Turing Fest, one of Europe’s technology conferences for start-ups and scale-ups, has announced its partner and speaker line-up for 2021, taking place between 2 and 4 November at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC).
The theme for this year’s Turing Fest is diversity and inclusion. Organisers are expecting around 700 in-person delegates this year, with a similar number of attendees joining online.
The speaker line-up includes: Hannah Fleishman, director of Employer Brand & Internal Comms, HubSpot; Nilan Peiris, VP Growth, Wise; Ashley Faus, content strategy lead, AtlassianAltassian; Saille DaSilva, head of UX, Cazoo; Chris Savage, co-founder and CEO, Wistia; Varun Nair, co-founder or Two Big Ears and former head of AR/VR Audio Software at Facebook, and; clinical psychologist Dr Suzanne Brown.
Brian Corcoran, CEO, Turing Fest, said: “Turing Fest is a practical learning and networking event, primarily aimed at helping people build better start-ups and scale-ups, and it’s a win-win dynamic because the audience is keen to learn, the speakers are keen to teach, and everyone is generous in connecting and sharing.”
Past speaker Check Warner, co-founder of Ada Ventures, commented: “We started Ada Ventures with the key objective of investing in overlooked founders and markets, following years of not seeing anyone be truly proactive at making a difference in this space.
“This was also my key focus for co-founding the non-profit, Diversity VC. So, when I was asked to be a part of Turing Fest in both 2018 and 2020, I learned about their self-set targets and tactics to provide a diverse and inclusive experience for all. From the range of speakers (gender, POC, background, you name it), to ensuring underrepresented groups could get access easily – and free – to attend the conference, I knew I had to be a part of it.”
She added: “I’ve recently found out that they are hitting and exceeding their targets this year – with over 50% of the speakers being female or non-binary and 20% being POC – I couldn’t be prouder of having been on their stage speaking about diversity and would happily do it again.”
