David Cameron’s advisor Ben Hammersley to keynote at September’s Digital Ireland Forum

23 Aug 2012

Ben Hammersley, David Cameron's advisor on Tech City in the UK, and editor-at-large at Wired magazine

Ben Hammersley, the UK Prime Minister’s Ambassador to East London’s Tech City, the UK digital business hub, has been added to the line-up at Silicon Republic’s Digital Ireland Forum on September 21 in Dublin. Hammersley, who is also editor-at-large at Wired magazine in the UK, will give one of the keynotes at the forum, which takes as its theme The Age of the Connected Consumer.

Ben Hammersley is an author, technologist and writer, who specialises in the effects of the Internet on modern society. As well as being Cameron’s Ambassador to Tech City, he is one of four members of the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Media Freedom. Famous for inventing the word “Podcast”, he recently published 64 Things you Need to Know Now for Then. He is also Innovator in Residence at the Centre for Creative and Social Technologies at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a non-resident fellow of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C.

Hammersley joins digital communications expert Neville Hobson who will also keynote at the third Digital Ireland Forum on the morning of September 21, in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel. Hobson is an opinion leader and influencer in digital communication for business, and is a frequent public and private speaker on digital media trends that matter to organisations. Hobson has been blogging since 2002, and is co-presenter with Shel Holtz of the For Immediate Release podcast series, including the weekly The Hobson & Holtz Report, which started in January 2005. He is a founding senior research fellow and advisory board member of the Society for New Communications Research, a California-based non-profit think tank dedicated to the advanced study of new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society.

The keynotes will join Ireland’s tech leaders in mediated panel discussions, before an invited audience of C-suite executives and senior policy makers, on how the demands and needs of this new consumer is transforming how we do business, how we transact, even how governments interact with their citizens. Broadcaster and author Matt Cooper returns as master of ceremonies.
Among Ireland’s tech leaders who will participate on the panel discussions are:

  • Jeroen Hoencamp, CEO, Vodafone Ireland
  • Tanya Duncan, CEO, Interxion Ireland
  • Muirne Laffan, managing director, RTÉ Digital
  • Maurice Mortell, managing director Ireland, TelecityGroup
  • Colm O’Neill, CEO, BT Ireland
  • Ann Scally, Partner, KPMG
  • Andrew Maybin, network services director, Tibus

For full details and to book tickets, check out the Forum website

Ann O’Dea is the CEO and co-founder of Silicon Republic and the founder of Future Human

editorial@siliconrepublic.com