If you’d like me to speak at your event, biog & notes are here – please email me. I undertake paid and unpaid speaking, depending on the context.
I am as comfortable on stage with the President of the World Bank at their spring meeting (left); at the G8 (below); in front of a room of C-Suite executives; at a hacker gathering defining new standards, or at an arts festival talking about the intersection of astrophysics, music and algorithms.
I have been recognised as one of the most influential people in data: winning awards for innovation and expertise, as a member of the UK Smart Smart London Board, the Ministry of Justice Data, Science and Evidence Board, and as a London Tech Ambassador.
I present at public and private events on impact@web-scale; the impact of data and the web on businesses, countries and society; how entrepreneurship and policy can meet; bringing clarity and meaning to language (open banking, open data, smart data, algorithms, internet of things, artificial intelligence, personal data); how culture, innovation and tech collide.
Talks engage audiences around the impact of data and the web on society: on businesses and governments; on the economy, environment and society; the potential of new business models, government policy, startup innovation, standards and communications. They provide direct, practical examples from my personal experience developing world-leading initiatives such as the Open Data Institute and the Open Banking Standard.
Audience feedback often highlights being inspired, learning something new, changing the way they perceive an issue, or developing a new idea or innovation that they would like to pursue.
I undertake both paid and unpaid talks and panels: please be clear about your event upfront. If you would like me to speak at your event, please email gavin@dgen.net.
Selection of recorded presentations
If you’d like to learn more about me in 2019 I was selected for a Longplayer Conversation at the British Library, introduced by Sophie Fiennes and Michael Morris, with Jem Finer, founder of Longplayer.org. Previous conversations included Sir David Attenborough, James Lovelock, Laurie Anderson and Brian Eno. The [audio+slides] recording is in the gallery above.
- 2020 and ongoing, please see https://ib1.org/events/ (e.g. COP, Davos, etc)
- Previous
- 2020 Jan 27, Chair, private round table, ‘Creating a Data Ethics Board’, London, UK
- 2020 Jan 22, Icebreaker One launch session in collaboration with WEF, Davos, Switzerland
- 2019 Dec 04, Global Open Finance Summit, Edinburgh, UK
- 2019 Nov 28, The Longplayer Conversation 2019: Jem Finer and Gavin Starks, British Library, London, UK
- 2019 Oct 24, Innovation in Fintech, The Telegraph Technology Intelligence, London, UK
- 2019 Sep 21-23, IcebreakerOne.org opens at the UN Climate Action Summit, UNHQ, New York, USA
- 2019 Jul 10, IcebreakerOne.org private round table — catalysing the development of a digital ecosystem for the environment, House of Lords, London, UK
- 2019 Jul 9, All Party Parliamentary Group for Longevity — A National Strategy for improving Healthy Life Expectancy, Millbank, London, UK
- 2019 Jul 3, Exploiting the Data Economy, Advance Series, Bird & Bird, London, UK
- 2019 Jun 20, Longplayer Day [opening talk], Goldsmiths, London, UK
- 2019 Jun 11, Icebreaker One, CogX, London, UK
- 2019 May 17, Icebreaker One launch, UN Disaster Risk Reduction Global Platform, Geneva, Switzerland
- 2019 Apr 16, Introduction to Icebreaker One, Earth Day, Somerset House, London, UK
- 2019 Apr 8, Challenge & feedback to Extinction Rebellion, Newspeak House, London, UK
- 2019 Feb 27-29, Open Banking, FinTech Invitational Forum, Northwind Professional Institute, Cambridge, CA
- 2018 Dec 6-7, Open Banking Innovation, Global Open Banking Summit, Edinburgh, UK
- 2018 Oct 13, Climate Change – what’s next?, Opening Keynote, DesCon, Belgrade, Serbia
- 2018 Sep 17, ’10 years after the Global Financial Crisis’, Transparency Task Force, London, UK
- 2018 Sep 6, ‘Should you be thinking about data differently?’, The Forum (private event), Royal Mail, London, UK
- 2018 Sep 4, Chair, ‘Data With A Purpose? Tech Won’t Save Us’, Disruption Summit Europe, London, UK
- 2018 Sep 3, ‘License to click’, Interview with Kathryn Ryan, Nine to Noon, Radio New Zealand
- 2018 Jun 14, Data is the infrastructure of our future: how do we design for it?, Private roundtable, Wellington, NZ
- 2018 Jun 12, The future of data: what’s in store for society, culture & innovation?, Public talk, Rutherford House, Wellington, NZ
- 2018 Apr 29, Long-term thinking, 2x one-hour conversations, Time Unwrapped, Longplayer, Kings Place, London — event postponed
- 2018 Apr 18, Launch of new report: ‘Can government stop losing its mind?‘, Nesta, London, UK
- 2018 Apr 16, Developing the Digital Economy, Commonwealth Business Forum, CHOGM, London, UK
- 2018 Jan 25-26 Judge and speaker for $500K SDG hackathon prize, Future Hack, Davos, Switzerland
- 2017 Dec 01 Closing keynote & fireside conversation, Open innovation in Media, Warsaw, Poland
- 2017 Nov 17 Data and the future of Health & Care: unlocking open innovation, Government Office for Science, London, UK
- 2017 Nov 16 Culture; data; art, Royal College of Art (RCA), London, UK
- 2017 Oct 23-26 Four talks in Seoul, Korea
- Neotopia: Data and Humanity special session: Imagining Data for the Coexistence of Humans and Machines, Art Centre Nabi; Ministry of Culture; Korea CCA.
