Watch Talks Examples For organisers Book Gavin

Keynote speaker, chair and convenor

Gavin Starks

Data, climate and infrastructures of trust, elucidated for those who have to act.

Our data infrastructure is now critical to our social, environmental and economic progress (especially now we are in the age of ai). Founding CEO of the Open Data Institute; co-chair of the UK Open Banking Standard and the UK Smart Data Council; founder of Icebreaker One; Gavin has created and incubated dozens of companies and recognised as one of the most influential people in UK tech and data. He has spoken at the G8, the World Bank, the UN and Davos, from business events to hacker camps, art schools to astronomers. He's had this social media handle, agentGav, since 2003.

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Gavin Starks
Highlights: G8 CHOGM COP World Bank UN Climate Action Summit World Economic Forum, Davos HM Treasury Foo camp Royal Astronomical Society TEDx

"May we always measure what matters, and mend what we measure."

Closing toast from an after-dinner speech at the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators annual banquet.

Why book him?

Understanding the why

Gavin understands not just what but why: he has co-chaired standards that have been implemented by regulators, has run institutions that shaped data policy, and founded and sold the companies that put it to work. Audiences will gain insights into how decisions were actually made, where risks were taken and where they were managed, rather than commentary from the 'outside'.

Cross-domain translation

Finance, water and energy experts, entrepreneurs, civil servants, artists hear how these themes is relevant to their own world through examples translated back into human language and stories you can relate to, including where humour and gravity can help.

Focussed on your audience

Whether a keynote with a clear call to action, a 15-minute after-dinner speech & toast, a board presented with market insights or hard questions, or a public talk, every audience is directly engaged.

"Such is the interest in Gavin's talk we worked together to publish it. An insightful evening. Thank you."
Tom Flood CBE, Master, Water Conservators Livery Company
"I think my takeaway is you like difficult, important, and often thankless tasks."
FinTech founder
"Can we move from a critical mess to a critical mass?"
Keynote speech
"Disinformation is to data what pollution is to a river."
On why data infrastructure needs governance

Formats

Keynotes

Opening and closing keynotes for 10-30 mins, with a clear call to action.

After-dinner speeches

Around fifteen to thirty minutes with a mix of humour and serious points, ending with a relevant toast.

Chairing

Panels, debates and roundtables, public sector, academic or commercial sessions.

Lectures & conversations

For example, the Lord Mayor's Lecture Series, the Longplayer Conversation at the British Library, podcasts and radio, including Radio New Zealand, BBC Radio Four and BBC World Service.

Closed-door sessions

Briefings and roundtables for government, boards and investors, including sessions at the Palace of Westminster, Regulators and at CHOGM.

Judging

For example, judge and chair for a $500K Sustainable Development Goals hackathon prize at Davos, and dozens of independent competitions.

Watch & listen

Keynotes, lectures and conversations from the City of London to San Francisco to Riga to Wellington.

Gavin Starks

ODI Summit, 2015

Embracing Generation Open, at the Open Data Institute Summit.
Knowledge Miles
Lord Mayor's Lecture Series, 2024 Sustainability reporting
State of Open, 2024 The Longplayer Conversation
British Library, 2019 Keynote
Strata Conference London, 2013 How the web of data is changing business, government and lives
Verge, San Jose Acoustic Cosmology
EMFcamp, 2016 Codifying sustainability
TEDxEast, 2011 In conversation
Wonderspace, episode 74

Talks

Talks are built for each audience, with recurring themes including:

Critical mass or critical mess?

Today there are more machines online than people, and there is exponentially more data than a decade ago: are we building something useful, or drowning in it?

Data is infrastructure, not oil

Whether roads, water mains or the railway gauge: why it's better to think of data like shared infrastructure, why technology is the easiest part, and what we need to prioritise today.

What gets measured gets mended

How good data turns problems into conversations, and conversations into reform: lessons learned across financial, media, utility sectors, nationally and internationally.

Ethics vs rights

How businesses, government and citizens think about these differently and what it means for your strategy and decision-making processes.

Smart finance = sustainability

Why decisions on sustainability, nature recovery and adaptation rest on trusted data at scale.

Smart data = open markets

Why Open Banking changed the game, what is being forgotten along the way, and how your can shape your strategic approach in the age of ai.

Thinking in centuries

Our infrastructures outlive the people who design them: what does this mean for data? Can a music project help frame the question?

Learning across sectors

What can the music industry teach us about finance? What can the energy sector learn from banking? What can government learn from open source software development? What can a startup learn from astrophysics?

Thinking differently

A former Jodrell Bank radio astrophysicist turns the universe into sound and presents to the Royal Astronomical Society, festivals, and even hacker camps in a field: science, tech and culture collide to look at the world through radically different lenses.

