Festival Day

Dr Laura James is an engineering leader who builds practical and innovative internet tech systems and organisations in diverse contexts. She is Engineering Director at Overstory, and a co-founding trustee at CoFarm.co and board chair at Now Play This.

Recent roles include CTO at the OPEN (supporting progressive campaigns around the world), Head of Delivery at lowRISC (open source silicon), and Technology Principal at Doteveryone (the responsible technology think tank). Previously Laura was CEO of Open Knowledge, and co-founded Cambridge Makespace. She has worked in technical leadership roles at humanitarian manufacturing NGO Field Ready, conversational AI startup True Knowledge/Evi (which became Alexa), and pioneering connected home startup AlertMe. Laura holds MEng and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge, and is a Chartered Engineer.

Loula Yorke is an Oram Award-winning composer, improviser and live performer working primarily with modular synthesis. Yorke's fifth album Volta was released early in 2024 to critical acclaim. You'll find her building patterns and patches in her studio in rural Suffolk.

Simon is emeritus professor of Computer Science at the University of Essex. A graduate of Manchester University, he has worked on high-performance computer architectures and on hardware support for knowledge-based systems. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and of the British Computer Society and is the Digital Archivist for the Computer Conservation Society. He has published many books and journal papers, most of which now gather dust. Simon retired in 2002 and pursues computer history as a hobby.