Technology, AI, and the Arts – March 2022 Workshop Opportunity

Speakers

• 

  Sella Adjei Ph.D. Designer and Digital art Consultant
  

  Sella Adjei Ph.D.

  Designer and Digital art Consultant

  Sela Adjei is an artist based in Ghana with more than 10 years of working experience. He has a background in Communication Design and African Art from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi. He received his PhD in African Studies at the Institute of African Studies in University of Ghana, Legon. He has worked as a designer and digital art consultant for various publishing companies and international organizations (including Johns Hopkins University, World Bank, Ghana Ministry of Health, Sub-Saharan Publishers, and African Centre for Economic Transformation, ACET). He is a Lecturer at the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) where he teaches Philosophy, Digital Imaging, Digital art and Computer Application Design. He is currently a Postdoc at the University of Ghana Business School working in collaboration with the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark and Loughborough University, UK to undertake the project “Advancing Creative Industries for Development in Ghana (ACIG)”.

• 

  Ashley Baccus-Clark Molecular and cellular biologist and multidisciplinary artist
  

  Ashley Baccus-Clark

  Molecular and cellular biologist and multidisciplinary artist

  Ashley Baccus-Clark is a molecular and cellular biologist and multidisciplinary artist who uses new media and storytelling to explore themes of deep learning, cognition, memory, race, trauma, and systems of belief. Baccus-Clark is a collaborator at Hyphen-Labs, where she’s represented for branded projects by m ss ng p eces, and an artist-in-residence at MIT Open Doc Lab.

• 

  Jasmine L. Blanks Jones Ph.D
  

  Jasmine L. Blanks Jones Ph.D

  asmine L. Blanks Jones is a dynamic theatre nonprofit leader, award-winning educator, and holds a dual PhD in Education and Africana Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research on theatrical performance as a civic engagement praxis illuminates global race-based inequities in education and health, lifting the potential of knowledge co-creation through the arts and digital cultural production. As founder of Burning Barriers Building Bridges Youth Theatre (B4YT), a cultural performance company dedicated to radical community empowerment through the arts, she has more than twenty years of experience in youth development in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Having developed a track record of leadership in arts and advocacy in communities of color globally, in 2018 Jasmine extended the scope of B4YT to include a consulting practice, Creating Brave Stages, which provides support and guidance for advocacy organizations looking to integrate the arts into their movements and artists aspiring to create positive change through their performances. She holds a MPP from the University of Minnesota and BS in Music Education from Florida A&M University. She is a postdoctoral fellow with the Program in Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship at Johns Hopkins University this academic year.

• 

  Saidah Nash Carter Co-Founder and Principal Consultant - Bright Insights Global (BIG)
  

  Saidah Nash Carter

  Co-Founder and Principal Consultant - Bright Insights Global (BIG)

  Saidah Nash Carter is co-founder and Principal Consultant at Bright Insights Global
  (B.I.G), a boutique women-owned consultancy formed out of a passion to build
  better business in Africa using the prism of inclusion, innovation and impact.

  Saidah has spent much of her professional life in the digital space and uses her
  expertise to help businesses leverage technology to create new opportunities that
  will increase profits and create better outcomes for humanity. She began her career with Reuters NewMedia during a period of profound digital transformation and went on to build and launch some of the first online news services for early internet pioneers like Yahoo! and AOL.

  She thrives pushing the boundaries of corporate thinking and business development through emerging technology, co-creation, and a focus on sustainability. She has an eye for identifying opportunities to stretch businesses to new frontiers while remaining connected the company’s core DNA and value proposition. This strength led her to design one of the first customer co-creation programs within Thomson Reuters resulting in a new way of approaching partnership and IP ownership and creating a pathway for richer collaboration with both customer and partner ecosystems.

  As SVP of Africa Innovation, Saidah launched Thomson Reuters’ Data Science and
  Innovation Lab in Cape Town, South Africa which was one of only seven innovation
  labs globally and the only one in an emerging market. She is particularly proud of her team’s work delivering Thomson Reuters’ successful Africa Startup Challenge,
  Africa’s first lntrapreneurship Conference and her flagship initiative, Bankable Farmer.

  which introduced financial inclusion to Africa’s community of small-scale farmers.
  Saidah is also passionate about Africa’s lntrapraneur ecosystem and works to identify, connect and empower these thought leaders inside large corporations who are working to leverage innovation, inclusion and impact to make their companies more sustainable. She works in partnership with the global League of lntrapreneurs (www.leagueofintrapreneurs.com), as League Catalyst for South Africa.

  Most recently, Saidah has received the 2017 Inspiring 50 Women in Tech Award, the United Nations 2018 Voices of African Mothers Innovation Award and the 2019.

  About Bright Insights Global:
  With a focus on forward-thinking, purpose driven organizations, B.I.G. services include, talent and inclusion strategies, innovation initiatives, organizational effectiveness and business leadership and executive training and coaching as well as special projects. B.I.G. is committed to helping businesses become more inclusive through access to and partnership with our diverse networks spanning everything from financial services to media to business development and more.

