The Role of Information Technology and Media in Sustainability

The Edge
hosted by | GetUp!, EngageMedia , Engineers Without Borders

The mainstream media is catching onto key ideas about sustainability that have existed within the environment mainstream for the last thirty years, and have put a fresh glossy spin onto sustainable ideas and action.
This forum will discuss the current formats of the current media landscape, as well as the less seen but vibrant independent sphere and the spread of sustainable ideas viral media strategies.
Brett Solomon, Marcus Westbury, Andrew Lowenthal, Sriram Reddy

Marcus Westbury
Marcus is best known as the presenter of the popular ABC TV show, 'Not Quite Art'. Marcus has also been involved in many festivals across Victoria and New South Wales, including Artistic Director of the Melbourne’s Next Wave Festival, and Creative Manager of the Noise Media Festival. He has had a range of roles in various media projects, in particular ABC Local Radio.

Brett Solomon
Brett is the Executive Director of the online activist group GetUp! Getup is pioneering a new kind of political activism, and with more than 180,000 members across the country is targeting some of nations’ biggest concerns, from climate change, to David Hicks, to a people-powered federal budget. He is also the co-ordinator and founder of Oxfam Australia’s International Youth Parliament, an international network of young social justice activists tacking global issues.

Andrew Lowenthal
Andrew is involved in social justice media initiatives and is co-founder and project manager of EngageMedia. EngageMedia is a video sharing website focused on social and environmental issues in Southeast Asia, Australia and the Pacific and also a free software project producing online video distribution tools.

Sriram Reddy
Ram is the ICT development Officer of Engineers Without Borders. This organisation pioneers and implements sustainable engineering projects across the developing world. He is also Programs Officer with the Grassroots Networking Team at Infoxchange Australia. He manages the coordination of the Language Factory social enterprise initiative that teaches resident of public housing estates to manage the interpreting and translation challenges of community agencies and service providers.

Tim Parish (MC)
Tim is an artist and the co-editor and art director of undergrowth.org Undergrowth publishes a print and online media magazine with work from emerging and established artists and writers.