Theme: Anthropocene

Every living thing affects its surroundings, but humanity is now influencing every aspect of the Earth on a scale akin to the great forces of nature. We have pushed the planet into a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene. Mankind’s abundance has caused challenging circumstances, from the sheer strain of overpopulation, the difficulties of multinational integration, and the continued unknown impacts of climate change. This new era presents fresh challenges which need to be overcome by their exact creators, Man.

We aim to highlight those individuals who have revolutionised attitudes and approaches in the sciences, humanities and arts. In addition going on to demonstrate the positive impact that mankind is having on our local and international communities, and how the power of a single idea can have an everlasting global impact.

University of Warwick, room MD0.01
University of Warwick
Coventry, Coventry, CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

Adair Richards

Life Sciences Specialist

Adair Richards has always been fascinated by how University students and researchers learn. Over the last few years, Adair has dedicated himself to understanding the reasons why Universities operate the way they do, whilst seeking ways to reimagine and reinvent the corporate learning process to make sure that learning actually happens! With 5 university qualifications under his belt already - including a PhD in antibiotic design by age 25, for which he won an award for best UK life sciences PhD - Adair regularly publishes academic articles (including those cited by a Nobel laureate) and features in national papers and news outlets. Adair was one of the youngest ever magistrates and now sits as a lay Judge in the Family Court. He is also Lead Tutor and Honorary Academic at Warwick, having also worked as Res

Adam Smith

Founder of The Real Junk Food Project

Adam Smith is the founder and co-director of The Real Junk Food Project, a community interest company that aims to abolish waste food through a ‘Pay-As You-Feel’ concept, empowering communities and inspiring individuals. He has been a fully-qualified chef since December 2005. The Real Junk Food Project is a collaborative effort between catering professionals and activists to bring about a radical change in our food system. As well as the positive environmental impacts of reducing edible food waste, the project also has clear social benefits through operating a strictly Pay-as-you-feel (PAYF) policy. This revolutionary concept offers an alternative to the conventional payment system as there is no price on any produce of the café. The system transcends monetary transactions and liberates people to use their skills and attributes, as well as money, to pay for their meals. By making people think about what they wish to contribute fo

Ali Rezaei Haddad

Medical Student

Ali Haddad is currently completing his medical training at Warwick having graduated from Imperial College. It was during his neuroscience degree that Ali came to realise what a devastating outcome hypoxia can have on its patients. That is why he approached a computer programmer and London’s Air Ambulance neurosurgeon to co-found the GoodSAM App - a tool to help the public get emergency assistance from the local medical community. Ali was awarded the Imperial College Gold Medal for his achievements whilst at Imperial, and GoodSAM was recently presented with the 'Points of Light' award by the Prime Minister’s Office.

Arn Chorn-Pond

Human Rights Activist

Arn Chorn-Pond is an internationally-renowned human rights activist, community organizer, and musician who inspires change through his incredible stories of surviving the Cambodian Khmer Rouge genocide. When the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975, Arn was sent to a children’s labor camp. There, he escaped death by playing his flute for the camp guards. He later reached a refugee camp in Thailand, where Reverend Peter Pond adopted him in 1980. In the U.S., Arn began a series of community rebuilding projects and founded several organizations. In the mid-1990’s, he returned to Cambodia to find his family and his music teacher. He “discovered” other artists who had survived the war and were living in difficult conditions; Cambodian Living Arts was born.

Arthur Kay

CEO of Bio-Bean

Arthur Kay is an award-winning designer and entrepreneur. He is the co-Founder and CEO of bio-bean Limited, a pioneering green energy company that recycles waste coffee grounds into Advanced Biofuels. Arthur draws from both the worlds of art and science, and bio-bean is the result of the subsequent cross-fertilisation of ideas. Arthur currently holds positions on a number of boards associated with Social Enterprise and Green Entrepreneurship. He has been appointed as a 'London Leader' by Mayor Boris Johnson, an 'Emerging Innovator' by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and has been named 'the UK's most Innovative Young Entrepreneur' by the Chairman of Shell UK.

