Speakers 2010
We proudly present to you the roster of stimulating speakers for the Small Is... Festival 2010. They will be speaking in debates on the contemporary meaning of Small Is Beautiful, economics without growth, managing carbon emissions, mobile phones in the developing world, global trade vs. local markets and on the personal dimension of development:
Andrew Simms
Andrew Simms, dubbed "a master at joined-up progressive thinking" by the New Scientist, is policy director of nef (the new economics foundation) the award-winning UK think-and-do tank, where he heads up the Climate Change and Energy Programme. He has spearheaded many inspiring initiatives including Jubilee 2000, Green New Deal and onehundredmonths.org. He is the author of several books, his latest (co-authored with David Boyle) is 'Eminent Corporations: The Rise and Fall of the Great British Corporation'. Andrew writes on sustainable development and progressive economics in the national press.
Listen to Andrew's talk as MP3 or WMA audio files.
Mark Lynas
Mark Lynas has worked for nearly 10 years as a specialist on climate change. He is author of three popular and award-winning books on climate change, including 'Six Degrees' (2007). He co-wrote and featured in the Age of Stupid film - from which has emanated the 10:10 campaign - and writes frequently for the national press. Recently, Mark was appointed Advisor on Climate Change to the President of the Maldives, who is aiming to make the Maldives the first carbon neutral country in the world - by 2019.
Adam Hart-Davis
Adam Hart-Davis is a famous television and radio presenter, and writer. He is most known (and loved!) for presenting BBC series Local Heroes, and What the Romans Did For Us, followed by subsequent series on the Victorians, Tudors, Stuarts and the Ancients. He currently presents How London Was Built and Just Another Day on the History Channel. Adam is a supporter of Practical Action and is a day-to-day advocate of practical technologies and skills such as bicycles and woodworking.
Video: Adam Hart-Davis at the 2010 Small Is ... festival
Emily Cummins
Emily Cummins, 22, is an award-winning inventor with a passion for sustainable designs that change lives. Her latest innovation is a sustainable fridge which is 'powered' by dirty water but keeps the contents dry and cool. Emily refined her fridge design in African townships before giving away the plans to benefit local people. Named as the Barclays Woman of the Year 2009, Emily is a final year Business Management student and Enterprise Scholar at Leeds University.
Peter Segger
For 30 years Peter Segger's award winning 45 acre farm has produced organic vegetables and salads for its customers. Over that time, Peter has learnt to listen to the soil. He has learnt what it needs are, when he can take from the land and when he can't. He has learnt how to feed the soil so it feeds him and his customers. And he has learnt to do this without fertilizers and at the same time creating a negative carbon footprint. Peter was involved with the Soil Association for over 30 years, working closely with Schumacher himself. His farm used to supply supermarkets but switched to more local supply - box schemes, farm shops and local wholesales.
Shaun Chamberlin
Shaun Chamberlin calls himself the 'Dark Optimist'. He devotes his time to exploring and enabling positive solutions to peak oil and climate change whilst remaining realistic about how far we have still to go to implement them. He is the author of the Transition Timeline and has been long since involved with the Transition Network. Shaun is the TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas) Development Director at the Lean Economy Connection.
Molly Scott Cato
Molly Scott Cato is a Reader in Green Economics at Cardiff School of Management and Director of Cardiff Institute for Co-operative Studies. In 2006 she published Market, Schmarket: Building the Post-Capitalist Economy and her latest book Green Economics: An Introduction to Theory, Policy and Practice was published by Earthscan in 2009. She has also written widely on themes concerned with mutualism, social enterprise, policy responses to climate change, banking and finance, and local economies. Molly is an active member of the Green Party, standing for election at all levels and currently speaking for the Party on economic issues. She is a Director of Transition Stroud and co-ordinates its Lifestyles and Livelihoods working group, with whom she launched a local currency in Stroud in 2009. She is also on the core group of Stroud Community Agriculture and is a Director of Stroud Common Wealth.
Malcolm Harper
Malcolm Harper is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to microfinance. His expertise covers microenterprise, microfinance, financial inclusion, and livelihoods promotion. Malcolm has been involved with a large number of microenterprise and microfinance programmes worldwide. Amongst these are Basix - a livelihood promotion institution in India - and M-CRIL - who work on financial inclusion - with whom he is currently working. Before these, he was professor of Enterprise Development at Cranfield School of Management. Malcolm has experienced working with most international donors and governments. He has authored and edited books advocating microfinance.
Ken Banks
Founder of kiwanja.net, which helps non-profits utilise mobile technologies to empower and engender positive social and environmental change in developing countries. Ken has worked for over two decades in all over Africa providing the tools for grassroots, bottom-up organisations to better carry out their work. His research recently yielded the award-winning FrontlineSMS service, which facilitates on the ground communication, and is now implemented in over 50 countries worldwide.
Sebastian Wood
Sebastian Wood is the grandson of Fritz Schumacher, author of Small is Beautiful and founder of Practical Action, and he is passionate about sustainability and development. He is a chartered structural engineer, has an MA from Forum for the Future and is involved in a charity (Codep) which is building libraries in Sierra Leone in which he has been vigorously espousing the principles that lie behind the Practical Action approach to development.
Video: an extract from Sebastian Wood's talk at the 2010 Small Is ... festival
Simon Trace
Simon is the current CEO of Practical Action. Prior to this, he was Strategic Development Director for the UK NGO WaterAid. A civil engineer by training, Simon also studied anthropology. His career has principally been in community development, in the fields of soil and water conservation and sanitation, and he has spent time with a number of agencies, including periods of secondment to CARE and Unicef. Simon spent a total of 10 years in Zambia and Nepal prior to moving to London to take up a series of positions with WaterAid, including Asia Regional Manager and Head of International Operations.
Margaret Gardner
Margaret Gardner is Marketing and Communications Director of Practical Action. She leads her team in the areas of fundraising, supporter care, communication, campaigning, impact though knowledge sharing and Education. She is also on the board of Practical Action Publishing. She continues to be excited by the role technology can play in poverty reduction and ambitious for Practical Action's work. Prior to joining Practical Action she worked for Traidcraft where she helped establish their Overseas Business Development Service, developed wholesale markets, initiated and grew their international work in market access and had responsibility for the Traidcraft product range.
