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Click the name for information about the speaker
- Gavin Cooney, Director, Websonic
- Mike Dawe, Manager e-Learning & Strategy City & Guilds
- Adrian Groom, HSBC
- Professor Stephen Heppell, Chair
- Lynda Lamont, Project Manager, Computer Assisted Assessment, Scottish Qualifications Authority
- Madan Padaki, CEO and Co-Founder, Merittrac
- Jayne Norman, UK Sector Skills Council
- Martyn Roads, Assessment Tomorrow
- Jeff Ross, Assessment Tomorrow
- Nikki Scarisbrick, Assessment Consultant, nferNelson
Gavin Cooney, Director, Websonic
In 2001 Gavin Cooney BComm MBS was lecturing in University College Dublin while setting up web systems for a start-up mobile phone company in Ireland. Wanderlust got the better of him, and he went traveling for a few months. Five years later Gavin was still in Sydney, working for the NSW Board of Studies developing web sites and applications, including an e-Assessment website which to date has delivered 4 million self-test online exams. Specialising in e-Assessment systems, he now leads a development team, which in 2006 delivered the first state wide mandatory online exam to 56,000 fifteen year olds over three days. Returning home to Ireland, Gavin founded WebSonic Ltd. to supply e-Assessment solutions worldwide. He retains the Board of Studies as a client, while developing some innovative phone based e-Assessments to examine Irish language skills in students for the Irish Government.
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Mike Dawe, Manager e-Learning & Strategy City & Guilds
Mike Dawe, Manager e-Learning & Strategy City & Guilds. After work for companies in Southern Africa that train local communities to profit from their wildlife, Michael moved to City & Guilds in London. City & Guilds is a 125 year old organisation with a Royal Charter to provide access to vocational training in the UK, and delivers similar services in a further 100 countries. Currently City & Guilds registers 1.8 million learners per year. Michael’s first role in City & Guilds was coordinating government commissioned studies into the effects of funding structure on the quality of vocational training provision. This work lead him to managing work on use of new technologies for capture and distribution of knowledge on best practice in training delivery, and in enforcement of regulations. Since then he managed the introduction of the first large scale on-line testing programme to the UK funded vocational market with City & Guilds Information Technology suite of awards. Today Michael heads up the team that operates City & Guilds’ e-Assessment capability, accounting for 80% of all City & Guilds’ objective assessment, and continues to develop capability to make electronic assessment available to all City & Guilds’ learners.
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Adrian Groom, HSBC
to be provided
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Professor Stephen Heppell, Chair
Stephen was formerly director of ULTRALAB which had (and indeed still has) an enviable global reputation for creativity, innovation and common sense. After 22 years he left there to consolidate his policy and learning consultancy heppell.net before being head hunted to create and run the radical learning technology research team learn3k in Dublin, Ireland. Stephen's inaugural lecture as a new professor back in 1987 was "eyes on the horizon, feet on the ground!".
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Lynda Lamont (Scottish Qualifications Authority - SQA)
Lynda Lamont is currently working as a Project Manager for the national awarding body in Scotland, with specific responsibility for International business in China and South-East Asia. Previously, she was a manager, in various departmental and cross-organisational roles in a Further and Higher Education College covering a period of 24 years. During that time, she set up and managed the Flexible Learning Centre where Computer Based Training materials and resources adapted from traditional learning methods were used. Her background is in the Business and ICT areas of education.
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Madan Padaki, CEO and co-Founder, Merittrac
Madan Padaki is the Co-Founder & CEO of MeritTrac Services Pvt. Ltd. MeritTrac is India's Largest Skills Assessments Company and is based out of Bangalore. He completed his engineering from the National Institute of Engineering, University of Mysore and joined Wipro Corporation - Fluid Power unit in Export Sales. Attracted by the booming IT industry, he moved on Infosys Technologies in to a Product Management & Marketing role handling Bancs2000 – a banking technology product. After a year’s stint, he went on to pursue his MBA from S.P.Jain Institute of Management & Research Mumbai. On graduating in 1999, he joined BFL Software as Business Development Manager and was posted to Tokyo as Resident Representative – which involved setting up the operations of BFL Software in Far East. Bitten by the entrepreneurial bug in Aug 2000, he conceived and started MeritTrac along with other friends & colleagues. Madan is an active speaker at many forums and is invited regularly to deliver guest lectures at INSEAD, Singapore on Entrepreneurship. He has also been invited as a Speaker at the prestigious India IT Forum – Global Entrepolis @ Singapore to talk about Talent Pools & Development Models in India. He was also invited for the first Asia Business Forum in Singapore to talk about Entrepreneurship. He also serves on a panel constituted by the Ministry of IT, Govt. of India to evaluate IT education in India. Madan is actively involved with many entrepreneur groups and is a member of TiE Bangalore
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Jayne Norman, UK Sector Skills Council
to be provided
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Martyn Roads, Assessment Tomorrow
Martyn Roads, is an independent education and assessment consultant. He spent 13 years in Further Education, developing and managing a wide range of vocational programmes before joining BTEC in 1994. In 2001, he was responsible for managing, on behalf of a consortium of Awarding Bodies, the successful bid for the development of the current Key Skills and Skills for Life National Tests. For the past 4 years, Martyn has been researching and implementing the use of IT in assessment which has included working with a consortium of organisations on the development of a range of screening and initial assessment tools for the SfLSU. Implementing “on screen” testing has also included working with the SfLSU on producing CD ROM based practice test material for the Skills for Life National Tests Toolkit. Martyn was co-author of QCA’s “Use of ICT in Assessment” report to the DfES in 2002 and is currently working with QCA NI on increasing the capacity of centres there to implement e-Assessment. Martyn also co-manages a range of e-Assessment conferences and is Chair of Becta’s Harnessing Technology e-Assessment advisory group.
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Jeff Ross, Director, Assessment Tomorrow
Jeff is currently working as a project manager and consultant supporting clients managing the development and introduction of IT systems to meet business and administrative needs. Previously he was a senior manager with a major awarding body, where he was responsible for change management programmes associated with the introduction of ICT solutions to the delivery of education services and qualifications. His background is in IT, education, publishing, logistics and business operations
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Nikki Scarisbrick, e-Assessment Specialist, nferNelson
Nikki Scarisbrick has been closely involved with the development and implementation of nferNelson’s electronic assessment service, which has now delivered over 500,000 digital tests in schools across the world. Her main area of focus has been the implementation of the platform across local authorities in the UK, ensuring technical excellence and smooth delivery of a full range of nferNelson’s tests for local authorities, teachers and pupils alike. Nikki joined nferNelson in 2000 as a Psychometric Assessment Consultant. She has a background in post-16 education, providing workplace training and assessment predominantly to new employees entering the workplace. Nikki and her partner have two children, Shane (18) and Hannah (6), and lives in Somerset, England.
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