Hilary O'Shaughnessy - Director of Commissioning, Unboxed: Creativity in the UK

Hilary O’Shaughnessy is Director of Commissioning for UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK. UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK is a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of creativity, taking place across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and online from March to October 2022. UNBOXED is a multiple strand, multi-disciplinary Programme of ten flagship STEAM commissions, created by brilliant minds working in unexpected collaborations. Previously Hilary, worked at Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio where she lead the international Playable City Programme, and the Humans and Robots in Public Space Programme.

Jen Crook - Director, Dreamachine

Jennifer Crook is the Director of Collective Act, leading the creative vision and delivery of ‘Dreamachine’ - a one-of-a-kind immersive experience created in collaboration with Turner Prize-winning artists Assemble, Grammy and Mercury-nominated composer Jon Hopkins and a team of leading technologists, scientists and philosophers - commissioned as part of Unboxed: Creativity in the UK.

Jennifer has led critically acclaimed public projects for festivals and arts organisations around the world, including Artichoke, 14-18 NOW, Burning Man and the London 2012 Festival. She has nearly two decades’ experience creating ambitious and award-winning interdisciplinary commissions in a diverse range of locations, from rooftops to pavements, and clifftops to forest floors, collaborating with artists including Olafur Eliasson, Danny Boyle, Christo and Jeanne-Claude and Jeremy Deller.

From building (and burning) a 72ft community-built temple in a contested interface area set between Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland, to re-enacting the largest rebellion of enslaved people in US history in the Deep South at a time of deep political and social division, Jennifer has built an international reputation for working collaboratively with artists to realise their ambitions and make the impossible, possible. She is driven by the ethos of creating transformative participatory events that build connections and show the very real potential for art to create change.

Carl Robertshaw - Design Director, PoliNations

Carl’s work has been celebrated on world stages such as The Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show, The Royal Opera House, Glastonbury, the Commonwealth Games and the 2012 London Olympic ceremonies. Carl has collaborated with artists such as Björk, ANOHNI, Kylie Minogue, Hussein Chalayan and has been commissioned by MoMA NY, The Hayward Gallery and The London Design Biennale. Carl was instrumental in developing the Hatchling, potentially the world's largest non-mechanical flying puppet, which led the procession for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Carl is leading in the creation of PoliNations, a groundbreaking multidisciplinary public art installation in the heart of Birmingham this summer celebrating diversity through performance, live plants, light and sound, mass participation, sanctuary spaces, local voices, nature and spectacle.

Prof. James Bennett - Dean, Faculty of Design and Society UTS & ex-Director, CoSTAR National Lab, UK’s largest ever investment in creative industries R&D

Professor James Bennett is Dean of the Faculty of Design and Society at University of Technology Sydney. Previously he was Associate Pro Vice Chancellor (Creative Industries) at Royal Holloway and Director of CoSTAR National Lab, UK’s largest ever investment in creative industries R&D, partnering with Pinewood, BT, University of Surrey, Abertay University and the National Film and Television School. He is he founding Director of StoryFutures Strategic Business Unit at Royal Holloway, an interdisciplinary unit for delivering industry-facing R&D and training. His leadership of StoryFutures has delivered 3 of the UK’s highest profile immersive R&D projects at Royal Holloway: StoryFutures Creative Cluster; StoryFutures Academy: National Centre for Immersive Storytelling and StoryTrails: The People’s Metaverse. Alongside CoSTAR, StoryFutures is currently delivering the groundbreaking £12m UKRI doctoral training centre in AI for digital media inclusion with the University of Surrey.He has led and delivered grants and awards across commercial and public sectors totalling over £85m, winning funding from across the UK research council spectrum (from AHRC to EPSRC, British Council to Innovate), national government departments (DCMS), creative industries arm’s length bodies (BFI), and local economic partners (EM3, Surrey County Council), as well as commercial R&D partners (Niantic, Meta, Discovery).Across this work he has led and delivered successful R&D partnerships with organisations including The National Gallery, the BBC, the BFI, Niantic, Heathrow, Epic, ILM and many more.He is the former Head of Media Arts (2014/15-2016/17) and a Professor in Digital Culture & Television. He was formerly the Principal Investigator on the 'Social Media as Television Production Technology' project as part of Royal Holloway's ADAPT TV History research. His work focuses on the production cultures and shape of television and celebrity in digital culture. His latest edited collection, Media Independence: Working with freedom or working for free (Routledge, 2014), examines the role independence plays in the formation and role of media systems around the world.Prior to these roles he was Principal Investigator on a 2-year AHRC grant, multiplatforming public service broadcasting (AH-H018522-2), which examined the role independents and multiplatform productions play in the future of PSB (2010-2012). This produced the industry report: Multiplatforming Public Service Broadcasting. He was one of the founding editors of Celebrity Studies Journal, leading the organisation of the inaugural and second Celebrity Studies Conference in 2012 and 2014.He is the author of Television Personalities: Stardom and the Small Screen (Routledge, 2010) and the editor (with Niki Strange) of Television as Digital Media (Duke University Press, 2011) and (with Tom Brown) Film & Television After DVD (Routledge, 2008). His work has been published in Screen, Cinema Journal, Convergence, New Review of Film & Television, and Celebrity Studies Journal. He remains on the Celebrity Studies Journal editorial board as well as the editorial board of Television & New Media.

Dr Amit Patel - Accessibility, Diversity and Inclusion Consultant, SEE Monster

Dr Amit Patel is a best-selling author, diversity, equity and inclusion consultant, motivational speaker and disability rights campaigner. Amit’s committed to supporting a range of charities: he is Trustee for Vision Foundation and Living Streets.

On losing his sight completely overnight, Amit’s career as a trauma doctor was no longer practical but he was determined to use his education, training and skills to help others. Today, Amit is an active campaigner for accessibility, diversity and inclusion, speaking out against the issues that disabled people face daily.

Amit is known as a broadcaster, presenter, podcast host and media personality and is a regular on national and local news. Committed to achieving greater representation of disabled people in the media with a disability, Amit’s media profile has meant that he has become a voice and role model for people with disabilities - proving that despite community and social stigma around disability, it is no barrier to living a fulfilling life.

Amit remains an active campaigner for accessibility, diversity and inclusion, speaking out against the issues that disabled people face daily.