Session: Welcome to Reflect, Share, Inspire – Digital Skills for Heritage

Eilish McGuinness became Chief Executive in January 2022, having previously been the Heritage Fund’s Executive Director, Business Delivery.

Eilish has worked in heritage all her professional life and has extensive experience across the sector and the breadth of the UK’s heritage.

She joined the Heritage Fund in 1996 and has held a variety of roles – both operational and strategic – including Regional Manager North East, Head of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Major Grants and Special Programmes.

Session: Welcome to Reflect, Share, Inspire – Digital Skills for Heritage

Josie Fraser is Head of Digital Policy for the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the largest dedicated funder of heritage in the UK. The Fund provides leadership across the sector and works to ensure the UK’s heritage supports positive and lasting change for people and communities.

Josie’s work focuses on ethical and inclusive digital transformation, helping sectors get the most out of the effective and creative use of technology.

Session: Welcome to Reflect, Share, Inspire – Digital Skills for Heritage

Anra works with museums and heritage organisations in the UK and internationally, to help them successfully navigate the impact of digital transformation. Her specialisms are digital leadership, literacies and skills, digital storytelling and cultural education, all in the context of resilience, social impact and values-led practice.

Anra co-chairs Creswell Heritage Trust, co-developed the Digital Culture Compass and advises initiatives including Art UK, Leicester University’s Institute for Digital Culture and GEM.

Session: Welcome to Reflect, Share, Inspire – Digital Skills for Heritage

Ranjit Kaur Atwal is a Communications Consultant, Mentor and Facilitator with over 10 years in senior marketing roles across the cultural and creative industries. Her expertise and passion is in devising and delivering strategic multi-channel communications for organisations, festivals and events. This has seen her lead campaigns for the Roundhouse to the world’s largest River celebration at Thames Festival Trust and disabled-led arts commissioning organisation Unlimited.

Ranjit was a Digital Skills Mentor for the Digital Heritage Lab and is a contributor to the Digital Heritage Hub. Ranjit is an Arts Marketing Association (AMA) board member.

Session: Welcome to Reflect, Share, Inspire – Digital Skills for Heritage

Lizzie Glithero-West has been the Chief Executive of The Heritage Alliance since 2016.

Her previous career has been mainly in the civil service and she has expert knowledge of a wide range of policy areas including archaeology, heritage protection, museums and tourism.

Lizzie has also spent time as Private Secretary to Culture Ministers and the Permanent Secretary, as Head of Logistics at DCMS at the time of the General Election, and on secondment to English Heritage and to the National Museum Directors’ Council. Lizzie’s first love is heritage. She has a degree in Archaeology and Anthropology from Oxford, and an MA in History of Art from Birkbeck. In 2014, she was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Session: Welcome to Reflect, Share, Inspire – Digital Skills for Heritage

Tom is a nonprofit CEO turned grantmaker. He founded civic tech pioneers mySociety and worked at the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit before leading digital transformation at two of the UK’s largest institutional funders.

Tom is an Ashoka Fellow, the co-director of a non-profit that trains professors, and a board member at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Session: Digital on a shoestring – panel session

Delphine Jasmin-Belisle is the Head Development & Membership for the Heritage Alliance, the advocacy body representing the independent heritage movement in England. Passionate about the sector’s sustainability, she designed several sector support programmes including Heritage Digital and Rebuilding Heritage supporting over 2200 UK heritage organisations.

In partnership with Timmus Research she delivered the DASH Survey 2021 which gathered the views over 4,500 heritage staff, and volunteers on digital skills and aptitudes. Previously, Delphine managed a portfolio of English Heritage sites across the Yorkshire Coast and Moors.

Session: Digital on a shoestring – panel session

Session: Digital on a shoestring – panel session

Session: Digital on a shoestring – panel session

Jade Staiano is an expert in supporting both charities and small businesses to transform their digital comms. She specialises in delivering training that builds digital skills and confidence, despite small budgets and time constraints.

Jade has had the privilege of designing and delivering training for hundreds of charities, and really understands the challenges and barriers they are facing.

Session: Digital on a shoestring – panel session

Session: Embedding ‘digital’ to support organisational sustainability

With expertise in Museums Studies and Digital Heritage, Amelia’s practice and research focuses on the use of digital technology in creative and cultural institutions, especially museums. Amelia has over 10 years of experience working with and for local and national museums, both as curator and through her company ‘Curator – Designer – Maker’.

