Topic: AI and Creativity

Nik Hafermaas

An internationally recognized and award-winning artist, designer and educational leader, Nik is a regular keynote speaker on creative leadership topics at conferences around the world.

Nik is a passionate advocate for creative strategies that address the relationship between breakthrough technology and being human.

An innovator and initiator of creative collaborations between industry, education, research, and social innovation, he founded the artist platform Ueberall International, specializing in exhibitions and art+tech installations that converge digital media and spatial experiences.

In his 14 years leading the undergraduate and graduate Graphic Design Departments at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Nik has created a revolutionary transmedia curriculum that fuses print, packaging, motion and visual interaction design.

At the Berlin-Based innovation agency Graft Brandlab, Nik is expanding the creative integration of digital experiences into the physical environment in his role as Managing Partner, Creation.

Ed Newton-Rex

Ed Newton-Rex is one of the world’s leading experts and speakers on Generative AI. He is one of only a handful of people to have founded and sold a Generative AI company, and has a breadth of experience working at a senior level for social media giants TikTok and Snapchat. Ed is now VP of Audio at Stability AI, a billion-dollar Generative AI company that is one of the leading competitors to OpenAI.

Having graduated top of his year in Music at Cambridge University, in 2010 Ed founded Jukedeck, the world’s first AI music company. Jukedeck’s technology was used to create more than a million original pieces of music, and won a number of awards, including a Cannes Innovation Lion. In 2019, the company was acquired by ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.

At ByteDance, Ed first led the AI music lab, then ran Product in Europe for TikTok, working on the world-renowned AI recommendation algorithm. At Snapchat, Ed was Chief Product Officer for Voisey, a music creation app that made it easy to make and collaborate on music, which led to record deals for a number of its users.

Ed is now VP of Audio at Stability AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion, the hugely successful, open-source image generation technology that helped kickstart the mass adoption of Generative AI. He is also a professional composer, published by Boosey & Hawkes, which gives him a unique perspective on the impact AI will have - and is already having - on the creative industries. He was a co-organiser and judge of the first international AI Song Contest, and is a mentor on the startup programme at Abbey Road Studios in London.

Ed was named one of Business Insider’s 30 most creative people in UK tech, and one of Sifted’s 20 generative AI ‘power players’ in Europe. He has made a number of media appearances discussing AI and creativity, including on the BBC, and has spoken on the topic at a range of conferences including TEDx, Mobile World Congress and Slush.