An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, TD, speaking at an event for the European People's Party. Image: European People’s Party/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has been confirmed for the morning of Inspirefest 2017, where he will deliver a special message to attendees.
As he begins to settle in to his tenure as the youngest, first openly gay Taoiseach in the history of the State, Leo Varadkar, TD, will follow up his debut public speaking appearance at Pride last month with a special address on the opening morning of Inspirefest 2017.
Kicking off this Thursday (6 July), Inspirefest will span the course of three days, with the promise of great speakers, arts displays and events covering anything and everything to do with sci-tech.
For those with tickets – or those eager to snap up the last few remaining tickets – Thursday’s schedule will begin after registration at 9am, as founder Ann O’Dea welcomes attendees to the third annual Inspirefest event.
Following this, a fireside chat will be held with O’Dea and Dr France A Córdova, director of the National Science Foundation in the US.
The astrophysicist will provide a fascinating insight into the challenges facing science today both in the US and the world.
Shortly after her talk, the Taoiseach will officially open the proceedings and dive straight into his thoughts on events such as Inspirefest.
Highlights of the event
The next two days – in addition to the free Family Fringe event on the Saturday – are going to be jam-packed with dozens of interesting speakers at hand.
The full schedule is available here but, to pick just a few, Siliconrepublic.com recently highlighted 10 speakers that are sure to catch the eye of attendees.
Among these dignitaries include Tracy Chou, one of the instigators of the shifting perspective in Silicon Valley. In 2013, she wrote a Medium post that challenged tech employers to reveal the number of women engineers they had on staff, demanding that these figures not be hidden away.
We will also hear from Tarah Wheeler, hacker, co-founder, CEO and now ‘website security czar’ at Symantec, whose keynote on ‘Infosec for a Brave New World’ has never been more pertinent, with global cyberattacks making headlines on a regular basis.
An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, TD, speaking at an event for the European People’s Party. Image: European People’s Party/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Inspirefest is Silicon Republic’s international event connecting sci-tech professionals passionate about the future of STEM. Book now to join us from 6 to 8 July in Dublin.
