Speaker bios

We are delighted to be welcoming the following keynote speakers to the Festival of Sust(AI)nable Education.

Sir Mark Lowcock, KCB

British economist and Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development. He served as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator between 2017 and 2021. Previously, he was the Permanent Secretary of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) from June 2011 to September 2017. He has written opinion articles for national and international newspapers and authored two books. He was knighted in 2017 for public service, particularly to International Development.

Jean-Christophe Carteron

President at Sulitest, Board Member of different NGOs, Foundations, and Social enterprise, he is a leading actor in working groups mainly focused on social responsibility for higher education institutions (UN PRME, Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative, SDSN). In charge of the international projects of the SD commission of the Conférence des Grandes Ecoles, he was the French representative of higher education at the Rio + 20 summit in 2012 and became special advisor of what will become the most important voluntary contribution of this summit: HESI. Passionate about systemic approaches and convinced of the central place of education, he co- founded Sulitest.

Sir Anthony Seldon, FRSA, FRHistS, FKC

Leading educationalist, adviser to 10 Downing Street, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham (2015 to 2020), current Headmaster of Epsom College (2023 to Sep 2024), author of "The fourth education revolution reconsidered: will artificial intelligence liberate or infantilise humanity?", and founder of the AI in education website www.ai-in-education.co.uk. He has written and edited over 40 books on education, contemporary history, and politics including biographies of John Major, Tony Blair and David Cameron. He was knighted in 2014 for services to education and modern political history.

Sophia (Hanson Robotics)

The first robot citizen of the world, Hanson Robotics’ most advanced human-like robot. A unique combination of science, engineering, and artistry, Sophia is simultaneously a human-crafted science fiction character depicting the future of AI and robotics, and a platform for advanced robotics and AI research.