Theme: Private Lives

This year we would like to explore the theme of identity, and discuss whether it’s influenced by culture, technology, art, social media, fashion, etc., or whether it’s fixed forever and same for everyone. Broadly speaking, identity helps us distinguish one person from another, and we intent to examine how people from different ages and nationalities perceive this theme.

Your talk can be as broad as you like, as long as it falls under the headline “private lives” or “identity”. Here are a few ideas to help you get started:

Does education change our identity?
Does travelling or language learning change us?
Marriage, identity and privacy
Cultural identity
Does money change us?
Are we the same person online and offline?
Is there anything private in our lives after all?
Should we consider technology innovation (e.g. cloud storage, mobile payments, gps tracking) to be a benefit or a restraint on our lives?
The difference between “who we are” and “who we want to be seen as in public”

Droichead Arts Centre
Stockwell Street
Drogheda, Louth, 00000
Ireland

Alan Costello

Alan works with early stage technology startups to develop their business models and future investment plans. He has worked with over 1000 startup founders over ten years and has also worked in the Drogheda region supporting and developing enterprise. He has also developed social enterprises like MyStreets Drogheda and employment activation programmes for young people.

Brendan Murray

I took early retirement in May 2017 after some 39 years developing software, including the last quarter century in IBM Ireland where I designed and developed industry-leading software, and was elected to the IBM Academy of Technology. During my time there, I have represented IBM on the Unicode Consortium and the Java Community Process, which have led to me speaking a number of times at Unicode Conferences across the globe and at JavaOne in San Francisco. My early career included working at CIM-Centret and Kontor Automation in Denmark, and ICL in the UK. I hold an MSc in software engineering from DCU. However, now that I've retired, I'm toying with the idea of a technical startup between looking after my bees, fishing, and enjoying my family.

Caradh O'Donovan

Caradh O’Donovan is a Champion Kickboxer who has been winning World and European Kickboxing medals for the past two decades. More recently she has turned her hand to WKF Karate and within three months has become Senior National Champion and a member of the Karate Ireland Squad.

Colin Guilfoyle

Entrepreneur, Programmer, Accountant, Husband, AFOL. The founder of Nebula Interactive Game Studio (nebula.ie). Tired of working in purely commercial organisations Colin set out to found a company and lifestyle that looked at giving back as well as developing great games. An Accountant by qualification, coder by passion, and entrepreneur at heart, Colin has combined these traits to create a company whose games have topped the App store, made international press and entertained across the world.

Janie Lazar

60. Female. White. English. Jewish roots. Humanist principles. Poet (unpublished). Love writing. A sociable introvert. Prefer small gatherings. Live by the sea, love the ‘zing’ of a daily 40’ dip, sense of community there. Experience of working with people of different cultures overseas kept highlighting the need for people to be able to express themselves in another language to really integrate personally and professionally. This led me to focus on working with non-native English speakers and to highlight the need for more than induction programs within organisations where lack of confidence is a real, yet unacknowledged issue. As a relatively shy person, though nothing terrible outside what I consider normal life experiences (serious illness, changing personal circumstances, professional hiccoughs!), how you see yourself impacts every part of your life. Perhaps because it took me so long so I can now help accelerate the process for others!

Keith McEvoy

Keith helps entrepreneurs quickly achieve security and freedom by building their own seven-figure business without sacrificing every waking moment or creating a mountain of debt.

Sarah Archer

Hi, I'm Sarah Archer, and I see my mission in life as entertaining, educating and challenging people with my own stories, and helping others to become great speakers and storytellers. I have an interesting combination of experience in business, speaking, comedy, theatre and coaching. I’m a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Personnel & Development, an ANLP qualified NLP practitioner, and a qualified business, tennis and life coach. I love to make people laugh, and I’ve written and performed comedy all over the UK, including two solo shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, and my comedy drama ‘Dearly Beloved'. I'm a published international playwright, actress and entrepreneur, and author of two business books ‘Cracking Speech Mate - How to use humour to make you an amazing speaker’ and 'Straight to the Top - How to create and deliver a killer elevator pitch'.

Vinny McCoy

I have been in the army. I have taken part in UN missions. Seen 2 wars in the Middle East, Soldiered during the troubles on the Irish border for 21yrs. I am involved with community activities, helping young people, getting them to believe in themselves.