Oddgeir Tveiten, PhD is professor of media studies at the University of Agder (Southern Norway), where he lectures in globalization, cultural studies, development studies, political communication and science philosophy. He professor of journalism studies at the NLA University College (Bergen, Western Norway). He teaches journalism and media studies at Uganda Christian University in Mukono, Uganda. Tveiten is a Fulbright scholar and recipient of several academic distinctions. He teaches in both Norwegian and in English, with a regular attendance of international students especially in his BA courses. He works and lives in Southern Norway, with frequent visits to Silicon Valley where he runs workshops. He has been visiting scholar at the University of Iceland and twice at Stanford University, where he is associated with the H Star Institute and the Department of Classics.
Journalism, digital media transformations and contemporary processes of globalization are key to Tveiten´s research. Connecting journalism to the greater vista of media change and media transformations to the challenge of understanding the future of learning in a globalized word, is what brings Tveiten to reflecting more broadly on the impact of technologies on society. Currently, Tveiten organizes the World Learning Summit to address these issues. He is associated with the global online learning company EdCast and the founder of the research network Future Learning Lab.
For other details, please review: www.oddgeirtveiten.com
Donna Kidwell is President of Webstudent International, a software company located in Norway and the US. A key member of the Future Learning Lab team, Donna has visited our conferences in Norway and Europe, sharing our interest in North-South issues and through that building working relations with universities in the Global South.
Professor Kidwell received her doctorate at the Ecole de Management in Grenoble, France, and her Master’s in Science and Technology Commercialization at The University of Texas at Austin. She led the development of The Innovation Readiness Series™, an online course developed to help global innovators.
Her research interests include innovation and commercialization. She has worked globally to encourage economic development through science and innovations. She is the driver behind several successful MOOCs at UT, Austin.
Prior to her work with UT Austin, Donna was a software consultant, and developed custom database applications and eLearning environments for companies such as Exxon, Agilent, and Keller Williams Realty International.
Derek Woodgate is a consulting futurist, author, university lecturer and curator. He is President of The Futures Lab, Inc. an international futures-based consultancy, founded in 1996, which specializes in creating future potential for major corporations and institutions, He is also Vice-President and Director of Learning at the company’s non-profit arm LIFE (Learning Innovations in Future Education and Chief Creative Office at TFL’s “living the future” events company, FEEL (Future Entertainment and Events Lab). Derek is co-creator of the highly successful “living the future” event STEAM3 – The Future of Learning.
Derek is also an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Communications Technologies at the University of Adger in Norway; and Adjunct Professor in the Learning Technologies Division of the College of Education and Human Development at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA, USA. At both universities he teaches courses on the science of foresight and its application for the future of education and learning. As a leading futurist, Derek’s principal expertise is in the interplay between emerging multimedia technologies, experiential learning and the future, topics on which he is a regular conference speaker and writer. Derek is due to complete his PhD at the University of Adger by the end of 2016. His dissertation is titled: “The impact of emerging multisensory augmented reality technologies on the future of experiential learning”.
His book, Future Frequencies (2004) was considered paradigm shifting in the foresight field, and his various pieces already published from his forthcoming book Future Flow give a fresh look at how experiential manifestations can be designed to be adaptive to personal aesthetics, imagination, moods, and emotions in order to facilitate new approaches to exploration, innovation, and learning.
Derek’s other published works include: The Future of Advertising – a chapter in “PR Rules: The Playbook” (2014) and he co-authored Calling the Toads—A Burroughs Compendium” (1999), with Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Allen Ginsberg, and Douglas Brinkley.
Derek is a founding member of the Association of Professional Futurists; former President of the Centex Chapter of the World Futures Society and a member of the World Futures Studies Federation.
Sven Åke Bjørke is a developer and lecturer at the University of Agder, Norway where he teaches environment issues, sustainable development and ICT supported education at the Centre for Global Studies and Planning, Faculty of Social Sciences. Bjørke has also worked on the development of a pedagogy adapted for internationalized online education in the MSc Development Management. The University of Agder operates the oldes blended learning MA in the Nordic countries. He was one of the pioneers. Bjørke has a master’s degree from the Open University, UK, in E-pedagogy, with his thesis on quality assurance of tertiary internationalised online education. He has been developing other online degree-giving courses since 2003.
Bjørke also has a background from UNEP/GRID-Arendal, a UN-affiliated research center fo r studies in climate change. He was lead author and editor of numerous publications. He was worked as consultant for the development of State of the Environment report for China and South Africa State of the Environment Report China 1997; | State of the Environment Report South Africa 1997 and for the Programme ‘Mainstreaming Education for Sustainable Development in Africa (MESA).
Bjørke has also worked as a Field Director in Kenya for the Norwegian Save the Children. He has also worked in Kenya for the Norwegian volunteer service, for the Norwegian NGO ARC-aid as a board member for 20 years, and for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Kosovo. He is educated as a science teacher, lawyer, jurist-linguist and e-pedagogue.
Vidar Mortensen is the practical brains of Future Learning Lab and has been for the last three years. He has worked as a consultant and entrepreneur for the past decade and a half, in part with companies like Substans and Sunsense, which he helped to establish.
Some years back Mortensen held the position as Coordinator of technical development in the “LærerIKT” project a very large online training program for teachers in Norway involving more than 18 000 participants.
He has been a consultant for the “First Motion” INTERREG EU-project, building a sharing platform for film distribution resources. He has worked with project development, business development and project management within film, music, theater and visual arts.
Mortensen also has had meriting success with business restructuring and and PR services relating to start-up services in Southern Norway. And he is founding member of the only jazz festival in Norway to receive regular raving reviews in the New York Times (Punkt-Festivalen). He is CEO of a foundation running life-long educational services for heavily disabled children and youth (Sound of Happiness). His company Sunsense is currently seeking international funding for a next stage development of wearable UV-ray sensors. First round of seed funding came from Innovation Norway.
Aleksandra Lazareva is a PhD student in the Department of global development and planning, University of Agder. Here is her own presentation, from her very exiting blog;
From the professional point of view, I’m interested to learn about learning (in both formal and informal settings), and how learning can be enhanced with the help of various technologies that are nowadays so easily available. In addition to that, I’m interested in learning with other people, as I think learning in this case becomes richer and provides you with many more perspectives, making it possible for you to understand things deeper. In fact, every day we learn from other people a lot even without realizing that! And so, I’m also very much interested in reflecting on communication among people – this is something that is not always easy to understand and predict, which makes it an even more fascinating phenomenon.
I will be glad to receive and reply to any comment from you – agreement, disagreement, question, viewpoint from a different perspective, addition, critique, opinion, idea or anything else.
Dianah Nampijja is a PhD Research Fellow at University of Agder Norway, Department of Global Development and Planning. At UiA she is currrently working on a PhD thesis entitled Mobile learning for Supporting Livelihoods in Developing Regions. Her research area focuses on the broader concept of ICT for development, with mobiles for Development in particular. Her field activities are in Uganda, where she looks at how learning for development can be enhanced with the use of mobile technologies.
Dianah is also an Assistant lecturer in the Department of Adult and Community Education, Makerere University, Uganda. Her research areas are in ICT for Development, e-learning, Mobile Learning, Workers education, Guidance and counseling, and Sustainable Development.