Keynote and Invited Speakers

The Keynote Speakers of LINQ 2013:

(in alphabetic order, all speakers are confirmed)

Tony Bates, Tony Bates Associates, Canada (confirmed)

Tony Bates is President and CEO of Tony Bates Associates Ltd, a private company specializing in consultancy and training in the planning and management of online learning and distance education. The company was started in 2003, and since then has served over 30 clients in 18 countries. Clients include the World Bank, OECD, UNESCO, national ministries of education, and several U.S. state higher education commissions.

Recent contracts include work for the Government of Alberta, and for many Canadian colleges and universities, advising on their online learning strategies. He was part-time Chair of e-Learning Research at the Open University of Catalonia in Spain from 2003-2008. He is currently a Research Associate with Contact North, Ontario. He was Director of Distance Education and Technology in the Continuing Studies Division of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada from 1995 to 2003 and also Research Team Leader of MAPLE, the Centre for Research into Managing and Planning Learning Environments in Education. From 1990 to 1995, he was Executive Director, Research, Strategic Planning, and Information Technology at the Open Learning Agency of British Columbia. Prior to that, he was Professor of Educational Media Research at the British Open University, where he worked for 20 years as one of the founding members of staff.

He is the author or co-author of more than ten books, including his latest book, ‘Managing Technology in Higher Education: Strategies for Transforming Teaching and Learning’, co-authored with Albert Sangrà of the Open University of Catalonia, and published by Jossey-Bass in May, 2011. He has received honorary degrees for his research in the field from Laurentian University, Athabasca University, the Open University of Portugal, the Open University of Catalonia, and the Open University of Hong Kong.

Jay Cross, Internet Time, USA (confirmed)

Jay is the Johnny Appleseed of informal learning. The Internet Time Alliance, which he chairs, helps corporations and governments use networks to accelerate performance.

Jay has challenged conventional wisdom about how adults learn since designing the first business degree program offered by the University of Phoenix. A champion of informal learning and systems thinking, Jay’s calling is to create happier, more productive workplaces. He was the first person to use the term eLearning on the web. He literally wrote the book on Informal Learning. Testimonials.
Jay works from the Internet Time Lab in Berkeley, high in the hills a dozen miles east of the Golden Gate Bridge and a mile and a half from the University. People visit the Lab to spark innovation and think fresh thoughts. Berkeley is the birthplace of the cyclotron, California cuisine, and custom coffee roasting in the United States.

Jay is a change agent, futurist, speaker, and author whose insights and stories will expand your perspective and enliven your meetings. He distills lessons from cognitive science, social networking, business strategy, futures research, and psychology to boost sales, improve customer service, and spark innovation.
Jay is the author of Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways that Inspire Innovation and Performance, Working Smarter Fieldbook, and Implementing eLearning.

Jay is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School. Jay and his wife Uta live with their miniature longhaired dachshund in the hills of Berkeley, California.

Ignasi Labastida, Director OCW Consortium and Creative Commons, Spain (confirmed)

Ignasi Labastida is the Head of the Office for Knowledge Dissemination (http://www.ub.edu/odc) at the Universitat de Barcelona where he is also leading the Research Unit at the CRAI (Learning and Research Resource Center). From this Office he is leading different projects towards openness related with Open Educational Resources, Open Access and Open Data within its own institution and partnering with external institutions. The Universitat de Barcelona is the affiliate institution of Creative Commons in Spain since its beginning in 2003, and Ignasi has been the Public leader during all those years.

He is a member of the OCW Consortium (http://www.ocwconsortium.org/) Board of Directors on behalf of Creative Commons and a member of the Administrative Council of Communia (http://www.communia-association.org/), an International Association on the Public Domain built on the eponymous Thematic Network, funded by the European Commission from 2007 to 2011. Currently he is engaged in another project (http://opencourseware.eu/) funded by the EC aimed at the creation of preconditions for a strong European OCW-framework.

Christian-Friedrich Lettmayr, CEDEFOP Director, Greece (confirmed)

Christian Lettmayr, Acting Director of Cedefop since 16 October 2010, was born 1951 in Austria. He had served as Deputy Director of Cedefop since 2005. He holds master’s degrees in business administration and economics from the Wirtschaftsuniversitaet Wien (Economic University of Vienna) and in vocational and technical education from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, where he was a Fulbright scholar.

From 1985 to 1994 he served as Deputy Director and subsequently Director (1994-2001) of the Austrian Institute for Small Business Research (KMU Forschung Austria) in Vienna. In 2001 he took up an assignment with the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry at the European Commission, where he contributed to the benchmarking of enterprise policies and to competitiveness analysis.

Mr Lettmayr has a background in socio-economic research and in managing research institutions. Through policy-oriented research and participation in various advisory groups he has contributed to the design and implementation of European and national policies. An entrepreneur who, among other businesses, ran his own consultancy firm and managed an import export company, he has lectured at the Hernstein Institute for Management and Leadership, the Social Academy in Vienna, the continuing education institution Wifi-Wien, and the Universities of Vienna and Innsbruck. He has also been a member of professional commissions, such as Meisterprüfungskomissionen (commissions awarding vocational diplomas) of several trades in Vienna. Through these activities he has gained hands-on experience of vocational training, continuing education, and the design of training courses.

