First set of speakers announced for #futurepub London on Sept 23rd

With six weeks to go to our third #futurepub event in central London, we're delighted to announce a fantastic starting line-up of speakers for the evening:

It's online so it's open... isn't it?

Sumika Sakanishi, Product manager of Open Data Certificate at Open Data Institute.

There is much talk about open data, but what exactly does 'open' mean? Maybe you made an initial step by putting your data online, but are you maximising its potential and unlocking the full value to the user of that data?

To help publishers and the wider community navigate the wild west of open data, we at the Open Data Institute have developed Open Data Certificate, a unique tool for measuring and communicating the openness of your data.

In this talk, I will provide an overview of the challenges faced by publishers and data users, and how Open Data Certificate can help address these challenges.

Crowdfunding Science

Natalie Jonk, Co-founder Walacea

We would like to talk to you about Walacea which is a crowdfunding platform specifically for scientific research. The aim of the website is to help more research obtain funding and also to increase the exposure of science to the public through encouraging scientists who crowdfund to offer rewards that tie in with outreach activities.

Having studied at Bristol and King's for my BSc and MSc then worked in the pharmaceutical industry for around 5 years, I decided that science was not progressing in the way that I would like it to. I thought other people might be frustrated too, and so I decided to start up Walacea.

Walacea is currently part of the Bethnal Green Ventures startup accelerator.

Tools for choosing a journal for a research paper

Anna Sharman, founder and director of Cofactor

The landscape of academic journals is getting increasingly complex and authors have difficulty knowing how best to find the journal that best fits their paper and their needs. Journals differ in how selective, open, fast, rigorous and expensive they are, as well as in their subject scope. Various tools are available to help authors choose, and I will briefly compare these, including one developed by Cofactor.

Anna Sharman is founder and director of Cofactor, a consultancy that aims to help scientists publish their research more effectively. She has previously been a biologist, a journal editor and a freelance editor and publishing consultant.

Doors open at 6:30pm and the talks will kick off at 7pm. Tickets are still available - you can register on the eventbrite page, and if you're interested at speaking at a future #futurepub event please let us know by filling out this short proposal form.

Look out for the second set of three of speakers to be confirmed in the coming weeks, and I look forward to seeing you in London on the 23rd!