2017 Plenary speakers

Marques Anderson is a visionary who asks “why not?” Why not Make a Difference in the world, why not Change the world and why Stop until WE have? Marques is a former American Football safety in the National Football League. He received his BA from UCLA in American Literature and a Masters of Education in Adult Learning and Global Change from Linköping Universitet, Sweden. Having the opportunity to travel extensively throughout North and South America, as well as Europe and Africa, Marques began to develop strategies to address some of the most critical social problems we currently face as a global community. Following his dream to do more, Marques created the World Education Foundation. Through this platform, work is focused to create a new dynamic of sustainable growth in the areas of, Education, Health, Infrastructure and Sports.

Peter Jenner comes from the music industry. He has been a regular commentator on copyright and the music industry for many years. He has managed Pink Floyd, T Rex, Ian Dury, Roy Harper, The Clash, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Robyn Hitchcock, Baaba Maal, Sarah Jane Morris, Denzil and Eddi Reader (Fairground Attraction)

More recently Jenner has been involved in efforts to build a music rights registry at European Union level, and has argued for an international music registry, supported by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

According to Jenner, "we don’t know who owns what and where" and this holds back the copyright licensing of music online. Jenner now wants to see a wide variety of creative industry services and business models being licensed, through a mixture of blanket licenses and individual licences. He argues that copyright, and intellectual property more generally, is a system which ensures that people get paid. The digital eco system challenges creative industries to rethink their models, and this also includes academic institutions. 

Jannie Jeppesen has an extensive experience as a consultant of digital competence and pedagogy development methods in Swedish schools and municipalities. She has given talks at numerous international conferences. She also headed the Vittra Telefonplan school – an innovative centre employing digital education methods and an innovative learning

environment – for which she was awarded the "Innovative Headmaster 2012" title. As a business development manager at an event firm she launched SETT, Scandinavian Educational Technology Transformation in Oslo and EdTech Sweden in Stockholm. Today she is the

CEO of Swedish Edtech Industry.

Dr. Brian Magerko is an Associate Professor of Digital Media and computational media scholar who studies creativity as a formal sociocognitive phenomenon and how it can influence and be expressed through computational media. The philosophy behind Magerko’s work is that an authentic combination of technical and artistic / creative research can yield results that are greater than the sum of their parts and characteristically different than if one field were privileged over the other. This research trajectory has yielded nearly $12 million in research funding, an online computer science learning environment (called EarSketch) that has over 85,000 individual users and has been adopted as part of the national high school computer science curricular guidelines for AP courses; a 2016 White House press release concerning how EarSketch (co-founded by Magerko) has influenced federal education policy as a cornerstone of contemporary CS education efforts; and tech/arts experiences that have been showcased at conferences, learning institutions, galleries, and museums around the world.

Outputs of Dr. Magerko's research and studio work with students has yielded outputs such as: AI-based interactive artwork, interactive narrative and digital game experiences, educational digital media used worldwide, and empirically-based sociocognitive theories of creativity

Magerko earned his B.S. in Cognitive Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1999 with a senior thesis on studying cognition in jazz expertise with Dr. Herbert A. Simon. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering in 2006 from the University of Michigan, advised by Dr. John Laird, where he conducted research on employing predictive models in interactive narratives. Since joining the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008, Dr. Magerko 's research has been published via conferences affiliated with major organizations such as ACM, AAAI, and IEEE yielding over 1500 citations. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications in computational media, cognition, and learning sciences-related conferences, books and journals. His computational media work has been featured in museums, science centers, and news outlets such as CNN, The New Yorker, USA Today, and Digital Trends.

Anjum Malik is a global professional with 35+ years of experience in the fields of international education, educational consulting, business development both in the US and internationally. She has built an extensive network of global contacts, which she leverages on behalf of her clients, connecting people and organizations for success. She was the Director of International Marketing and Public Relations for the University of Texas at Austin's Global Initiative for Education and Leadership, advising the initiative on international strategy, identifying opportunities for collaborative projects and negotiation of bi and multi-lateral agreements.

Due to her leadership in education delivery and development, her organization The Alhambra Chamber was invited to become a member of President Obama's Partners for a New Beginning Initiative. The organizations she has created and managed have enhanced the global competence of more than 150,000 students and hundreds of professionals. Within her most nurtured passion - international education - Anjum constantly seeks innovative tools to improve teaching, learning, and access. In all her endeavors, she strives to advance the empowerment of women and their increased participation in the workforce. She consults and trains on a wide variety of issues related to international education -accreditation, gap analysis, leadership and professional development, cross cultural training, empowering women, franchising and strategic planning.