The One With The Knowledge Guild | The Week That Was

This week was a celebration of storytelling brought to life by incredibly powerful speakers.

From our Knowledge Guild stars who tackled technology and the future, to tales of absurdity and alternative facts, and two Speakers Corner Visits that taught us the value of dynamic teamwork.

Discover the speakers we were lucky enough to learn from in our weekly addition of The Week That Was.

Knowledge Guild Showcase

We began our week with our long-awaited Knowledge Guild! With the nights theme being ‘The Incredible Power of Technology Brought to Life’ we where proud to have Rachel Botsman, Samantha Payne, James Poulter  and the incredible hosting skills of Clive Myrie  to carry us through the night.

The night started with the story of Samantha Payne, a WIRED Innovation Fellow and the Co Founder of Open Bionics - an award-winning robotics company bringing science fiction to life. She shared how her open approach to innovation has helped push the boundaries of prosthetics for children and adults around the world. With her ability to create customizable and 3D printed arms from the comfort of a 3D printing machine, she truly inspired us to always remain curious in the pursuit of our dreams.

The next speaker was James Poulter, the former Head of Lego Group’s Emerging Platform team, and the Founder of Vixen Labs specialising in Voice User Experience. He spoke on topics ranging from the future of work, voice technology, conversational artificial intelligence, to social media. James gave us a peek into what the future might hold and how to leverage the powers of AI for any business.

Rachel Botsman, the leading thinker and author on trust in the modern world shook up our event. With several exercises in which we where encouraged to trade phones to examine trust relationships and shout our votes for which tech company we trusted most, she electrified our audience and truly made us think about our developing relationships with trust in the modern world.

During the panel, Clive Myrie, a Bafta nominated journalist and documentarian, used his experience and charm to get our audience engaged and smiling as we answered questions concerning the future of technology, business, big data and more.

Truly a night to remember amidst lovely canapes and drinks served by The Brewery, our audience walked away informed and excited by the ideas conjured up by our incredible speakers at the event.

Satire in the Age of Absurdity

‘Has satire lost its power in this new world of fake news and alternative facts’? Aimee headed to Union Chapel to listen to the phenomenal Jess Phillips, Jan Ravens, Armando Iannucci, and host Samira Ahmed debate our current state of satire amongst a roaring room of laughter. With a packed house and a raucous room filled with laughter, Aimee said it was a ‘belly-aching night of laughter’ that had her cheeks hurting all night.

Matt Whitfield

Former fighter pilot, lead instructor and Head of Flying Training for MI5, Matt Whitfield joined us at Speakers Corner to deliver some heart-racing stories on performing at an elite level from the cockpit of a fighter jet. With military grade leadership and insightful teamwork techniques, we loved his story of trust, resilience, accountability, that inspired and astonished us in equal measure.

Tim Dorsett

Tim Dorsett has been at innocent for 7 years with one mission - to help people work better and go home happy. Working as the Internal Communications Manager for innocent drinks, Tim came into Speakers Corner to share with us how Innocent has revolutionized what a corporate company culture can look like and how businesses can bottle their delicious recipe for success for themselves.

For further information call us on   or email  info@speakerscorner.co.uk .

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