• 

  Grisha Coleman Ph.D Associate Professor of Movement, Computation and Digital Media
  

  Grisha Coleman Ph.D

  Associate Professor of Movement, Computation and Digital Media

  Grisha Coleman works with choreography and composition in performance and experiential media, exploring relationships between our physiological, technological and ecological systems. She holds the position of Associate Professor of Movement, Computation and Digital Media in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, and the School of Dance at Arizona State University.

  Her recent art and scholarly work, The Movement UnderCommons has been awarded a 2020 Media Arts grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her on-going project, echo::system, is a springboard for re-imagining the environment, environmental change, and environmental justice.

  Coleman is a New York City native with an M.F.A. in Composition and Integrated Media from the California Institute of the Arts. Her work has been recognized nationally and internationally; including a 2012 National Endowment Arts in Media Grant [NEA], the 2014 Mohr Visiting Artist at Stanford University, a fellowship at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, and grants from the Rockefeller M.A.P Fund, The Surdna Foundation, and The Creative Capital Foundation.

  She danced as a member of the acclaimed dance company Urban Bush Women [1990-1994], and subsequently founded the music performance group HOTMOUTH, which toured extensively nationally and internationally, and was nominated for a 1998 NYC Drama Desk Award for “Most Unique Theatrical Experience.”

• 

  Thomas F. DeFrantz Artist, Educator and Arts Activist
  

  Thomas F. DeFrantz

  Artist, Educator and Arts Activist

  Thomas is an artist, educator and arts activist. He is a Duke University professor and director of SLIPPAGE: Performance, Culture and Technology. He is a published author and editor, and founded the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, a growing consortium of 300 researchers. He has created musical scores for the Dance Theatre of Harlem among his many outstanding achievements.

• 

  S. Ama Wray Ph.D
  

  S. Ama Wray Ph.D

  Dr. S. Ama Wray is a professor of dance at the University of California, Irvine. She is a former U.K NESTA Fellow (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts – similar to the MacArthur Awards)—an improviser, choreographer, director, teacher and scholar. She self-titles as a ‘Performance Architect’, receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Surrey where she developed her theory and practice of Embodiology®, a neo-African approach to contemporary dance improvisation. Her TED talk articulates its distinctions and philosophy http://www.tedxorangecoast.com/videopick/sheron-wray-bodily-steps-to-innovation/

  In 2016 an essay on her neo-African approach to dance improvisation is in Black Dance British Routes, edited by Adair and Burt, 2017 published by Routledge. In 2014 two essays on jazz dance were published in the anthology Jazz dance: A History of its Roots and Branches, edited by Guarino and Oliver.

• 

  Jose Cossa Associate Professor in the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University.
  

  Jose Cossa

  Associate Professor in the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University.

  José Cossa, Ph.D., is a Mozambican-American scholar, writer/author, researcher, poet, blogger, podcaster, entrepreneur, and an Associate Professor in the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University. Cossa holds a Ph.D. in Cultural and Educational Policy Studies with a depth area in Comparative and International Education from Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of the book Power, Politics, and Higher Education: International Regimes, Local Governments, and Educational Autonomy, the recipient of the 2012 Joyce Cain Award for Distinguished Research on People of African Descent, and one of the Co-Founders of the AI4Afrika collaborative. Cossa’s research focus is on power dynamics in negotiation over educational policy; unveiling issues inherent in the promise of modernity and working towards de-colonializing, de-bordering, de-peripherizing, and de-centering the world; higher education policy and administration; system transfer; international development; and, global and social justice. Currently, Cossa is working towards articulating, establishing, and engaging Cosmo-uBuntu as an Africa-derived, exterior to modernity, interdisciplinary theory of justice.

• 

  Femi Omere Founder / Managing Director Hosted in Africa
  

  Femi Omere

  Founder / Managing Director Hosted in Africa

  Femi is a Citizen of Nigerian and the United Kingdom (UK), he is the Founder and Managing Director of Hosted in Africa Group Limited, that established the HiA Network in 2021, which provides independent, self hosted, state of the art, virtual networking and collaboration spaces, targeting Global Africans, friends and allies. The HiA Network is actualising uBuntu and demonstrating Afrocentric excellence as a force for global good.

  Femi has recently been appointed as an Independent Monitor in the Tanzanian mining sector, overseeing an Independent Grievance Mechanism and specifically its adherence to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

  Femi was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1999, he practised in the UK for over a decade as a human rights specialist and remains an Associate Member of Garden Court Chambers London. Femi has been resident within the East African region since 2008 and in addition to providing legal services in the cross over between human rights and corporate commercial matters, he has become a recognised expert legal trainer.

  Over the last few years, Femi has assisted the African Legal Support Facility, Strathmore University, the Law Society of Kenya, the International Senior Lawyers Project, the Uongozi Institute, the Law School of Tanzania, and A4ID, in respect of their capacity building efforts. Between 2017-2020, Femi, as its first Executive Director, played a leading role establishing the ALN Academy and continued to provide the organisation with independent advisory services after his departure.