Examples

A small selection from hundreds of keynotes, panels and roundtables across five continents.

Governments and global institutions

G8 Open Government Partnership, Lancaster House. Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) at Guidlhall, London and in Malta. World Bank Spring Meeting, with the World Bank President and UN Deputy Secretary-General. UN Climate Action Summit, New York. UN Disaster Risk Reduction Global Platform, Geneva. World Economic Forum, Davos. European Commission. US Secretary of Agriculture's roundtable. Both main UK party conferences. Regulators (UK, Canada, New Zealand). House of Lords roundtables. Parliamentary Select Committee. Government Office for Science. British Embassy, Tokyo.

Finance, business and technology

Global Open Finance Summit, Edinburgh. Telegraph Technology Intelligence. Bird and Bird. Transparency Task Force. Royal Mail. Disruption Summit Europe. CogX. Strata. Wired. Cloud Expo Europe. Verge, San Jose. Gates Foundation. Aspen Institute and Knight Foundation. Henley Business School. Imperial College London.

Science, culture and community

Royal Astronomical Society. British Library. Royal College of Art. Goldsmiths. Somerset House. Science Museum IMAX. TEDxEast. Foo camp. EMFcamp. OpenTech (eight years running). Future Everything. Art Centre Nabi and Yonsei University, Seoul. University of Rio de Janeiro.

Track record

From radio astronomy to the first European webcasts, open data to Open Banking, and now the data infrastructure for net zero.

Gavin Starks

2019 to now

Founder and CEO, Icebreaker One. A neutral non-profit building market-wide data sharing for net zero across energy, finance, water and the built environment, with 70+ members including nine banks and lenders. Launched at Davos and the UN. Co-chair of Open Energy, STREAM and Perseus.

2023 to 2025

Co-chair/Member, UK Smart Data Council, by ministerial appointment, steering cross-sector data sharing for the Department for Business and Trade.

2015 to 2016

Co-chair, Open Banking Standard, appointed by HM Treasury. The foundation for regulated Open Banking in the UK, now a market valued at over $100B globally.

2012 to 2016

Founding CEO, Open Data Institute, created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt. Built it from zero to franchises in 20 countries, incubated 50+ companies, and generated more than $100M of measurable impact.

2008 to 2015

Founder, CEO and Chairman, AMEE. Raised over $10M from leading VCs to make the world's environmental data available via an open API, and creating an environmental score for over 2M UK businesses. Acquired in 2015.

1999 to 2008

Founding CEO roles Tornado Productions, one of Europe's largest webcasters (acquired 2003), and Consolidated Independent, which put a quarter of the world's independent music online (and delivered Radiohead's In Rainbows to the market). Chaired the team behind the UK's first Gold Standard carbon offset. Chair, non-exec and mentor to many businesses, including aiding exit processes.

1993 to 1999

Founding team, Virgin Net, building its search engine, listings and music channels, and pioneering live webcasting in Europe. Before that, radio astronomy at Jodrell Bank and lecturing at the University of Glasgow.

Named one of the most influential people in UK tech and data. Former London Tech Ambassador. Board roles have included the Ministry of Justice Data, Science and Evidence Board, the Mayor of London's Smart London Board, Blue Ventures Trustee, Yoti's Guardian Council and as Longplayer Trustee.

For organisers

Biogs (copy/paste/edit as you wish) and logistics

Short

Gavin Starks is founder and CEO of Icebreaker One, building data infrastructure for net zero. He was founding CEO of the Open Data Institute, and co-chaired both the UK Open Banking Standard and the UK Smart Data Council. He has founded and exited several companies.

Longer

Gavin has spent over three decades building networks that others rely on. A former radio astrophysicist at Jodrell Bank, he was on the founding team of Virgin Net (now Virgin Media), ran two webcasting and music distribution companies, and founded AMEE to put the world's environmental data behind an open API.

As founding CEO of the Open Data Institute, alongside Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt, he helped shape data policy in the UK and worldwide, then co-chaired (and named) the Open Banking Standard for HM Treasury. He co-chaired the UK Smart Data Council for the Department for Business and Trade, helping shepherd the Data Bill into becoming the Data (Use and Access) act.

Today he leads Icebreaker One, convening finance, utilities and regulators to make data work harder for sustainability. He also converted a century-old historic ship to live aboard and built a co-operative harbour to put it on.

To go far,
we go together

Keynotes, dinners, panels, lectures and board sessions, in the UK and internationally. Paid and unpaid invitations are both considered, depending on context.

Email gavin@dgen.net Message on LinkedIn
Gavin Starks, @agentGav
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