Speakers

Keynote Speaker Profile

Dr Malcolm Read, Executive Secretary, JISC

Since July 1993 Dr Malcolm Read has worked for the Higher and Further Education Funding Councils as the Executive Secretary to the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). In this role, he facilitates the strategic direction of JISC through liaison with its funding bodies and other stakeholders and drives forward the work of the JISC Board to meet JISC’s strategic aims and objectives. Apart from his overall responsibility for the Executive, he has been particularly involved in ICT policy and strategy development in post 16 education and research. He is also heavily involved in international ICT infrastructure activities particularly in Europe and the United States.

Dr Read graduated in 1973 with a degree in Environmental Science from the University of East Anglia and went on to do a PhD at the University of Manchester on the hydrometeorology of a glacial catchment. He then worked in the Overseas Development Administration before moving to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) in 1979. He ran the computer department at the Institute of Hydrology before moving into administrative computing to head the Joint Administrative Computing Service of NERC and the, then, Science and Engineering Research Council in 1988.

Hal Plotkin, Senior Policy Advisor, United States Department of Education

Hal Plotkin is the Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary of Education (OUS), United States Department of Education. The OUS has responsibility for all US federal higher education policies and programs. Previously, Mr. Plotkin was a trustee and board president at the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, based in Silicon Valley California, where he helped oversee two community colleges with a combined enrollment of approximately 45,000 students.

Prior to joining the US federal government, Mr. Plotkin was a Silicon Valley-based journalist and commentator, a founding editor of public radio’s Marketplace program and a former columnist for CNBC.com and SFGate.com, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle.  Mr. Plotkin also founded the Center for Media Change, Inc., California-based non-profit company that facilitates public financing of high-quality documentary film project through its website, www.reelchanges.org.  He is a writer and editor by profession, who has published more than 600 articles on business, science, technology and education. His publishers include Inc. magazine, Forbes ASAP, Family Business magazine, Harvard Management Communications Update, the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate.com, and CNBC.com, among others.  Mr. Plotkin has served a variety of roles related to his passion for social activism, and served on the Economic Strategy Panel for the State of California.  Mr. Plotkin is a graduate of Foothill Community College and San Jose State University.