Tech platforms have changed our lives, in many ways for the better. Email and digital platforms have revolutionised business, as social media and dating apps have transformed our personal lives. While tech solutions have promised to make our lives easier, they have also affected wider society - and not always positively.

That’s what I want to discuss with today’s guest, Russ Shaw CBE. Russ had a high-profile career in telecoms, before founding Tech London Advocates in 2013 to promote and support startups and scale-ups and be an independent, grassroots voice for the community. This went global in 2015 with Global Tech Advocates (GTA), which is now present in over 40 hubs around the globe, with over 40,000 members. In 2019, Russ launched the inaugural GTA Festival, taking place in China and bringing the international network together for the first time. The second edition of the Festival was held in India in 2022.

Russ has been championing London and the UK as a global tech hub and campaigning to address some of the biggest challenges and opportunities facing tech companies in the UK. Russ will be speaking and hosting events at the upcoming SXSW London and London Tech Week conferences, so look out for him there.

Produced by the Bloomsbury Institute London.

Hope and excitement are powerful human emotions. We all hope for a better tomorrow, whether in our personal or professional lives. Dating apps and social media play into our optimism by showing us aspirational lifestyles, complete with the people that we might want to live them with. But sometimes this promise can turn disappointing, and even dark.

That’s what I want to discuss with today’s guest, Jemma Forte (Instagram, X). Jemma is an author, broadcast journalist, presenter, and public speaking coach. She writes about romance and relationships, having published five books: Be Careful What You Swipe For (2020), Me and Miss M (2020), Mad Wife Crisis (2020), When I Met You (2015), and From London With Love (2011).

Jemma also works as a broadcaster and a fellow podcaster (satirical current affairs and social media show: The Trawl), appearing regularly on TV politics and current affairs shows Jeremy Vine, Sky News, LBC, BBC Papers, Talk TV and Good Morning Britain. She started her presenting career at Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel, where she was an anchor for five years and interviewed everyone from Britney Spears to David Beckham.

Produced by the Bloomsbury Institute London.

Are our cities and their nightlife changing for the worse, or just evolving to meet modern tastes? When they were first launched, dating apps were originally intended to augment and supplement the existing ways that we might meet someone. One of the challenges of this is that some of the places that would traditionally be fruitful hunting grounds in the West for looking for a date - bars, pubs and nightclubs - have seemingly been in decline.

I’m expecting a forthright debate with today’s guest, Julieta Cuneo. Julieta is a public policy expert, specialising in cities and the night-time economy. She has worked as a journalist and in several think tanks researching and developing urban policy. She has also worked in Parliament and currently works for the Mayor of London on night-time policy and strategy. I want to ask her about how much government should intervene in sculpting the spaces that are often the backdrop to city life and love.

Produced by the Bloomsbury Institute London.