Climate Exp0 #COP26

Climate Exp0 #COP26

I was absolutely honoured to host a series of conversations during the world’s first Climate Exp0, an event orgnanized through the COP26 Universities Network. I was even more proud to co-host it with Anna-Maria White, a student in Salford University’s Wildlife and Practical Conservation programme.

We’ve been working on a few more COP26 related projects, which I’ll post about soon, but here’s a glimpse into what happened. find out more at this dedicated page.

What Clubhouse tells us about the future of social media

What Clubhouse tells us about the future of social media

Delighted to be interviewed by Fortune magazine writer Jonathan Vanian on what Clubhouse means for our future in social media. Audio communities are doing incredibly well at the moment, signalling a desire for retreating from video into the less intense, more intimate space of sound. The full article is behind a pay wall, but here’s the link.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

Unfortunately, I was not able to go to Tokyo, due to covid, but this didn’t stop me making a heap of content about what took place. Find all of it over at my Tokyo 2020 page.

TEDx University of Salford

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

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.

COVID-19 and Public Communication

COVID-19 and Public Communication

As part of the Scottish Parliament evidence session, my contribution focused on how we evaluate government communications during the pandemic. It’s a notoriously difficult subject, as there are so many moving pieces. However, there really ought to be some way to reflect on the effectiveness of the communications strategies and to establish comparators across nations.

The final report from the Scottish Parliament session covers a lot of levers for Scotland’s recovery and you can read the full scope of these here

The Hyperquantified Athlete

The Hyperquantified Athlete

A few weeks ago, I was interviewed for an article in the Washington Post, written by Nick Busca, who does fantastic work writing about new technology. You can access the article here (hopefully!)

Global Sports Week

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

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.

LDNUTD Education Programme

LDNUTD Education Programme

I was really honoured to take part in the inaugural esports education programme hosted by LDNUTD, a fantastic esports team in London. Reaching out to young esports players in London, the sessions covered all aspects of becoming an esports professional. I was really pleased to speak to school kids and beyond about how to think through developing a public speaking presence in the esports world. Here’s a bit of what we covered.

Brave New World Festival

Brave New World Festival

I was delighted to speak about Extraterrestrial Ethics this month for #BNW2020, a fantastic event, which brought together artists, philosophers, scientists, and engineers to think through some of the biggest problems we face.

My talk on ET Ethics gets into an expanded definition of alien life forms that takes into account the new biology we are creating through synthetic biology and the likelihood that our evolution may take place outside of planet Earth!

More on that later!

Esports Education Summit

Esports Education Summit

Earlier this month, the British Esports Association produced the Esports Education Summit, in partnership with Pearson Education. I was delighted to speak in a session with Dr Maria Stukoff, as host.

We covered career paths in esports, from how STEM subjects are really benefitting from the esports pathway to the creative work involved in designing increasingly immersive experiences in esports.

The Science Communication Crisis

The Science Communication Crisis

These are remarkable times and I was very pleased to have the chance to speak with people from the STFC and UKRI community about the importance of science communication. Here’s the re-run.

Man 2.0

Man 2.0

I’m really excited to announce my involvement with a remarkable new tv series titled “Man 2.0” Across a number of episodes, I talk about how the human condition is being transformed by technology and what this means for our future. It’s currently being distributed worldwide, so may not yet be in your country, but you can see a trailer here.

New podcast on Anchor

New podcast on Anchor

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve launched a new, personal podcast, focused on the research I do. You can access it through all good providers! Sign up here The first episodes examine far ranging issues in transhumanism, science, and emerging technologies.

Our Digital Future: Thinking Through the Ethics

Our Digital Future: Thinking Through the Ethics

Today, took part in an event produced by the Manchester organizations Future Everything and MIDAS, focused on discussions about ethics and digital technology. You can view the whole session here.

"How can gaming and science come together?"

"How can gaming and science come together?"

I was delighted to take part in the week-long Pint of Science programme this week, especially as our event covered one of my favourite subjects - gaming. In my slot, i cover how Salford’s Game Lab inspired collaboration and why gaming is a great way to develop enthusiasm for learning. Here’s the video:

Taiwan Olympic Academy Conference

Taiwan Olympic Academy Conference

I am really delighted to be virtually in Taiwan this week, speaking at their National Olympic Academy about the relationship between ‘Sport, Health and the Environment. I get into everything from nanotechnology to virtual reality to discuss how an appreciation for planetary health must guide everything we do and the sense we make of human actions in a fragile and vulnerable world. I’m really pleased to make this available more widely on YouTube.

Esports and AI

Esports and AI

Great to see this write up from our AI for Good event last week. An excellent summary of what we covered.