- How to create value with open data, CODE (formerly Creative Commons Korea)
- Data innovation in Government, National Information Agency
- Data innovation in business and startups, Yonsei University Business School
- 2017 Oct 5 – Cup Club wins Ellen Macarthur Foundation Award, #OurOceans, Malta
- 2017 Oct 4 – Ethical codes for a digital age, Breakout, Shard, London, UK
- 2017 Sep 29 – Impact@web-scale – private launch event, Lyon, France
- 2017 Aug 07 – Organising the memory of Government – DCMS, London, UK
- 2017 July 06 – Acoustic Cosmology – Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) National Astronomy Meeting (NAM)
- 2017 May 25 – Closing the Climate Protection Gap, Oasis, Edelman, London, UK
- 2017 Mar 29 – Social Investment Data – Acumen Impact Circle
- 2017 Feb 24 – The Future of Data – DMA Direct Marketing Association, London, UK
- Pre-2017, dozens of presentations globally while running the Open Data Institute and AMEE
above: US Secretary of Agriculture’s panel on data privacy
Previous talks (selection)
- Open Government Partnership, G8 meeting, Lancaster House, London, UK
- The future of data, British Embassy, Tokyo, Japan
- Data as culture, Churchill Room, HM Treasury, London, UK
- The open data revolution, World Bank, Washington DC, USA
- Open data, European Commission, Brussels, Belgium
- ‘State of the Nation’, for 8 years and counting, at OpenTech, London
- Open data, Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Malta
- Open data impact, US Secretary of Agriculture’s roundtable: open data for agriculture and nutrition, World Food Prize, Iowa, USA
- Innovation in the Internet of Things and Industrial Internet – Private Residence of the Ambassador of Finland, UK
- The data revolution (keynote), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Cartagena, Colombia
- Social impact data, Gates Foundation, Washington, USA
- The future of data, Aspen Institute, Aspen, USA – Knight Foundation
- How the Web of Data is Changing Business, Government … and Lives – Verge, San Jose, USA
- Data as Culture, University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- City data infrastructure, Mayor’s Office, GLA, London, UK
- The future of data, Wired conference, London, UK
- Open data infrastructure, OpenUP, Omidyar conference, London, UK
- The future is open data (keynote), Cloud Expo Europe, London, UK
- Open data in Finance – Hatton Garden, London, UK
- Data-driven sports innovation – Science Museum, IMAX London, UK – Sport England
- Business innovation with data – Henley Business School, UK
- The Age of Social Machines – Privacy and Trust in the Era of Big Data Analytics – Web Science Institute, UK
- The Digital Economy – Imperial College London, UK
- Data for everyone, Future Everything, Manchester, UK
- Data for the web of things, IoT Expo, London, UK
- Data for open government, both Conservative and Labour party conferences, UK
- Music and open culture – the future of music business models, Music 4.5, London, UK
these are a small selection from hundreds of presentations, panels and roundtables.
Examples of talks and interviews
How the Web of Data is Changing Business, Government … and Lives – Verge, San Jose, USA
- Hosting the Open Data Institute Summit at the BFI, London
- Interview at Strata London 2012 following my talk
- TEDxEast 2010: Codifying sustainability. Open environmental data to tackle climate change.
- Providing evidence to the UK Government select committee on the impact of ‘big data’
- Reuters on the Road: open data, business, universities and government
Presenting at the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) 2017 National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) on acoustic cosmology
