Theme: Uncharted Waters

With our world becoming increasingly complex and filled with environmental, political, economic and social problems, innumerable issues are being overlooked, their significance underestimated and their potential global impact ignored. Resolving these complex issues requires us to challenge traditional views and explore new perspectives. ‘Uncharted Waters’ aims to uncover little-known territories and focus on how innovative ways of thinking can help us to overcome the difficulties we are faced with.

We aim to pinpoint those individuals who have pioneered breakthrough solutions in the arts, humanities and the sciences. These people have the power to inspire our communities, spark a chain of new ideas and drive change on a global scale. Their achievements and discoveries will challenge your thoughts and show you how a single idea can have an everlasting impact.

Butterworth Hall
Warwick Arts Centre
University of Warwick
Coventry, Coventry, CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

My Dog Sighs

Street Artist

Paul Stone, otherwise known as ‘My Dog Sighs’, is an artist who painstakingly evolves objects perceived as rubbish and places them back in society for strangers to find. Using objects like tin cans, once the receptacle of our sustenance, all too quickly rejected and abandoned by a throwaway society keen to gorge on the new - his art stands in sharp contrast. As we move ever forward into an era of disposable friendships and lost dreams, questions of value will be brought to light as we decide how we will live out our lives.

Aissa Edon

Midwife & Founder of Hope Clinic

At just six years old, Aissa and her younger sister endured Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Mali. While she was able to receive reconstructive surgery, the psychological impact of FGM has been very strong. Through her work at an FGM-specific clinic in Ealing Hospital, she hopes to save the sisters of others by educating communities.

Cecilia Knapp

Spoken Word Writer & Performer

Cecilia Knapp is a writer, spoken word performer and poet. Her words have often been featured on the media, such as on BBC radio 1 and 1Xtra and Roundhouse Radio. Cecilia believes in the power of writing and sharing stories as a means for people to express themselves, particularly when it comes to social stigmas.

David Tuckett

Psychoanalysis Professor & Author

Working across Economics, Medical Sociology and Psychoanalysis, David Tuckett is a Professor and Director of the Centre for the Study of Decision-Making Uncertainty at University College London. Since winning a 2006 Leverhulme Research fellowship for a 'psychoanalytic study of investment markets', David has focused on using psychoanalysis to understand behaviour in financial markets and the economy. His book, Minding the Markets: An Emotional Finance View of Financial Stability, opened new ways of thinking about economics and finance.

Fergal Coulter

4D Printing Researcher

After working as a freelance system designer, printmaker and musician, Fergal Coulter now specialises in designing a system capable of 4D printing silicone artificial muscles, which contain varying levels of elastic strain throughout the object's layers. His research interests include cardiac assist devices, soft robotics, printed electronics, bio-sensors, and 3D printing and scanning on inflated structures.

Jonathan Rossiter

Robotics Professor

Jonathan is a Professor of Robotics, and head of the Soft Robotics group at Bristol Robotics Laboratory. Jonathan highlights the importance of applying improved versions of the processes we observe in living organisms to robotics. One example of this way of thinking can be found in the Row-bot. Developed at Bristol and based on the water boatman, an aquatic insect that feeds on algae and dead plants, the Row-bot is a tiny robot that powers itself by swallowing dirty water.

Josephat Torner

Albino Activist

Josephat is an albino activist, who has dedicated his life to raising awareness and acceptance towards albinos in his home country of Tanzania. Albinos in Tanzania are at constant risk of persecution and murder by those in their country, who believe that their body parts should be sold to witchdoctors in order to bring wealth. Josephat teaches the albino community what they can achieve, empowering them to get an education, raise families, start businesses, and live like everybody else. He has set up UN demonstrations and his efforts have resulted in albino children being enrolled in schools, as well as an educational community centre and funds to provide material aid.

