Chris Michaels - Director of Digital, Communications & Technology, National Gallery

Leading digital transformation in the cultural sector. Chris sits on the National Gallery board with a remit to bring real, meaningful and lasting change to an institution which will be 200 years old in 2024. Immersive media, particularly VR, holds rich potential for the arts. He was previously Head of Digital at the British Museum, where he completed VR partnerships with Samsung, with Oculus Rift/Facebook and with Google.

Prior to that Chris was CEO at childrens' education mobile startup Mindshapes. Backed by Index Ventures and some of the world's greatest gaming entrepreneurs, Mindshapes released over 40 apps with partners including the BBC and the Jim Henson Company; winning multiple awards and delighting children and families around the world.

Chris has previously been an SVP at international media company Chorion; Digital Publisher at HarperCollins, and started professional life in advertising. He has a PHD in American Literature from the University of Bristol.

Jon Meggitt - CEO - Arcade

Arcade is an award-winning digital practice that specialises in using immersive technologies to create more meaningful connections between people and the spaces, places and objects around them. We work with a variety of sectors including heritage, arts & culture, visitor attractions, brands, retail, events and more, helping them to tell their stories and engage their audiences in new, immersive, three-dimensional ways.

We were given a boost early in our life when we were selected as one of ten businesses on Digital Catapult’s Augmentor programme in 2018, and since then we have grown into a practice with a broad and deep set of creative, technical and operational expertise which we have applied to a wide variety of client challenges, using technologies and platforms including computer vision, deep neural net machine learning, image and object recognition, SLAM, ARKit, ARCore, WebAR, Magic Leap, Lens Studio, Spark AR, Unity, Unreal and more.

Arcade has its roots in architecture, with two of the founders, Jon Meggitt and Simon Hobbs, having met during their architectural studies in the late 90’s. Architecture gave them a passion for place and an appreciation of three-dimensional environments, which they took into FUSE, the pioneering digital agency they founded, built and eventually sold to IPG.

Their exit from IPG coincided with the emergence of high quality, mass-accessible mobile AR in 2016, and both were excited by the obvious potential of the technology as an entirely new way to combine their two passions: digital experience and physical space. Arcade was born, with immersive technology at its heart and a powerful founding philosophy of “Connecting People to Place through Play”.

To date Arcade has won prestigious awards for our work with multiple clients including SEA LIFE and Welsh National Opera, was identified as one of the UK’s leading creative industries ‘Ones to Watch’ by the Creative Industries Council in 2019 and 2020, and become founder members of Immerse UK in 2020. Arcade’s founder team were named amongst 2020’s best creative industries business leaders by Great British Entrepreneurs.

Dr Jo Twist OBE - CEO, UKIE (Association for UK Interactive Entertainment)

I've been CEO of Ukie since 2012. Before this I was Channel 4’s Commissioning Editor for Education, where I commissioned Digital Emmy-winning Battlefront II, free to play browser and iOS games, (Sweatshop, Nomnation and International Racing Squirrels) and social media projects. I'm a London Tech Ambassador, a VP of Special Effect, and am on various boards and advisory groups, including the Bafta Games Committee.