My Personal Reflection: Leading the First Ever Milton Keynes Artificial Intelligence Festival.

Putting on a week-long series of 14 events, for 1000 people, on time, with traction, and under-budget was not a part of the initial plan...

This time last year, when writing a bid for the UK Barclays Tech Ecosystem Partnership Programme (which ultimately funded most of the week), there was a small paragraph that Mike Johnson and Sophie Lloyd from Milton Keynes City Council suggested I include about a large tech event...

I don’t think any of us could have imagined the success of the first-ever #MKAIFest.

Upon reflection, there are a few elements that I personally found made the week exceptional.

1. The Importance of a Well-Informed Strategic Plan: Knowing why we wanted to create this experience was crucial. In our very first meetings, my main objective was to listen to my two seniors, Sophie Lloyd and Mike Johnson, who both had key perspectives. Both viewpoints allowed me to understand the significance of vision, and the key connections and strategy that would make AI in Milton Keynes a topic of conversation in all the right spheres. This dream concept was the springboard for all my tasks from day one.
2. Community Above Commercialisation: This week was about Milton Keynes. This was an alignment theme that I had to consistently refer back to when choosing our partners over the course of the week. Our focus for the entire journey was boosting the conversation about Milton Keynes, and we sought out individuals who shared the same ethos. This did mean I had to say no to a number of companies who had some great, more business-specific plans. But I wanted the week to feel like it was in the hands of everyone and have a seamless stream of democratisation. This was bigger than us; it was about the City of MK.
3. Focus on People: Our partners absolutely made this week, it wouldn't have been possible without them. And I enjoyed meeting the 14+ teams and coordinating with each of them. I discovered through this process that; to create a sense of widespread impact, we needed multiple voices speaking about the same thing. This would produce ‘reinforcement learning’ for all our attendees and a chain-of-thought accuracy that would carry throughout all of our events, pointing directly to the already-formed tech strategy of Milton Keynes. We wanted to harness the growing consensus of public-private partnerships, and #MKAIFest was a complete testament to that.

... We needed multiple voices speaking about the same thing. This would produce ‘reinforcement learning’ for all our attendees and a chain-of-thought accuracy that would carry throughout all of our events ...

Personal Reflections:

Reflection 1: Don’t be afraid to sprinkle your personality onto everything.

I knew that this week would inevitably reflect me as a person. When it came to the City Councils event on Monday, I knew the details would be just as big as the main makeup of the evening. I wanted to create an ambience that felt exciting, modern, vibrant, and visually stimulating. This only meant one thing: aesthetics would be everything.

Companies like Cebiso Studios, who worked on our animations and live-motion screens for the evening, added a touch of movement to our visuals to keep the audience engaged. Imagine Events brought coloured lighting into our event space; we had picked the colours in advance to coincide with our branding for the week, and together with the team on the day, ensured perfect symmetry for all their placements. I even asked for 1940s music for our networking area in the Radley Room at Bletchley Park, bringing the historic details of the evening to the forefront of everyone’s minds.

Reflection 2: All roads lead to home.

This week was absolutely a full-circle moment for me. All of the skills I have learned in the past 15 years, in film and television, large events, science communication projects, and more, were all used. One of my favourite parts of the week was creating a mini-media team to which I was able to provide direction, and create images and visuals that would work with the brand of the week. I felt all my favourite industries collide this week, and it made the whole experience feel like home.

Reflection 3: Girls in Science.

It’s only over the past two years that I have started running large events at Girls in Science for groups in their hundreds and been involved on the committees of events spanning 1,000+ individuals. Having a wide network of individuals in the tech space, some of whom (like Santander, SMC Consulting, and HMGCC) I had already run events with before in the past or had speakers from, made our conversations on the operational-front much smoother. We understood how we all worked, and I was able to figure out how to make their participation in #MKAIFest as easy as possible.

It was also useful to be aware from past experiences of the key components that make events ‘tweetable’ and improve our re-sharing probabilities.

When it comes to a large-scale piece of this magnitude, you can’t create events; you have to create experiences—two very different things. People need to feel something when they participate. I brought that ideology to all of our decisions leading up to the week, definitely a skill that GIS taught me.

... When it comes to a large-scale piece of this magnitude, you can’t create events; you have to create experiences—two very different things...

Reflection 4: Intensity Builds

One week before the event, as everything got busier than I could cope with, I realised I wouldn’t be able to see all the tasks over the finish line without any help. The InvestMK Team was phenomenal in pulling together to make everything work. My biggest thank-yous to Sophie and Sukhi especially, who were a phenomenal support in the final few days. Among just being the A-Team in general at InvestMK !

Overall our comms team informed us that 1000 people participated with the week itself. And the overall feedback has been phenomenal. If you have any experiences of the week that you like to share please see this link and tell us what you think.