Rory McGreal, UNESCO OER Chair, University of Athabasca, Canada (confirmed)

Rory McGreal is a professor of Computer Technologies in Education at Athabasca University (AU) – Canada’s Open University based in Alberta, Canada. He is also a UNESCO/Commonwealth of Learning Chair in Open Educational Resources and Director of the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI). He was previously the Associate Vice President Research at AU. Prior to that, he was a supervisor at Contact North, a distance education network in Northern Ontario. He has also worked abroad in the Middle East, Seychelles (Indian Ocean) and Europe.

He has been honored with the Wedemeyer Award for Distance Education practitioner. He researches the implementation and management of distance education systems and networks from technological, pedagogical and policy perspectives. His present research interests include the use of Open Educational Resources and standards in technology assisted learning, particularly in the development/application of learning objects on mobile devices and the assessment and accreditation of informal learners. 

Fred Mulder, UNESCO OER Chair, Open University of The Netherlands, NL (confirmed)

Fred Mulder is holder of a UNESCO chair in OER (Open Educational Resources) at the Open Universiteit in the Netherlands (OUNL). Previously, until the end of 2010, he was OUNL Rector for more than a decade. He is actively involved in OER initiatives and policies at the national level, by UNESCO, the OECD, and the EU, as well as the European and global organisations of Open Universities and the like, EADTU and ICDE.

Mulder has been on the Executive Committee of EADTU in 2002-2011 and currently is chairing its Taskforce on OER and Open Education, initiating OU style MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). Since September 2012 he is leading the Global OER Graduate Network, a worldwide OER research initiative. In 2012, he was awarded the ICDE Individual Prize of Excellence for his work on OER. For his efforts in the area of Lifelong Learning he received a Royal decoration in 2007.

Miguel-Angel Sicilia, University of Alcalá, Spain (confirmed)

Miguel-Angel Sicilia, obtained a University degree in Computer Science from the Pontifical University of Salamanca in Madrid, Spain (1996) and a PhD from Carlos III University in Madrid, Spain (2002). Currently, he works as a full professor at the Computer Science Department, University of Alcalá (Madrid). His current research interest include the Web of Data, Web Science and technology-enhanced learning. Dr. Sicilia is editor-in-chief of the Program journal.

António Silva Mendes, Director Education and Vocational Training, DG EAC, European Commission (confirmed)

António Silva Mendes is Director for Education and vocational training at the Directorate-General Education & Culture in the European Commission.

He is responsible for the policies and the programme in the fields of school and adult education, vocational training as well as the general coordination and implementation of the Life Long Learning Programme.

From 2006 to February 2012, António Silva Mendes was Resources Director at the Directorate-General Education & Culture in the European Commission.

The Invited Speakers of LINQ 2013:

Brian Holmes, EACEA European Commission, Belgium (confirmed)

Dr. Brian Holmes is Interim Director and Head of the department managing the EU's Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) at the Executive Agency for Education, Audiovisual and Culture (EACEA). The LLP is the successor to the Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci and ICT / Open & Distance Learning programmes (2000-2006). It supports learning opportunities from childhood to old age in every single life situation.

Brian has been working on education and training for many years at the European Commission. He has been closely involved with European policy for innovation and lifelong learning, supported by ICT, and was responsible for co-ordinating the EU's eLearning Programme.

Brian is a Chartered Engineer and has an MBA from a Paris business school. Until recently he was a tutor with the UK’s Open University Business School, for the MBA module on Managing Knowledge. He holds a PhD on technology enhanced learning with the University of Lancaster in the UK.

Mario Scalet, UNESCO Venice, Italy (confirmed)

António Moreira Teixeira, Open University Lissabon, Portugal (confirmed)

António Teixeira is a Professor at Universidade Aberta (UAb), the Portuguese Open University and a researcher at the University of Lisbon. He’s also a Vice-President of EDEN – European Distance and E-learning Network, and a Director at Ibstpi – International Board of Standards for Training, Performance and Instruction. From 2006 to 2009, he was Pro-rector for innovation in Distance Learning at UAb, having lead the university’s successful and speedy transition from a print-based distance learning institution to a fully online one.

He’s also a member of the International Advisory Board of the Distance Education and Learning Futures Alliance of the Massey University (New Zealand), an expert evaluator for the EFQUEL – European Foundation of Quality in E-learning and is on the scientific board of a number of international journals in online and distance education. Over the year he has participated in many international research projects and task forces on open educational resources, lifelong learning, virtual mobility and sustainable development.

He’s a member also of the e-ASEM network (Asia-Europe Meeting), and was a visiting scholar at the Korean National Open University. In 2010 received an EDEN Fellowship for demonstrating excellence in professional practice of open, distance and e-learning.

Godelieve van den Brande, Policy Officer Skills and Qualifications - ICT and innovation in learning, DG EAC, European Commission (confirmed)

European Associations at LINQ 2013:

Ildikó Mazar, EDEN: European Distance and E-Learning Network (confirmed)