As a creative practitioner she has a proven and established record of developing physical exhibition interactives, consulting on the use and implementation of technology, and training museum professionals on the use, application and implication of 3D technology.

Session: Embedding ‘digital’ to support organisational sustainability

Ruth is a critical theorist who currently teaches on the MA in Culture, Creativity and Entrepreneurship at Leeds.

She has expertise in working with marginalised groups and co-founded the Bibliotherapy Hub for refugees and asylum seekers in Leeds. She currently volunteers with Leeds Refugee Forum as an advocate. She worked with Leeds Outreach Programme to encourage underrepresented learners to enter third level education. Prior to moving to Leeds, Ruth worked on behalf of an anti-racist action group in Ireland.

Session: Small changes can make a big difference – ensuring your digital activity is environmentally sustainable

James is Managing Director at Supercool. Having trained as a print designer, he founded the company in 2004 and began working with organisations and artists he’d met through art school. Since then, James has been the driving force behind Supercool’s transformation into a well-respected digital design agency — with a reputation for inclusive design, smart use of tech, and great customer service.

With a keen interest in both design and development, James works across the team at Supercool — as well as directly with clients; helping them identify challenges, and resolve them with great-looking, highly functional solutions.

Session: Digital volunteering – panel session

John is a producer/consultant who for 16 years has led high impact public programmes with arts, heritage and environmental organisations across the UK. In collaboration with cultural, research and community partners, he produces physical and digital public programmes that explore human relationships with place, people and the changing natural world.

John also co-manages Duke’s Hagg Wood, an ancient woodland in Northumberland where many Wild Museum programmes are researched and developed.

Session: Digital volunteering – panel session

Since 2016, Catrin has worked in communications and project management at the intersection of arts, architecture, and community engagement. As a former NHS Partnerships Manager, she oversaw 300+ volunteers and project partners, facilitating crucial community vaccination programs.

At VocalEyes, Catrin manages Heritage Access 2022, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, collaborating with digital volunteers to assess online access information provided by UK heritage and museum sites and deliver training across the sector.

Session: Digital volunteering – panel session

Niall is Head of Heritage and Community Relations at Nerve Centre where he leads a variety of programmes across Northern Ireland, including CollabArchive. The unique digital volunteering project combined Nerve Centre’s digital creativity with archives at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) to create opportunities for underrepresented audiences to engage.

Niall has experience working across a range of disciplines, including heritage, engagement, marketing, public relations, journalism and digital media.

Session: Digital volunteering – panel session

Gabrielle (she/her) has been the Volunteer Co-ordinator at GWL since 2011, supporting volunteers from diverse backgrounds to contribute to the organisation. She is passionate about making (heritage) volunteering more inclusive, and about ensuring volunteering is better valued and recognised withing organisations and across our communities and wider society.

Gabrielle is a member of the Volunteer Organisers Network which supports heritage organisations to increase the number and diversity of heritage volunteers in Scotland.

Session: Digital volunteering – panel session

Lisa became the County Archivist at Gwent Archives, south Wales, in June 2019, where she leads a team of 15 to preserve and make available the records of the old county of Gwent.

Gwent Archives is the lead partner for #CrowdCymru project, working with colleagues at Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff University Special Collections and Archives and the National Library of Wales to delivery our digital volunteering project.

Session: Digital volunteering – panel session

Session: Whistle-stop tour of copyright and open licensing

Session: Whistle-stop tour of copyright and open licensing

Session: Digital trends: Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Jo is the Marketing Campaigns Manager for Brighton Dome and Brighton Festival, and a freelance marketing consultant and publications manager. They specialise in integrated campaign management, copywriting, and artificial intelligence consultation.

Previously they were Marketing Manager of Music Theatre Wales, Publications Officer of Sadler’s Wells, Marketing and Communications Manager of YGAM, and the Communications Manager of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK.

Session: In conversation – Digital Heritage Lab what happened next?

Laura is founding director of the Restoration Trust. The Restoration Trust is a charity that works in partnership with heritage, arts and health and social care organisations to offer culture therapy to people who live with mental health challenges. Culture Therapy uses heritage and creativity to improve people’s mental health without relying on mental health services.

