Featured Talks

Keynote Presentation 1

Co-Creating Inclusive Technologies: From Hackathons to Inclusive Robotics - Dr Nic Hollinworth

How can communities shape technology so it works for everyone? This talk explores inclusive design through creativity, co-production, and democratic research. Drawing on insights from inclusive hackathons, accessible maker spaces, and co-creation projects with people with disabilities, it showcases innovative prototypes — including an inclusive robotic buggy, an Audible Ruler, and an Interactive Cushion — demonstrating how community-led innovation can create more accessible, meaningful technologies for everyday life

You’ll see demonstrations of:

  • An inclusive robotic buggy designed to be programmable by blind people and individuals with learning disabilities, drawing on evidence from research on assistive and socially inclusive robotics.
  • An Audible Ruler – an accessible learning tool codesigned with people with sight impairments to improve measurement skills through sound-bbased feedback.
  • An Interactive Cushion, which transforms tactile input into playful or calming digital responses, helping supporting communication, self-expressionexpression and emotional regulation.

Together, these examples show how inclusive design, citizen science and creative technologies can help build a more accessible future, and one where communities lead innovation, and technology works better for everyone.

Dr Nic Hollinworth

Keynote Presentation 2

Negotiating AI as a Community (NAIC) - Gavin Sealey

AI is not something to worship or fear.
It is a tool.
Negotiating AI as a Community (NAIC) approaches AI as a means — something to be used skillfully for our shared wellbeing — not as an end in itself to be chased out of hype or fear of missing out.

Our mission is simple:

To use AI as an organisational tool that increases the competence, coherence and productive capacity of community and community groups.
To use AI as a dialogical tool that strengthens our ability to think clearly as individuals — and to think well together as communities.
NAIC is not about replacing people with machines. It is about asserting the value of people in the age of the machine.
The NAIC project bagan with a workshop series subtitled “Building a Borough Brain.” But the “brain” is not a computer.
The brain is us in dialogue as a community augumented by AI tools.
We are aiming for something I call Augmented Community Intelligence (ACI) — a community that uses AI thoughtfully to enhance collaboration, learning, and collective decision-making.

NAIC is community building in the age of AI.

newhammosaic.org
netstorms.co.uk

Keynote presentation By Gavin Sealey

Keynote Presentation 3

What Even is 'Useful' Knowledge? - Joseph Cook

Let’s be honest: in the UK, the traditional “expert” is having a bit of a mid-life crisis. Public trust in academics and officials has noticeably plummeted as the distance between professional data and lived experience grows. It is fitting then, that 2026 marks 200 years since a short-lived experiment called the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge set out to democratise learning.

But what actually counts as “useful” today? Perhaps the answer lies in Citizen Social Science. This framework bridges the gap, bringing professional researchers together with “community experts”. By ditching the idea of communities as passive subjects and treating residents as collaborative partners, we create a science that is both academically rigorous and authentically grounded in reality.

Joseph is an anthropologist and east London resident who leads the Citizen Science Academy at University College London.

Keynote Presentation 4

Journey so far to becoming a Veterinarian Surgeon - Unique Barnett

I am neurodiverse and have a number of health related challenges and survived being knocked over by a car.

My passion has always been for treating and caring for domestic pets-dogs, cats and rabbits-, although I have also cared for mice!

I took my GCSEs and did my work experience in a Primary Care medical setting, working with multi-disciplinary teams.

I studied A Level Sciences-Biology, Physics and Chemistry – and despite my A Level results being lost (Covid 19 period), and having predicted grades of A*s, without my results I had to take a private route to Veterinary training, through my Vet Practice. I qualified in January as a Veterinary Nurse.

I am now working in that capacity and will conclude my final Accelerated studies to qualify as a Surgeon.

I will talk about the challenges I have overcome and the opportunities I have, and about being determined to achieve in the sciences field.

Keynote Presentation 5

Turning Everyday Conversations into Collective Intelligence - Yommy Ojo

We live in a world overflowing with information – Google, WhatsApp, YouTube, reports – yet many of our local problems remain unsolved. The issue isn’t access to knowledge. It’s that our knowledge is scattered.
In East London, every conversation holds insight: WhatsApp chats, community meetings, lived experience, cultural wisdom. But most of it never connects.
This talk explores how AI can help link what we already know – not replace human intelligence, but strengthen it. I’ll introduce the idea of a “library that talks back”: a way of bringing together local conversations, research and lived experience to ask better questions like:

What patterns are we missing?
Who should meet who?
Where are the hidden strengths in our community?

This is not about fear or hype. It’s about learning to use AI responsibly together – to build connection, shared problem-solving spaces and collective intelligence in East London.

Keynote Presentation 6

Understanding absorption of nutrients at the cellular level via mathematical modelling and machine learning - Professor Choi-Hong Lai

The aim of the talk is to give a very brief descriptive concept of absorption in the epithelial cells along the small intestine, follows with an easy mathematical model supported with data and machine learning. The use of mathematics will be kept to a minimal so that the general public will appreciate the importance of the subject without prejudice . The technical content will be kept at a popular level as well for the younger generations to appreciate the importance of the interplay between biology, mathematics, and machine learning.

Keynote Presentation 7

The maker ethos is the cultural shift from consuming technology to creating it and the future - Kiran Patel

Introduction to Speaker:
Kiran Patel is a Lecturer in Computer Science and Digital Technologies. School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering at University of East London.
 
Founded the CDT Maker Club that occurs every Monday from 5pm to 8pm at RDCS for students and most recently open to the community to help them learn digital technologies and fabrication skills that blend cross curricular across the university and community. The Maker Club is about breaking barriers between our Students, Community and Industry and instilling the Maker Ethos.
 
The Talk: Cheap tools, open knowledge, and global communities mean anyone can prototype ideas.
It transforms learning, innovation, and even civic participation because people gain the ability to shape technology rather than just be consuming it.
 

Be part of the team.

Newham needs you.

Calling all…

  • Makers, inventors, tinkerers
  • Coders, hackers & data wizards
  • Low-tech, high-tech, no-tech-at-all people
  • Systems-and-strategy types
  • Hands-on creative types
  • “Able to fix anything” types
  • Community-builders
  • History & archives people
  • Hobbyists & specialists
  • Questioning, freethinking, curious people

East London needs you!