SDF’s Festival of Learning and Development 2023
Date: 13th to 15th November 2023
Venue: SDF Zoom and Advance HE connect
Welcome to our Keynote Speakers page for the SDF’s Festival of Learning and Development 2023.
Donald H Taylor
Keynote title: What place does L&D have in a technological future?
Synopsis: How can L&D professionals meet the challenges and opportunities presented by today’s rapid technological changes? Join Donald H Taylor of the Learning Technologies Conference as he explores what’s driving these changes and the profound implications for L&D. We can expect technology to radically alter what’s expected from us, but the future is about a lot more than new technologies.
It’s about new ways of working, new skills and mindsets, and the humanity that L&D professionals bring to their role.
- Key tech trends in L&D today – it’s a lot more than just ChatGPT
- Moving L&D beyond its focus on content
- The skills of the 21st century L&D department
Sarah Hubbard
Keynote title: Self-care and boundary setting: when you are at your best, what factors have enabled and empowered you?
Synopsis: Self-care and boundary setting is no easy feat. Supporting others is a gendered activity and with that activity, our own needs can be deprioritised. In this interactive session, we will take time to explore these needs. With compassion and curiosity, we will reflect on our experiences of working within our sector’s dynamic eco-system through the lens of role, organisation, and context. Through emerging insights, we will identify opportunities to enable and empower well-being for ourselves, our colleagues, and our teams.
Fiona Lennoxsmith
Keynote title: Advance HE’s Leadership Survey: Exploring what it means for you
Synopsis: Advance HE’s Leadership Survey was published in May 2023, exploring ‘what works for leadership in Higher Education’ from the dual perspectives of ‘leading’ and ‘being led’. In this interactive keynote, we will taking a deeper look at the headlines and apply some creative thinking as to the implications for us as leaders and for the leaders, institutions, and systems we support.
Hank Williams
Keynote title: Agency, Awareness and Resourcefulness: how mentors and coaches can support people to develop their Ability to Choose.
Synopsis: Effective choice-making is key to management and leadership. In this interactive keynote, we will explore how a focus on choice can provide a productive framework for the mentoring of leaders, managers and all colleagues. We will consider our awareness of the choices we make (did we know we were making a choice?) and of the forces that shape our choice-making. We will also consider our resourcefulness when we are making choices and explore the hypothesis that agency = awareness + resourcefulness
Elliott Spaeth
Keynote title: Co-creating conditions enabling wellbeing, inclusion & creativity
Synopsis: An inclusive environment empowers people to thrive as their authentic selves, thus supporting wellbeing and providing a space where creativity is truly valued. But assumptions about how people work best can result in environments that can stifle creativity and impact negatively on wellbeing. In this interactive keynote, we will consider these assumptions and how we can work together to create conditions enabling wellbeing, inclusion, and creativity.