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WISE KIDS Staff and Non-Executive Directors
Dr Sangeet Bhullar, Executive Director, WISE KIDS
Sangeet
Bhullar is the founder and executive director of WISE KIDS.
Sangeet is passionate about technologies afforded by the
Internet and believes that they offer vital tools for personal,
community and business empowerment. She believes in the need for
Internet opportunity and literacy programmes to help people
better understand the Internet, assess risk and take advantage
of opportunities online whilst maintaining their personal
safety.
Sangeet has extensive experience providing training in
the areas of new and existing Internet and related mobile
technologies that can be used to engage, educate and empower
young people, as well as the professionals who work with them.
These training programmes also cover the areas of Internet
literacy, proficiency and safety. Sangeet is a strong believer
in the role that technology and ICTs can play in Continuing
Professional Development, education, learning, social and
business arenas. She has provided training to young people,
youth workers, teachers, librarians, parents, foster carers as well as the
community and post-16 education sectors.
She has also spoken widely on these issues at conferences like
the European Safer Internet conference 2006,
Wales E-Crime Summit 2006, and Youth Cymru conference 2005,
DYSG E-Learning Conference 2006 and so on.
Sangeet, who holds a BSc and PhD in Electrical Engineering from
the University of Leicester, became an advocate of Internet
awareness education for young people and community groups while
working in Singapore, where she was first an academic, then
private sector Internet training consultant. During that time
she became a member of and trainer for the Singapore
government-established Parents Advisory Group for the Internet
(PAGi) and represented the organisation in a wide variety of
events.
Sangeet is an associate member of the
Innovation Forum.
She is also a member of the Advisory Group of the
Communities@One programme, a Welsh
Assembly Government funded programme to support digital
inclusion. She is a member of the Education and Training
sub-committee of YALO (Youth and Adult Learning Opportunities)
division of the Welsh Assembly Government. She has recently been appointed a member of the
BBC’s Broadcasting Council for Wales,
now renamed as the Audience Council for Wales.
She is also a member of the Institute of Engineering and
Technology. She is married to a Welshman, and has three
children. Prior to June 2002, Sangeet and her family lived and
worked for nearly ten years in Singapore. She enjoys family
life, haiku poetry, photography, reading and trekking.
Alex Woolley, Interactive Content Specialist
Alex
joined WISE KIDS in April of 2007 after helping to develop the
Wales Co-operative Learning website in partnership with WISE
KIDS as a freelance web developer. He has a keen interest in new
technologies of all forms, with a particular focus on how people
relate to them and use them in everyday life. Initially training
as a product designer, Alex has a keen interest in how new
technologies enable creativity and is committed to ensuring
everyone can make the best use of new technology. In addition to
his web development skills, Alex has also developed sills in
ethnographic research through a work placement with Light Minds
ethnographic research consultancy in the summer of 2005.
Alex graduated from University of Wales Institute, Cardiff
(UWIC) with a BSc in Computer Aided Product Design in 2005. In
addition to his work with WISE KIDS, he is further developing
his research skills studying for a PHD in contextual user
testing of mobile device prototypes at UWIC.
Mr. Doug Hampson, Spinout Manager, University
of Glamorgan. Non-Executive Director.
Doug
Hampson is a highly energetic and committed manager with well
developed skills in business development and management,
strategic change and financial planning, and facilitation of
innovation in business and personal development. He has strong
commercial skills and the tenacity to negotiate successful
deals. He has extensive innovation support experience, having
worked with more than 700 clients, and run many workshops. He
also teaches MBA and undergraduate students, and supervises
enterprise projects. He has assisted micro-business clients to
obtain both grants and commercial funding amounting to at least
£5 million over the last five years. He actively mentors a
number of small businesses in the South Wales area.
Dr Gareth Loudon, Director of Light Minds and Innovation Forum.
Non-Executive Director.
Gareth runs a consultancy company called Light Minds Ltd. Light Minds helps
companies with their product innovation strategies based on customer
insight. Previously Gareth was a Programme Manager at Ericsson Research
where he developed new and innovative mobile devices and services for 3G
networks based on in-depth customer research. Before joining Ericsson, he
worked at the Apple-ISS Research Centre in Singapore and was the principal
designer of Asian language handwriting recognition technology. He also drove
efforts to integrate advanced language technologies to create the world's
first speech-pen interface solution for Chinese text input on a PC. This
award winning solution was launched by Apple Computer as a product for the
Chinese market in 1996. He has several patents and over thirty publications
to his name and has won many awards for his technical achievements and
concept design work. He is a chartered engineer and a Fellow of the
Institution of Electrical Engineers.
Mr. Shonu Das, Lawyer, Musician. Non-Executive Director.
Shonu
Das studied law at the universities of London and Cambridge
before working as a corporate lawyer for both New York and
London law firms in London, New York and Singapore specialising
in Mergers and Acquisitions, Project Finance and US Capital
Markets. Shonu is currently embarking on his second career as a
singer/songwriter and is 38 years old.
Ms Kim Anderson, Training Consultant.
Non-Executive Director.
Kim
is the Creative Director of Koru. She has extensive experience
as a management consultant and training facilitator in such wide
ranging areas as change and behaviour management, equality and
diversity training. Her clients include the Welsh Development
Agency, Home Office, Sussex Probation Area Staff, Greater London
Magistrates Court Authority and Police organisations. She is a
creative and lateral thinker and has used Drama as a means of
helping organisations to empower and develop their people
potential, increasing motivation, commitment, communication and
performance.
Mr Christopher Gregory, Consultant (Owner, CG Solutions).
Non-Executive Director.
An
interview style biography:
A paragraph introduction of yourself:
Slightly too serious at times, I
am nevertheless a young-at-heart Australian-born Wales-residing
late 30’s bald-by-choice male. Extremely happily married with no
children, I find my time taken up with my own business (a recent
and happy transition, reading (mostly sci-fi and fantasy),
walking (anywhere, even if the weather is awful), and travelling
Europe meeting people (one of the main reasons my wife and I
moved to the UK).
I have a belief that we all have a responsibility to participate
in our global community: each of us has an innate ability, honed
through education and experience, resulting in capabilities that
come to bear when needed.
A geologist by training, I have since trodden a career which
increasingly exposed me to the reality of technology and its use
by individual and communities. Hence WISE KIDS is a necessity as
it teaches responsible, appropriate and effective use of these
tools that are now available to us. But, remember, the greatest
tool is the human factor in all this!
An all time favourite book and why:
Love, Medicine & Miracles by
Bernie Siegel. This book, and its companion, Peace, Love &
Healing, came to me at time when I needed both physical and
spiritual support. Challenging yet insightful, the words spoke
of self-management, taking ownership of ones position, and
acknowledging that we are not always at fault; that circumstance
and matters not in our control do play a part in the who, what,
where and why questions we constantly seek answers to. Finally,
it offered uplifting examples – and personal development plans –
to achieve not what others expect but what we want for
ourselves. I simply have to add all the
Harry Potter books! They transport me to another space and time,
free to smile and explore.
A characteristic you admire in others:
Patience. So much extends from
patience; tolerance; the ability to listening; understanding;
empathy leading toward mutual understanding; respect. My wife is
one of the most patient (and understanding) souls I have met:
and she needs to be with me!
A favourite quotation or saying:
Do not mistake style for intent.
Seek first to listen, then to understand.
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