Theme: Through My Eyes

Human beings are innately sociable creatures; we’re hardwired to seek out meaning in relationships and one of the most valuable abilities a person can have is the ability to imagine what it must be like to be someone else – to see through their eyes. It’s the driving force behind empathy, forming relationships and ultimately building groups, businesses, communities and nations.

When we come together as humans, we can achieve a great deal. Anything that improves our ability to see through someone else’s eyes is crucial to our success and to the success of any venture on which we embark.

We may have different perspectives, we may come from different traditions and cultures, but when we come together, sharing each other’s viewpoints and feelings, there’s no end to the potential that we can unlock.

We’ve assembled a fascinating range of speakers whose ideas and approaches address many different aspects of seeing through somebody else’s eyes - from futurism and the way that businesses evolve to the problems faced by children growing up in other cultures, from mental toughness to the mindset needed to innovate and invent.

It’s an eclectic mix but one very much in tune with the underlying theme of this event.

Hessle High School
Tranby House
Heads Lane
Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, HU13 0JQ
United Kingdom

Colin Pinks

Colin is a speaker, facilitator, mentor and educator. He has always been passionate about communication and how humans work together. Whether creating interfaces between humans and technology or exploring how actors work together to tell stories on stage, he helps individuals and organisations make the most of their potential by communicating, collaborating and creating more effectively. Colin’s work improves performance and promotes growth through a better understanding of human behaviours by connecting people, ideas and disciplines, he melds business, technology, science, sport, psychology and theatre to improve the way we think, behave, work and innovate. He has worked with a wide spectrum of clients, from senior members of HM Government to waste collectors in Leeds.

Dean Windass

Dean Windass, born in Hull, East Yorkshire, grew up in the Gipsyville area of the city and became a professional footballer for Hull City, Middlesborough, Aberdeen and Bradford City. He became an overnight sensation after scoring the all-important winning goal that sent his hometown club Hull City into the Premiership for the first time in their history during the Wembley Play Off Final in 2008. Dean played for Hull City in 3 spells and has been voted the 4th best player of all time by Hull City fans. He also enjoyed 2 spells at Bradford City, and is the club’s 3rd highest goal scorer of all time. Dean retired from football in 2009 at the age of 40, after a lengthy career spanning 20 years, that saw him make over 700 appearances scoring more than 200 goals and playing for 9 clubs. Off the pitch Dean’s personal battle with depression and alcohol is well documented. Following the death of his father, life after football became very hard which came to a head with two attempted suicides and a period in rehab. Dean is now bouncing back, building up a media career as a sports commentator and after dinner guest speaker and has become Hull City Club Ambassador, the club’s first official appointment of this role.

Eric Hunter

Eric is the Executive Director of the global futurist consultancy Spherical Models LLC and is the Director of Knowledge, Technology and Innovation with the law firm Bradford & Barthel, LLP. Eric's background is in music and the high tech corporate world, and blends these perspectives towards continual creative innovations within business driven initiatives. For the past 7 years Eric has worked with organisations across the world such as Google, IBM, TEDx, the Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, KM Asia, KM Europe, KM Congress in India, Social Now in Portugal and many more. He is the recipient of The Global KM Congress’ 2015 ‘Global Knowledge Leadership Award’ and ILTA’s 2010 ‘Knowledge Management Champion’ Distinguished Peer and ILTA’s 2010 ‘Innovation’ awards. Eric was on the editorial board for Managing Partner Magazine, and published the book: “The Sherlock Syndrome, Strategic Success through Big Data and the Darwinian Disruption” with the Ark Group. Eric's TedX talk on the book in Pocklington, UK is entitled: "Harmony and Analytics: Building Predictive Organizations". Eric recently was interviewed at IBM's World of Watson in "TheCUBE"

Gavin Ingham

Gavin Ingham is a motivational speaker and conference speaker specialising in mental toughness, sales and motivation for leaders, business executives and sales teams. His straight-talking approach to mindset change helps his clients get better results in both their businesses and their lives. He’s given over 1,700 paid talks to over 200,000 delegates, spoken in nearly every county in England, all over Europe and in the US and Africa, and has appeared on US TV networks ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. He’s a judge for the British Excellence in Sales and Marketing Awards (BESMA), has keynoted three times at the prestigious National Sales Conference and is a Fellow of the ISM. He is the author of three books and numerous multi-media programmes. He is the founder of the “I am 10” success philosophy and his insights, tips and advice are shared by high-performing professionals, business leaders and organisations around the world to achieve commercial success. His blog is one of the top 25 sales blogs in the world and he has contributed to leading industry magazines such as the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management’s Winning Edge magazine, the national press (including the Guardian and the Financial Times) and TV. His client base runs from small SMEs to the likes of Jaguar, UBS, the Royal Bank of Canada, Microsoft and Renault Trucks. This gives him a valuable insight into what it takes to give his clients a good event and the results they want.

James Luke

James Luke is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and Master Inventor. James has extensive experience delivering cognitive and analytics solutions in Defence, Law Enforcement, Insurance and many other industries. He’s currently the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the Global Business Services' Public Sector account in the UK and Ireland. James has held several key leadership roles within IBM including Chief Architect for Watson Tools and has over 20 years’ experience in the delivery of machine learning and cognitive systems. Before he joined IBM, he worked as an AI consultant with Data Sciences. James has a degree, in Electronic Engineering Systems, which he obtained while serving with the Royal Navy. He also has a PhD from the University of Southampton in the Application of Intelligent Agents in Information Systems Protection. He is also a very experienced conference speaker and a prolific inventor with many patent applications filed and eight patents awarded.

Jedidiah Silud

Jedidiah Silud is 24 years old and an entrepreneur working on her venture 'third culture kid global' dedicated to raising awareness of - and connecting - third culture kids. Her communities can be found on Instagram @tckglobal, on Facebook, YouTube (Jay the TCK) and on the citizens-of-the-world Slack community. She’s a Third Culture Kid herself; she was born in Manila, moved to Guangzhou at the age of 3, Beijing at the age of 7, Hong Kong at the age of 18 and London at the age of 20. She’s attended six schools in total, five of those international. She recently left Entrepreneur First where she was working on a venture in the AI HR industry to pursue her passion for third culture kids. She has a Masters degree in International Business (Marketing specialisation), a BA (Hons) in Fashion Marketing and Management and a BA in Fashion Design. She has been a guest speaker at GSM London, where she spoke to business and events management BA students, as an “inspirational student” speaker. She loves leading multicultural teams, networking and building communities. She enjoys building things up from scratch. She has a knack for building relationships and maintaining them. She’s also a big fan of innovation, especially in relation to technology and her interests include constantly learning through unconventional ways, especially through travel and culture.

Nelson Phillips

Professor Phillips is currently the co-editor with Markus Perkmann of Innovation: Organisation and Management. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Management Inquiry, Editor-in-Chief of Innovation: Organisation & Management, and the Editor of the Cambridge Elements Series in Organisational Theory. He was formerly a senior editor at Organisation Studies.. He was also the chair of the OMT Division Executive Committee of the Academy of Management in 2016. Professor Phillips teaches courses in strategy, organisation behaviour, innovation, and leadership at the undergraduate and graduate level. In addition, he is very active in executive education where he has been involved in programme design and delivery for a wide range of clients. He has published more than 100 academic articles and book chapters. He has also written four books and is currently working on a book on the use of linguistic research methods in management.