ALD News: Final speakers announced for Ada Lovelace Day Live!
ALD News: Final speakers announced for Ada Lovelace Day Live!
Plus find out what our speakers will be talking about, and Indie Events near you!
Hi there,
September is continuing to pretend to be summer, confusing all of us here at ALD HQ. But we know that autumn is coming because Ada Lovelace Day is just one month away! Which means that it’s definitely time to get your tickets for our evening of fascinating and fabulous STEM talks, whether you’re joining us in person or watching with others at an Indie Event, or from the comfort of your own home via our livestream.
Standard tickets cost a very affordable £17.03 if you want to attend in person, with discounts for concessions, and Ri Members and Ri Patrons. Tickets for the livestream are provided on a ‘pay what you can’ basis, with the cheapest tier being £5.73.
Introducing our final speakers
Completing our amazing line-up of speakers are Dr Antonia Pontiki, a biomedical engineer at King's College London who will be talking about how 3D printed anatomical models and prostheses are improving both patient outcomes and surgeons’ skills.
And our demo this year will be provided by Rosie Curran Crawley, one of the presenters from the L’Oreal Young Scientist Centre, who will be exploring the world of chemistry.
Our full line up is:
Prof Jennifer Rohn – Why we should all be angrier about urinary tract infection
Urinary tract infection is incredibly common, yet hard to diagnose and treat. We’ll delve into the science behind an under-researched, routinely missed and frequently dismissed affliction that affects millions.
Dr Anjana Khatwa – The Jurassic Coast: Take a leap into deep time
The Jurassic Coast showcases 185m years of Earth history, telling of hot deserts, deep seas and tropical swamps. What can we learn from this unique place, where every step is a leap through deep time?
Dr Sophie Carr, mathematician – Uncertainty, intuition, and superheroes
In a world riddled with uncertainty, our unease is undeniable, but within each of us lies a superpower we can unleash to transform discomfort into confidence.
Dr Aarathi Prasad – Silk
Among those who discovered the secrets of silk-producing animals are women who investigated their history, natural history, and developed technological applications of a material that has fascinated the world for millennia.
Dr Azza Eltraify – Greening the ICT world
Greening the ICT world has emerged as a critical imperative. We must reduce our energy use, extend device lifespans, encourage recycling and responsible e-waste disposal, and much, much more.
Dr Antonia Pontiki – 3D printing artificial organs
3D printed anatomical models can benefit surgeons in improving their skills and confidence in surgery, as well as provide patients with advanced surgical techniques and hence better quality of life.
Rosie Curran Crawley – Women of wonder
Inspired by Jane Marcet’s Conversations on Chemistry, Rosie discusses the importance of relatable and exciting women role models in making science accessible… with the help of a few explosions!
If you’d like to find out more about our speakers and their talks, please pop along to our website! And don’t forget to buy your tickets!
Book stall and book signing
Once again, we have the fabulous Vivian Archer from Newham Books on hand to sell you the very best science books by or about women. The book stall is available from 6:30pm until the performance starts at about 7:30pm.
Dr Aarathi Prasad will also be joining us to sign copies of her newest book, Silk: A History in Three Metamorphoses before the performance. Aarathi is a writer, broadcaster, and researcher interested in the intersection of science and technology with cultures, history, health, and the environment.
What a great opportunity to get some personalised Christmas presents bought early!
Cash bar
The cash bar will be open for the hour before the performance, so we encourage you to get there early, relax with a beverage, and enjoy yourself perusing our book stall or looking around the venerable Royal Institution, where so many momentous scientific discoveries have been announced.
Run your own ALD event!
If you want to put on your own event, then now is the time to get cracking! We’ve seen all sorts of events over the years, from talks to cream teas to Wikipedia edit-a-thons, but this year is the first year that you will be able to organise a live watch party! Yes, for the first time, we are livestreaming the event so you can get a group together to watch!
If you’re wondering how to best organise ticketing, you can either gather numbers ahead of the event and then buy the appropriate number of tickets from Eventbrite, or you can ask attendees to buy their own tickets and check them at the door. Livestream ticketing works on an honour system, so we trust you to buy the right number of tickets.
If you are booking for a single group of ten or more, then feel free to give yourself a 10% discount and book for just nine out of ten attendees. If you’re organising a watch party for any educational institution or you work with any underserved communities or live in a low-income country, then just pay what you can – if that’s one ticket per group, that’s fine. And if you still can’t afford a ticket, drop the Ri a line directly and they will help you out.
Equally, if you can pay a little bit more, there’s an option to include a donation which will go a long way towards ensuring that we and the Ri can continue to support girls and women in STEM no matter where they are or what their background is.
Whatever you organise, don’t forget to let us know by adding it to our map!
Indie events
We already have several independently organised events to tell you about:
Brazil, São Carlos: Ada Lovelace Day, 09:30 – 17:00, 23 September, Universidade de São Paulo. Free or R$10 with coffee.
Costa Rica, Heredia: Ada Lovelace Day Costa Rica 2023, various times, 9-13 October, Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica.
Ghana, Tarkwa: Promoting STEM in young girls through career guidance, 13:00 – 15:00, 10 October, Dakris International School. Free.
UK, London: Ada Lovelace Day: My Fintech Flight Path, 09:00 – 11:00, 10 October, Rise London. Free.
UK, London: Ada Lovelace Day at Google HQ (Maths4Girls), 17:30 – 19:30, 10 October, Google HQ. Invitation only.
UK, Porlock: Cream Tea with Inspirational Women, 14:30 – 15:00, 7 October, Porlock Village Hall, Somerset. £8
Online: AdaCon 2023, 18:00 - 22:00, 10 October. Free.
Online: Stemettes Lunch and Learn, 12:15 – 14:45, 12 October. Free.
Tech She Can are offering live or pre-recorded assemblies for schools around the UK, so if you want to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day at your school, then find out more on the Tech She Can Live Assemblies page.
If you’re organising your own Ada Lovelace Day event, don’t forget to add it to our map!
Huge thanks to our sponsors
Ada Lovelace Day simply wouldn’t be possible without our sponsors, so I’d very much like to thank our venue partner, the Royal Institution, and our media partner, Stylist, as well as our sponsors, Redgate, Arden University, GPL, The Information Lab's Data School and dxw, for their support this year. And yes, you can find our more about them on our website!
All the best,
Suw & the ALD team