while also transcending our species typical functions, notably the duration of our life span.

We didn’t record that day, but here’s something that captures much of my perspective on this subject. It’s one of my favourite articles from a few years ago.

Sadly, I was only at Blue Dot for the day, but the real highlight was catching Rebecca Taylor perform, just before my session.

Sheffield International Documentary Festival

This week, I was in Sheffield for Doc Fest, taking part in a discussion about the film “Hi, Ai”, which documents the lives of people who are building new relationships with humanoid robots.

The debate took us in lots of directions, but crucial for me is how the cultural context of robotics varies. We see a family in Japan and a single man in the USA, each of which are creating new kinds of experience with their robots.

Cheltenham Science Festival

Last weekend, I was at Cheltenham Science Festival installing GameLab and giving a talk about technology. We had a wonderful team from Salford University working on the install and some amazing experiences with the public. HERE’s an overview of what we presented, becoming now a fully fledged exhibition in the history of digital gaming.

When we involve @whoispaulmiller in #scicomm everything levels up. Privilege to have him with us at #cheltscifest to deliver another #GameLab pic.twitter.com/gYXQMSSUTN

— Professor Andy Miah (@andymiah) June 8, 2019

. @microbihome @SalfordScience @scicommsalford summer on tour starts here with #VRBiofilms and #RYDNAL-light as part of #GameLab #cheltscifest Our team thrilled to finally get close to the giant E. coli #MicrobialWorld pic.twitter.com/1KGU0M3Rzj

— Chloe James (@drchloejames) June 8, 2019

This morning’s speakers @FuturEverything’s Irini Papadimitriou, @andymiah, @ReachRobotics’ Jon Rees & @Jessicasymons will give an insight into their research, discoveries and recommendations for harnessing tech for our schools and workplaces. pic.twitter.com/dXOeQIQRXS

— Cheltenham Festivals (@cheltfestivals) June 7, 2019

Digital Health Generation 2019

Last week, we ran our major concluding event for the Wellcome Trust funded project, The Digital Health Generation. It was great to see so many people there and cover so many areas.

Please do check out our website for more info on the project

The Royal Society and the Digital Society

Last week, I was invited by the Royal Society to take part in a round table meeting on the digital society, which brought some really great speaker together to consider where we are going and what it may mean to live a life in a more digital way.

My main take home from the day was just how difficult it is to develop insights into trends, behaviours, and concerns, when the platforms and environments are changing so rapidly. We need an ethics of uncertainty to accommodate the radical range of drift that occurs around our lives now.

There’s not much point in developing policies for platforms that are going to be defunct within 3-5 years and this is highly risky situation, as it allows a great detail of freedom to exploit people.

For example, by the time we have figured out what it means for a child’s mental health to be on Instagram from the age of 13 to 16, the platform may then be somewhere else.

This makes me think about how we develop an ethical framework for the often ephemeral experiences we have in digital space.

E(merging) Technologies & The Ideas Economy

Last week, I was delighted to give a talk at Diversity UK’s Tech Showcase, focusing on the collaborative work we do at Salford University, bringing together art, science, technology, and digital media. It was great to hear the pitches of various companies in the region, so much creative innovation going on.

You have been upgraded

It was amazing to take part and support the realisation of Jon Spooner’s live event, ‘You Have Been Upgraded’. This was a really special experience, especially as it took place at the Science and Industry Museum. Lots of conversations about human enhancement!

Olympism in Action

Last weekend, I was in Argentina for the Olympism in Action Forum, invited by the International Olympic Committee to speak about doping. The event took place in advance of the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games. Here’s a quick overview of what took place, but it doesn’t really capture what I said in full.

Broadly speaking, I discussed how society must decide how far it is prepared to push health and longer lives, in order to come to terms with the doping dilemma. We live in times of profound experimentation with biotechnological changes, which make any notion of the natural athlete as a criterion of value within sport an historically redundant notion. This wider cultural shift is what calls into question the anti-doping mandate and is among the biggest problems our society has yet to solve.

The Prospect of Immortality #BlueDotFestival

On 21st July, I spoke in a panel with Prof Kevin Warwick, Prof Mike Stubbs, and Gina Czarnecki about the future of death, as part of a series of talks within BlueDot Festival. 

The prospect of immortality has long been a fascination for me, an extension of the pursuit of human enhancement and the logical consequence to expanding the potential of evolution.

While there are many big challenges to dealing with death in a technological age, the possibility of extending life means we are confronted with some completely new questions about our lives. How would we organize ourselves if we lived to even 200 years? Would we go to school for longer? Would we procreate at the same time? Would we think about our careers as singular paths in life? Would we transform our political regulations to ensure nobody had too much power? All of this is up for grabs and needs thinking about, if we continue to pursue longer and healthier lives.

Virtual Reality for Mental Health #SheffDocFest

This week, I was invited to Sheffield International Documentary Festival to take part in a panel on VR and Mental Health. Curaed by Dr Erinma Ochu and featuring Dr Marieke Navin and Dr Maria Panagiotidi, we covered everything from PTSD to dementia. Here's something I wrote on the way to the event.

The BioDigital Athlete #TNW2018

My keynote for The Next Web conference in Amsterdam brought together my years writing about digital and biotechnological change in performance. Here's the video...

The Next Web does eSport

Last week, I was in Amsterdam for The Next Web, a major digital/tech festival with 15,000 delegates. The first of my contributions to the programme was a dream team panel of experts on digital sport. We invited Shireen Hampdan from the groundbreaking architecture company Populous, Oliver Weingarten from Virtually Live, which is pioneering gaming and virtual reality sports event integration, and Bill Martens, from the amazing BamTechMedia. Here's the video!

Digital Health in the House of Commons

Last week, the Digital Health Generation project I have been working on with Emma Rich, Sarah C. Lewis, and Deborah Lupton had a major event in the House of Commons, sponsored by Lisa Cameron MP.

The evening was a culmination of our work over this last year and aimed to kickstart a conversation about how the future of healthcare ensures that young people are at the heart of plans. 

Here are some of the slides from the evening.

The Digital health generation #digital healthgen from Professor Andy Miah

Designing Healthcare for the Digital Generation

This week, I was in Milton Keynes giving a keynote on digital health with Dr Emma Rich. We are working on a Wellcome Trust project at the moment, which has been running a few events. Here's the link to the website and find below our presentation slides....

Designing Healthcare for the Digital Generation from Professor Andy Miah

The Digital Health Generation

In February, we ran our first webinar focused on the Digital Health Generation. Find out about what we are investigating for this Wellcome Trust funded project, trying to make sense of what digital health means to young people. Here's what we covered.