Graham from Learning Without Frontiers has been in touch to tell us about the conference he’s organising – The Handheld Learning Conference 2009. It’s in its fifth year (so nearly as old as Mobile Monday London then!) and features a wide variety of speakers (including some famous names) and 1500 or so delegates and will be held at The Brewery at The Barbican from Oct 5 – 7. More details on the conference and speakers later on in this post.
Anyway, there’s a couple of reasons Graham has been in touch. The first is obviously to promote the event (which looks rather good I have to say) and offer Mobile Monday London members a 15% discount off the list price – the early bird price is just £375 (valid until 25th September) and the late booking price is £425. So 15% off those prices is not to be sniffed at. To take advantage of the discount, please use code momohhl09 on the registration page.
Not only that, there’s a free element to the event. Yes, we all like free! The first day of the event, Monday 5th October, is open to the general public and is free to enter. So that means anyone with a passing interest in mobile learning related stuff will get a chance to sample the exhibition and some free seminars as well. And not only that, there’s going to be a party and awards ceremony that night, hosted by The Gadget Show’s very own Jason Bradbury, which us MoMoLo’ers are all invited to to hang out at, especially it being a Monday evening ‘n all. Turn up from 7pm and the jollity will be going on until 10.30pm. I imagine there’ll be a few familiar faces there, mine included!
So here’s a little bit more about the conference lifted from their website to give you a flavour of what’s on offer…
The Handheld Learning Conference is the world’s leading event about learning using mobile and inexpensive access technologies, attended by more than 1,500 international delegates.
Lead speakers for 2009 include:
- Ray Kurzweil, Inventor and Futurist
- Zenna Atkins, Chairman, Ofsted
- Malcolm McLaren, Artist
- James Paul Gee, Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University
- David Braben, Founder & Chairman, Frontier
- Professor Elizabeth Hayes, Arizona State University
- John Davitt, International Learning Advocate, NewTools.org
- Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, CEO and Co-Founder of Tinker.it
- Tim Brighouse, Former Commissioner for London Schools
- Donald Clark, e-Learning Expert
- David Cavallo, Chief Learning Architect, MIT OLPC
- Tim Rylands, Teacher & Innovator
With many others soon to be announced.
Now in its fifth year the event has become the largest of it’s kind; bringing together thought leaders, innovators, practitioners, developers, policy and decision makers from the education, technology and entertainment sectors.
Over 3 stimulating days this group will demonstrate, debate and explore how mobile technologies such as phones, entertainment devices, GPS locators, and netbooks can be deployed to enable transformational improvements in learning across schools, home, further education, training and business.
This year’s theme is "Creativity, Innovation, Inclusion & Transformation" recognising that 2009 is the European year of creativity and innovation, and the value these elements have to learning, whilst identifying that real transformation will only occur following universal inclusion e.g. Home Access.
As always the conference will stage an excellent mix of inspirational talks from leading thinkers and practitioners, lively interactive debates, learners and practitioner showcases, special interest breakouts, networking and social sessions, plus an exhibition featuring the principle industry leaders.
We're coming to the end of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition now and we have our 6 finalists. They'll be off to PICNIC next week in Amsterdam to fight it out to win hard cash for their start-up. There's 150k Euros up for grabs so it's a tough one. And there are six excellent finalists to choose from too. It wasn’t easy to get to the final six, but we did. There are three finalists from the UK and three from the Netherlands and there are 3 cash prizes up for grabs out of a total prize fund of 150k Euros.
After a short hiatus, we’re glad to be supporting Over The Air again this year. It’s a veritable 34-hour mobile fest starting on Friday 25th September at 9am at Imperial College, London. Proceedings close at 7pm on Saturday 26th September.