Metadingle

From 12:15 to 13:00 at Dingle Skellig Hotel

Our panel of industry experts and influencers will discuss the latest trends in media, technology, entertainment and art, as well as their impact on society. What is the impact of streaming services on the entertainment industry to the use of artificial intelligence in art? The panelists will also discuss their own experiences and opinions on the Metaverse, Metaphysical and perhaps even Metadingle.

Chair: Nick Linders

CEO, Algorithm

Nick Linders is a founding member and CEO of the XR Production Studio Algorithm. The award winning studio blends creativity and technology to create mind bending immersive experiences for clients and audiences around the world.

From an early career in the cultural arts sector, Nick studied a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in Trinity College Dublin. Alongside a lifelong love of technology, he joined his fellow founders and award winning team to create some of the biggest experiences in Ireland while also expanding to deliver projects all over the world.

Emmet O’Neill

CEO, Story Toys

Emmet O’Neill is the CEO of StoryToys - A multi-award winning developer and publisher of apps and games for children. Emmet has produced apps with many leading children’s brands including The LEGO Group, The Walt Disney Company, Marvel Entertainment, Penguin Random House, Warner/DC and Sesame Workshop.

With a career in digital product design that spans over 25 years, Emmet has worked across a broad spectrum of industries including publishing, advertising and film /TV. He specialises in leading highly creative teams and content oriented businesses.

Emmet has led StoryToys through a period of exceptional growth and the successful acquisition by the games label Team17 PLC in 2021.

Nicky Gogan

Piranha Bar

Nicky Gogan has had a highly prolific career across many roles in the creative industries and cultural innovation over the past 25 years. In 1999 she founded the Darklight festival and in 2008 she established Still Films where she has produced and directed a large slate of award-winning documentaries, animations and artist films. Nicky is currently executive producer and head of R&D at Piranha Bar across a slate of animation and hybrid series, where she combines her ongoing passion for storytelling and innovation in creative technology. In this regard the studio has developed a bespoke real-time animation pipeline AniMotion using Epic Games Unreal Engine technology and performance capture.

Tom Sargent

Founder and CEO Expensive JPEG

Tom is a web3 Marketer and Growth Hacker. He’s been helping both brands and creators launch their own web3 ideas and experiences since 2019, mostly focusing on blockchain gaming and the Metaverse he brings a down-to-earth and open-minded perspective on these huge trends. He has been a data-driven marketer for the last eight years in a variety of tech industries, from AI systems that are solving some of the world’s biggest problems to drone delivery systems during Covid, and all the way to using lasers to clean up space debris.

Nancy Xu

Epic Games, Unreal Engine

Nancy Xu is a virtual production producer at Epic’s London Innovation Lab, with a focus on empowering filmmakers to tell their stories using real time technology. Nancy also produced on shows such as The Lion King, Jungle Book and Alien Covenant.

Gianfranco Bianchi

Chief Creative Officer of Xavatar

Gianfranco is the creator of the original Xavatar avatars, the artistic look and feel of the company and The Sync Report also serving as co-creator of the show.

He is a multi-dimensional visual artist, learning and embracing all the ways one can tell a story visually. He started his career creating still architectural visualisations that became animations, visual effects for films, music videos and short films. At the same time his illustrations became comic books and concept art pieces who then turned into motion graphics and frame by frame animations. He understood that as a visual artist everything can become an important single art piece or one of many styles and techniques that can become something entirely new.