North East presenter and influencer Tilly Lockey and a man with the job title of chief failure officer are among the confirmed speakers for an upcoming tech event in the region.
Ms Lockey, who has two bionic arms having lost the limbs due to childhood meningitis, will speak at The TechNExt Festival about her experiences and in her role as a global ambassador for Open Bionics - a company innovating prosthetics. And Dutch academic, author and chief failure officer for the Institute of Brilliant Failures Paul Iske will talk about the importance of experimentation and failure in innovation.
They are joined at the June 19-23 Sunderland City Hall event by Ann-Marie Imafidon, computer scientist and founder of the Stemettes - a social enterprise promoting women in STEM careers; ex-Microsoft executive Dave Coplin; Nell Watson, a specialist in promoting human rights and ethics and safety in technologies; and Mala Kumar, a former UN worker and GitHub’s director of Tech for Social Good. The conference is based around three key sub themes: innovation and humans, technology and ethics, and 'business, society and people: getting the balance right'.
