Theme: THE FUTURE OF EVERYTHING

Throughout history, one of humanity’s chief virtues has been our ability to innovate and adapt to difficult situations. More than ever, this is a time of rapid change and here, at KES, we have faith that such qualities will not fail us now. Even in the face of the great perils of our time: climate change, antimicrobial resistance and growing population, we have already started creating solutions. For these reasons, we want this event to be a celebration of optimism- a celebration of our collective future, dedicated to all the momentous things we can achieve.

Roxanne Irani
King Edward's School
Edgbaston Park Road
Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2UA
United Kingdom

Alok Kumar

After studying Engineering at Durham University Alok decided to pursue a career in product design for digital platforms, specialising in UI/UX design and web development. He is passionate about technology and looks forward to designing its future.

David Ault

David Ault (2000) has worked in large-scale science communication and as an actor for over a decade. At the beginning of 2020, he completed his fourth international on-stage tour with the multi-award-winning NoSleep Podcast and is the narrator for the corpus of works of Idries Shah.

David Ricks

David is Professor Emeritus at King’s College London, where he taught for more than thirty years; before that, he taught at the University of Birmingham. A graduate of Oxford and London Universities, he is this Michaelmas Term joint convenor of the Classical Reception Seminar at Oxford.

Lokesh Jain

Lokesh is a Physics and Philosophy student at the University of Oxford, specialising in geophysics and astrophysics. In his free time he enjoys learning languages, playing squash and go-karting.

Mukhtar Omar Mukhlis

Mukhtar O. Mukhlis is a 14-year-old KES boy, an author, social media influencer, and passionate linguist. Language has always been a love of his. His appetite for linguistics has grown immeasurably over the years, which in turn has influenced his penchant for constructing his own languages. He is devoted to opening the eyes of other people to the wonders that linguistics can weave, and he believes that if even the most uninterested person looks close enough, they’ll see just how much of a core study linguistics is.

Richard Benwell

Dr. Richard Benwell is the chief executive of Wildlife & Countryside Link. Previously he has been a policy adviser to the Secretary of State at Defra, led policy and advocacy at WWT and RSPB, and served as a director of Westmill Solar Cooperative and a clerk in the House of Commons Commission.

Sarbjit Clare

Dr. Sarb Clare is Deputy Medical Director and an Acute Medical Consultant at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust. She graduated from the University of Manchester, and has worked within many hospitals within the UK. She was one of the first trainees within acute medicine in the West Midlands and the first appointed Acute Physician at City Hospital in 2008 where she set up Acute Medicine from infancy. She has held many leadership roles including Clinical Lead Acute Medicine, Midland Met Clinical Advisor (Associate Medical Director), and currently Deputy Medical Director where she is heavily involved in the delivery of the new Midland Metropolitan University hospital.

Usman Raja

Usman Raja is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Birmingham. He has published commentaries on the impact COVID-19 may have on improving holistic practice in medicine and medical education, while he is currently working towards finding digital solutions for the behavioural and mental health management of spaceflight crew. In recent years, he has discussed topics such as self-actualisation, nationalism and morality in other speaking engagements.