NODIA, India -- The Guardian’s Activate platform continues international expansion with summit in Singapore
The Guardian is to expand its event partnership with the global consultancy MediaGuru into Southeast Asia with the announcement that it is to hold one of its 2014 Activate Summits in Singapore for the first time.
Activate Singapore will take place on the 16 and 17 of January at the Marina Bay Sands resort.
Speakers at the event will include Mozilla Online’s chairman and CEO, Li Gong, Paul Dempsey, president of BBC Worldwide, Arun Bansal, Ericsson’s APAC president, Facebook’s president of APAC Dan Neary, the eminent journalism professor and new media commentator Jeff Jarvis and Haoliang Xu, assistant secretary-general to the United Nations.
The Guardian’s Activate platform brings together many of the world's most influential figures, through its online editorial network and a range of international events, to debate the role the open internet has to play in driving positive social change on a global scale.
The first Activate event took place in London in 2009 and since then has expanded globally with annual events in New York, Delhi and now Singapore, with plans for an Activate Africa event in April 2014 soon to be announced.
Previous Activate speakers have included Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Arianna Huffington, president of The Huffington Post, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes and Twitter co-founder Ev Williams.
The event will also include the Activate Tech Talent day - a one-day event and pitching competition for global and regional startups and a format which has run previously with great success at Activate Summits in London and New York. The winning startup will earn the right to present at the Activate Summit the next day alongside some of the world’s leading names in media and tech, as well as receiving $50,000 SGD in funding from MediaGuru and £100,000 in advertising across the Guardian’s global tech platform.
Announcing the expansion, Robin Hough, editor of the Guardian’s Media and Tech Network (http://www.theguardian.com/media-network), said: "The internet continues to bring the world closer together and at the Guardian we're committed to encouraging debate between diverse, global audiences in line with our open and digital-first strategies.
"We’re delighted to be bringing the Guardian Activate Summit to Singapore and the wider Southeast Asia region where rapid growth in digital technologies is having a real impact in terms of innovation, and where individuals and organisations are able to effect positive change through these technologies. We’re looking forward to engaging with, and providing a platform for more fascinating conversations about the influence of web technologies on the world, both at the event and online through the Activate platform."
Poonam Sharma, director of MediaGuru, said: “Activate is a global platform to showcase and talk about new technologies, innovation and thought leadership in the digital space. We decided to bring it to Singapore because, as the technology hub of Asia, innovation is very high on the agenda here.
“We strongly feel that in the given global technology landscape, Singapore’s growth has been phenomenal and we see Activate becoming a landmark event in bringing the work and focus of Singapore in technology to a wider global audience. Activate will also offer great business opportunities to young Start-ups through its Tech Talent competition, which will celebrate the best applications of innovation and entrepreneurship to tackle global problems and stimulate global growth.”
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Notes to editors:
For more information on Activate Singapore and the wider Activate platform visit the Guardian website at http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/activate-new-york and follow @ActivateSummit (http://twitter.com/ActivateSummit) on Twitter
The Guardian’s 2013 Activate Summit in New York is taking place on 19 / 20 November - follow the event on Twitter via the hashtag #activatenyc
About Guardian News & Media
Guardian News & Media (GNM) publishestheguardian.com, the third largest English-speaking newspaper website in the world (comScore, August 2013). Since launching its US and Australia digital editions in 2011 and 2013 respectively, traffic from outside of the UK now represents over two-thirds of the Guardian's total digital audience.
In the UK, GNM publishes the Guardian newspaper six days a week and the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, The Observer.
The newspapers were this yearnamed the most trustworthy, accurate and reliable newspapers in the UK.
The Guardian, which was first published in 1821, is most recently renowned for its agenda-setting NSA and GCHQ revelations following disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden, its globally acclaimed investigation into phone hacking and the launch of its groundbreakingdigital-first strategy in 2011, and its trailblazing partnership with WikiLeaks in 2010.
About MediaGuru
MediaGuru, (http://mediaguru.in/ )an Indian MNC, is a media consulting, technology, and entertainment company, with expertise across television, film, radio, new media, and print. The company's focus areas include new launches and revamping of TV channels, radio stations, digital and print businesses; production and distribution of Hollywood and Indian films and TV shows; and media & knowledge process outsourcing (MPO/KPO) services. Their client geographies span across US, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
For further information please contact:
Robin Hough, Guardian News & Media : robin.hough@theguardian.com
Contact
MediaGuru Consultant Pvt Ltd
1204766000