Justin Wren

Mixed Martial Arts Professional

A champion Greco-Roman wrestler, Justin's life changed when he traveled to Congo to help the Pygmies. This ethnic group, indigenous to Africa, is preyed upon by armed rebels, being killed, raped and even eaten. Having fought for himself as an MMA fighter for his entire life, Justin is now determined to fight for the Pygmies.

Mark Salter

Psychiatry Consultant

Mark Salter is a consultant in adult general psychiatry in Hackney, East London. He has worked as a writer and broadcaster on the BBC and ITV, and has produced both films and stage work related to mental illness. He has a special interest in the misrepresentation of violence in psychotic illness in the media, and the teaching of media skills to mental health professionals.

Natalie Lawrence

Natural History Researcher

Natalie is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, who has been working on the construction of novel creatures in natural history, and the intertwining of the emblematic and observational in modern natural history. In the well-documented outrage that erupted when an American dentist killed Cecil the lion, the trophy hunter was labelled a ‘monster’. Natalie explores notions of the monstrous, and how they tie into ideas about morality.

Patrizia Kowalak

Contemporary Dancer

Patrizia is a dancer and choreographer, who has performed for rock bands, advertisements, and got her big break when she took part in the German television programme, Got to Dance. Her dance style is distinctive, as she combines ballet, modern dance, jazz, hip-hop, breakdance and acrobatics.

Pierre Paslier

Design Engineer

Pierre is a designer, engineer, and co-founder of Gravity Sketch and Skipping Rocks Lab. As a young designer, Pierre has created many products that have been recognised by his industry. In 2014, he won the James Dyson Fellowship for ‘Gravity Sketch’, and two SustainAwards and a World Technology Award for ‘Ooho!’. Through ‘Gravity Sketch’, a 3D sketching app, Pierre aims to change the way we create 3D. While Pierre’s successes are admirable, he believes everyone can be a designer. We are all capable of dreaming of ideas, but we need the right technology to bring our concepts to life. Through his creations, and the links to 3D printing, he hopes to enable everyone to become a designer.

Redouan Ait Chitt

Professional Breakdancer

Without any medical explanation, Redouan Ait Chitt (better known as Redo) was born with several physical malformations. Despite these complications, he never allowed his situation to negatively impact his life. In pursuit of his dreams, Redo has taken part in national and international competitions, creating a name for himself in the dance community. As a professional breakdancer, he now spreads his passion for dance under the motto “no excuses, no limits”.

Robin Carhart-Harris

Medical Researcher

After completing his PhD at the University of Bristol in 2009, Robin moved to Imperial College London, where he has worked for the last few years on the brain effects of LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and MDMA, conducting some pioneering brain imaging studies of these drugs. Most recently he has completed the first phase of a clinical trial looking at the potential of psilocybin to treat major depression.

Rosie Allen

Transformational Coach

Rosie Allen is a transformational coach and writer, specialising in gender-based abuse. Having worked with victims of abuse, Rosie is now turning her focus to emphasising the role bystanders have in social issues.

Shelley Gilbert

Author & Founder of Grief Encounter

Dame Shelley Gilbert MBE is the founder and CEO of Grief Encounter, one of the UK's leading bereaved child charities. She set the charity up 10 years ago, following the public reaction to a book that she wrote called 'Grief Encounter'. Her aim is to encourage children and adults to have conversations about death, having grown up in a conspiracy of silence herself when she was orphaned at 9 years old.

Thomas Muirhead

Digital Expert & Managing Director of Child.org

As Managing Director of innovative non-profit Child.org - a charity that’s determined to put social entrepreneurship at the heart of their income generation strategy - Thomas is well placed to takes a bold position on how we bring about positive social change in the world. He strongly believes the amount of resource, time and effort we currently commit to solving the world’s problems won’t get us very far. He advocates a reconfiguring and repositioning of the non-profit sector - blurring the lines with what we currently consider the for-profit sector. Throughout his career Thomas has always balanced work in a range of non-profit organisations with an entrepreneurial series of side projects, from a digital agency, tech startups to music and retail projects. This combination of entrepreneurship and social good is what he believes will take us Beyond Giving.