The Reskilling Revolution in the Artificial Intelligence Era
Join us on Thursday 17th June as we address the need for businesses to identify employee digital skills gaps and provide relevant digital skills training to upskill employees in preparation for the move to Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology within the work environment.
Artificial Intelligence already impacts our daily lives from a simple “google” search, logging on to our online banking account or using smart home devices. However, more and more businesses are also reaping the benefits of AI whether that’s a small business replacing paper-based processes with digital, using drones, virtual reality or augmented reality or a total transformational change. The impact for employees could be devastating with concerns over job role and security. But by providing relevant digital upskilling training employers can retain valuable employees minimising uncertainty and job losses.
Who Should Attend?
This event will be of interest to education professionals, AI/technology experts, business owners and their employees and those involved in professional training.
Where will it take place?
This online conference will take place on Microsoft Teams.
A link to join the conference will be sent out prior to the event.
If you have any questions relating to the conference please email Rebekah Cunningham at rcunningham@serc.ac.uk.
Register Now
Register for the event, see how you can upskill employees in preparation for the move to Artificial Intelligence.
RegisterSpeakers
Ken Webb
Principal and Chief Executive at SERC
Ken has worked at a senior level in the UK Central Government, Local Government and the Private Sector. His extensive roles have included leading and managing diverse areas from large infrastructure projects, through national advertising campaigns to product research and international sales in the Agri-food industry and IT consultancy.
Ken is a qualified teacher, and Chartered Accountant. He holds a number of qualifications from Queen’s University Belfast, University of Ulster, Michigan State University and Warwick University Business School.
In 2008 he was appointed as Principal and Chief Executive of the South Eastern Regional College (SERC) one of the larger and now most successful Further and Higher Education Colleges in the UK and Ireland. His leadership of SERC has resulted in this multi award winning College carrying out work in over 30 countries across 4 continents.
Michael Malone
Director of Curriculum and Information Services
Michael studied for a B.Sc. and M.Sc. at Queen’s University Belfast and for A Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering at the University of Ulster. He has published papers at Conferences and refereed journals and was an author for two magazines from 1994-1998.
He has worked in Further Education for 39 years, 24 years as a Lecturer in Electronic Engineering, Computing and CAD and 15 years as a senior manager and has gained a wide range of experiences in teaching, management and leadership.
Over the last 20 years He has focused on the development and integration of proprietary student management systems with bespoke solutions to create and integrated and intuitive experience for students and staff.
He won the Northern Ireland BT Award for IT innovation in 2002 and has won 3 BECTA National awards during his management career in 1998, 2010 and 2015 in the innovative use of IT systems in Teaching and Learning.
He has developed many international partnerships in the area of Project Based Learning (PBL) and Entrepreneurship. This Includes the international partnership on engineering training called CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement and Operate) as well as with TA3 (Trans Atlantic Technology and Training Alliance). He has developed close links with experts at TKNIKA in the Basque Country. He works with the Edge Foundation and serves as a member on their international experts group on PBL.
As Director of Curriculum and Information Services he currently manages the entire curriculum within SERC as well as all computing and information systems. The College has 4,500 full-time students and 8000 part-time students across 50 disciplines. These include further education, apprenticeships, higher education and special needs. He has implemented PBL and entrepreneurship across all these disciplines.
Gillian McCausland
Economist
Gillian is an Economist at Ulster University Economic Policy Centre, working on research projects such as Automation and the Future of Work for Northern Ireland, The Role of Full Fibre Broadband, the Competitiveness Scorecard for Northern Ireland and Competitiveness Challenges. This research provides economic and policy advice to Government officials, Ministers and businesses. Gillian also supports teaching of economic modules at Ulster University.
Prior to joining UUEPC, Gillian completed a Masters in Global Security and Borders and Undergraduate degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics both from Queen’s University Belfast.
Presentation: Intelligent Futures- Automation & Northern Ireland
This presentation summarises UUEPC’s extensive research into automation and the future of work in Northern Ireland. This research included industry consultations, the development of an automation economic model and more recently the impact COVID-19 has had on the adoption of automated and digital workplace solutions.
Gary Campbell
Artificial Intelligence Manager
Gary has more than 25 years experience of technology projects both as an implementer and also as an advisor. In his current role within Invest Northern Ireland, he provides practical advice to companies and individuals who are seeking to utilise AI and data to assist their operations or to develop new products.
Presentation: Support for Artificial Intelligence projects
Gary will highlight a potential range of support mechanisms that could assist with the implementation of AI projects locally.
Will Lock
Director of Partnerships, Century Tech
Will has over 15 years experience building, growing and operating international edtech and media businesses. As Director of Partnerships, Will works with companies across the world to adapt and launch CENTURY's teaching and learning platform and resources to make a meaningful impact in each local market context.
Presentation: How AI is transforming education and corporate learning
In this talk, Will shares how AI technologies are revolutionising education, from school to university to corporate learning. Find out how CENTURY has harnessed the power of technology and more specifically AI (Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence) to transform the learning process by understanding each learner’s individual needs, building a learning profile for them and giving them the exact content they need to maximise their strengths and address their areas for improvement
Michael McClelland
AI Strategic Policy Advisor at Digital Catapult NI
Michael McClelland is an experienced Senior IT leader with over 20 years’ experience leading global (US, Europe & Asia) Software Engineering and business facing organisations primarily at Seagate Technology.
Michael played a significant role moving forward a number of strategic partnerships between Seagate and 3rd parties focused on the use of leading edge AI and Data Analytics technologies that lead to significant long term partnership and investments.
Michael’s current role at Digital Catapult Northern Ireland is focused on establishing Northern Ireland's first fully collaborative Artificial Intelligence Collaboration Centre (AiCC). This Centre is designed to pull together the best NI AI research (Ulster University and Queen's University) with Industry to execute world class AI research, develop NI’s AI talent pipeline, support the creation of world class AI businesses & product commercialisations and pioneer the need for open data to accelerate breakthrough AI research and development.
Michael graduated from Ulster University with an MSc in Computing and Design (2003) and Masters in Business Administration with Distinction (2016).
Presentation: AI and Automation
