Maven of the Month was a pioneering initiative launched by the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) back in 1995, in collaboration with the BBC’s Open University Production Unit. This was one of the first Internet Talk Radio anywhere in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_talk_radio), which used state of the art technologies (for the time), including RealAudio, CU-SeeMe, Netscape browser and chat windows, as well as standard telephone landlines.

26 years later, KMi is relaunching this initiative, inviting top experts from around the world to discuss major socio-technological topics with an audience that comprises both members of the Knowledge Media Institute, as well as the wider staff at The Open University.  

The key feature of this event is that, differently from a more traditional seminar format, it is mainly focused on creating a dialogue between the invited speaker and the audience on major socio-technological topics. Thus, each presentation by the invited Maven will be followed by an extended Q&A session, with questions curated by both the hosts and the audience.
 

Attendees will be given a chance to suggest a question before the event, to ensure that everyone is engaged and that the pool of questions captures as many voices as possible. However, there will also be room for impromptu questions during the event. People posting a question will have the option to either ask their question directly, in a “BBC Question Time” fashion, or have the event hosts ask the question on their behalf.

The initiative will kick off June 22, 2021, @4-5PM (BST), with a session on “Ethics in AI: a challenging task”, led by Prof. Ricardo Baeza-Yates and co-hosted by Agnese Chiatti (PhD research student in KMi) and Prof. Enrico Motta. Further information about the event can be found at the official event page.   

If you would like to attend this event, be sure to email agnese.chiatti@open.ac.uk before the end of the working day on the 21st June 2021.