Leeds tech – it’s worth shouting about

Leeds BID, International Festival Launch

Leeds International Festival is bringing its three-strand celebration of Leeds industries to the city between 22-30 April 2017.

Alongside Moving Image and Music strands, the festival will showcase a colourful and diverse ‘Tech’ strand, curated by Sky’s head of digital, Natasha Sayce-Zelem.

Topping the bill will be a massive conference day called ‘Empowering Women with Tech’. This will feature some of the industry’s most remarkable voices, including Lauren Laverne (multi-award winning broadcaster and founder of The Pool – “a platform for women too busy to browse”), Susanna Lau (face of Susie Bubble, the ultra-successful British fashion blog Style Bubble), and Anne-Marie Imafidon OBE (co-founder of award-winning social enterprise stemettes.org), amongst many other pioneering female faces.

The Tech strand is made up of countless exciting events, from a Hey! Conference to a VR discovery and hackday, to a game devday, to Make, Believe: a day for kids exploring the future of tech. One of perhaps the most radical talks is set to be “Biohacking, Cyberpunk and Hacker culture”, with Keren Elazari and Hannes Sjoblad. Keren explores how we might harness the power of hackers for good, and explores how fiction influences the reality of hacker culture, even today.

Susanna Lau, face of Susie Bubble, and Lauren Laverne, founder of The Pool

Elazari said: “I’m excited to visit Leeds for the first time and for the opportunity to bring the “CyberPunk Express” to the Leeds International Festival! My talk will show how hacking has become a new superpower in the 21st century, a power that can positively impact millions, if we learn how to harness it and work with friendly hackers.

“I’d love to see more women inspired to follow in the footsteps of infamous hacker ladies of fiction, like I was, and it’s really cool too that this festival has so many female tech speakers – the tide is turning!”

Natasha Sayce-Zelem, Tech strand curator, has created a more gender diverse line-up than audience members might expect at a tech festival.

Sayce-Zelem said: “Great innovation, disruption and creativity are the result of diversity. We’re proud that over 67% of the speakers in the Tech strand events are female”. This is particularly prescient when we remember that only 17% of IT professionals are women, and less than 10% of these are in leadership roles.

Leeds International Festival’s line up is set to be as pioneering as it is considered. See more information about Festival events at http://leedsinternationalfestival.com/.

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