David Skarbek

Author & Political Economy Lecturer

David Skarbek is an award-winning author and lecturer of Political Economy at King’s College London. His research has examined how people define and enforce property rights and trade in the absence of a strong, effective government. His book 'The Social Order of the Underworld: How Prison Gangs Govern the American Penal System' examines how inmates create self-governance institutions to promote economic and social interactions behind bars.

Emma Fay

Artist

Emma Fay is a world-renowned artist who specialises in make-up & concept artistry, hair and beauty, and bespoke design. Her fine art is inspired by evolution, origins and mind sets, with illusion and symbolic expression throughout her pieces. Emma combines her artistic, theatrical and business background with her professional experience and knowledge within the hair & beauty industry to provide an extremely high level of client care and attention to detail. She is also an Arts Award advisor and Creative Director of enteredem.co.uk Art & Theatre Company.

Jo Farrell

Photographer & Cultural Anthropologist

Jo Farrell is an award-winning black & white photographer and cultural anthropologist. Born in London, England she has spent the past seven years in Hong Kong. Her photography work focuses on traditions and cultures that are dying out. In the past eight years Jo has been working on a long-term project of capturing and celebrating the lives of the last remaining women with bound feet in China. Her project Living History has received critical acclaim on the BBC, Time Out, CNN, Wall Street Journal and the South China Morning Post. Her work has been published globally by the BBC, Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, China Daily and Vanity Fair, amongst others. Awards include: Black & White Spider Awards, Women in Photography Awards, Centre for Fine Art Photography, and a Jacob Riis Award. Jo's work has been exhibited in London, New York, LA, Hong Kong and San Francisco, and she has given talks at galleries in Hong Kong and London.

Jonzi D

Performer

Jonzi D is the Artistic Director of Breakin' Convention and Jonzi D Projects, and one of the pioneers of British hip hop culture, rapping and b-boying since its genesis in the early 80s. Since graduating from the London Contemporary Dance School, Jonzi has been committed to the development of Hip Hop theatre. He was an Associate Artist at The Place and has performed and choreographed widely in the UK and Europe, Israel, USA and South Africa.

Sabine Hauert

Robotics Engineer

Dr. Sabine Hauert is a Swarm Engineer at the University of Bristol and Bristol Robotics Laboratory, where she designs swarms of nanobots for biomedical applications. Swarm strategies are either inspired from nature or are automatically designed using machine learning and crowdsourcing. Sabine has designed swarms of nanoparticles for cancer treatment at MIT and deployed large aerial swarms for use as communication relays at EPFL. Her work has been featured in mainstream media including The Economist, CNN, and New Scientist. Sabine is passionate about science communication and, as well as having produced award-winning videos viewed over 250,000 times, is the Co-founder and President of Robohub, a non-profit dedicated to connecting the robotics community to the rest of the world - Robohub already features over 1000 blog posts and 1.5 million podcast downloads!

Scott McArthur

Human Research Specialist

Scott is a strong advocate of narrowing the “knowing doing gap” between research and industry, and is committed to inspiring change through development programmes and game theoretic applications to learning and decision making. Scott has consulted within a range of global industries and mentored industry leaders in defence, IT, retail and professional services. He has published in several disciplines including leadership development, organisational psychology, HR, change management, rock music and pioneering microscopy techniques for use in disease detection. Scott is currently writing a book which examines the tools and techniques we use in organisational life, and in which he asks the question “do these tools actually deliver on their promises and are we even asking that question?”

Yvonne van Amerongen

Head of Quality & Innovation at Hogewey

Yvonne van Amerongen is one of the founders of its internationally award-winning small-scale living model of care. Yvonne has been working at Vivium Zorggroep since 1983, in particular at nursing home Hogewey. In 1990, she developed a new product which revolutionised care for people developing dementia in the vicinity of the Hogewey nursing home. In 1993, Yvonne became a fulltime project manager for the development of the care project small-scale living with lifestyle for the psycho-geriatrics target group.This project was also the subject matter of her graduation thesis for the Higher Vocational Training in Social Pedagogic Care with a specialisation in Management. Since 1996 Yvonne has been a staff executive for Quality & Innovation for Vivium Zorggroep in Weesp. Hogewey is located in Weesp, a town outside Amsterdam. Since it opened in 2009, Hogewey has attracted a huge amount of interest from all over Europe, with a centre based on it