Our projects explore heritage through walks, excavations, discussions, behind-the-scenes tours, individual research, music, drama, storytelling and art.

Session: In conversation – Digital Heritage Lab what happened next?

Janet has worked in digital for over ten years – including Jewish Museum London, BFI, Culture24 and Apples and Snakes. Janet is fascinated by digital experiences and storytelling and firmly believes in tech for good, digital accessibility and clean UX/UI.

Alongside, Janet is a freelancer in digital heritage with The Museum Platform. In 2020/21 Janet was a Digital Skills Mentor supporting heritage organisations taking part in The Lab strand of the Digital Heritage Lab.

Session: In conversation – Digital Heritage Lab what happened next?

Ed Archer has been Chairman and a committee member of the Lanark and District Archaeological Society (LADAS) for almost 40 years. In that time he has taught on the subjects of history, classics, archaeology and computing at a variety of institutions and has been a lecturer in Archaeology and History at the University of Glasgow.

Ed was previously the Senior Development Officer for Community Service Volunteers / Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme responsible for getting over fifties into volunteering. Over eight years Ed grew the volunteer base from zero to 510 across 37 projects chiefly in South Lanarkshire, the largest volunteer project of its type in Scotland.

Ed set up the website Clydesdale’s Heritage as one of the initiatives from LADAS and has written extensively on the heritage of Lanark and Clydesdale. He was awarded the Lanark Burgess Award for services to Heritage in 2013.

Session: In conversation – Digital Heritage Lab what happened next?

Sheffield-based archivist with over 15 years of experience working and managing audio-visual archives within British Library Sound and Vision, Villon Films, National Jazz Archive, Bridgeman Images, London Community Video Archive, and Sheffield Museums.

Alex has also worked on footage and stills digitisation, archive production and research for independent documentaries.

In 2015 Alex set up Memory Dance, a non-profit organisation that explores different modes of delivering AV heritage to diverse audiences in new and exciting contexts.

Session: Connected Heritage: Unlocking the power of collaboration using digital tools

Lindsey Green, co-founder of Frankly, Green + Webb, has over 15 years of expertise as a digital strategist, researcher, and facilitator for arts and heritage organisations worldwide. Her priority is to assist organisations in develop new ways of working and transforming audience engagement through digital innovation.

Lindsey also serves as a digital mentor for the National Lottery Heritage Fund and as a trustee at Sheffield Museums.

Session: Connected Heritage: Unlocking the power of collaboration using digital tools

Session: Connected Heritage: Unlocking the power of collaboration using digital tools

Cesare is a Research Associate at the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG), University of Leicester and current Project Manager of the Queer Heritage and Collections Network (queerhcn.org).

Cesare recently completed a PhD at the School of Museum Studies (University of Leicester) and his doctoral research focuses on the role of collections in socially engaged museum practice.

Session: Ensuring your digital activity is accessible and inclusive

Jane has worked as a musician, lecturer, editor, diplomat and is now a Director of social enterprise, Result CIC, which provides coaching and personal development training to marginalised people.

Jane became deaf in her early 20’s and has worked in Finland and Poland as well as the UK. Her experience of the highs and lows of being one of a tiny number of senior professional deaf women has helped inform her equality campaigning work.

Session: Ensuring your digital activity is accessible and inclusive

Ellen is the founder of Little Seed Group an award-winning and disability-led marketing, PR and social media agency based in historic York, North Yorkshire. Her core interests are in on and offline accessibility, social media marketing and email marketing for which she is a certified and approved Mailchimp marketer.  

In 2021, Ellen was recognised by Business Insider as one of the top female social media professionals in the UK and more recently she secured the title of ethical business of the year due to her work with British Wild Hedgehogs.  

Session: Ensuring your digital activity is accessible and inclusive

Maisie has been working in marketing for eight years, mainly in theatre organisations in South Yorkshire. Working in all aspects of marketing, she specialises in audience development, website development, design, and accessible marketing.

Having lost her hearing throughout her adult life, Maisie’s passion for making marketing accessible is driven by her own experiences. Now, she balances her part-time job alongside working freelance to improve accessible marketing and engagement with disabled audiences in organisations across the country.