Reaching Kids Where They Are – Speakers
Speakers:
Big Manny
Emanuel Wallace (aka Big Manny) is a 26-year-old science-first content creator and music artist making the periodic table and Bunsen burners cool again. With a master’s degree in biomedical science, Manny creates age-friendly and class-friendly content that is entertaining, educational, and experimental. Manny has a combined following of 3 million on TikTok and Instagram, has appeared on ‘Blue Peter’ and regularly collaborates with BBC Bitesize. His debut children’s book, ‘Science is Lit’, was published in August 2024.
Ian Douthwaite
As CEO of Dubit, Ian leads the team in building brand experiences on Roblox, Fortnite, and Zepeto. As platforms like Roblox continue to expand, enabling millions to create and share 3D experiences, Ian has established Dubit as the leading creator of avatar apparel for brands. Last year alone, over 2 billion virtual clothes and accessories were purchased on Roblox, and Dubit has contributed over 5,000 items through its AI-enabled design pipeline. Avatar apparel is just one of the ways Dubit helps brands unlock measurable results that drive real-world outcomes. Under Ian’s leadership, Dubit continues to invest in technology to unlock the full potential of these immersive platforms for brands.
Lotte Elwell
Lotte co-founded King Banana TV to create impactful content that really makes a difference. She has been producing and directing Children’s content for over 20 years, including BAFTA Award winning ‘CBeebies Springwatch’, ‘Something Special’, ‘Teletubbies’ and the ‘Peppa Pig – Festival of Fun’ movie. She has created many big brands including ‘Yakka Dee!’ for CBeebies and ‘Meet the Experts’ for Milkshake. Lotte is thrilled to be one of the Executive Producers on ‘Nikhil & Jay’, which is the company’s most ambitious project to date and is already enjoying the impact it has on the audience. She loves taking on a challenge and never ceases to be amazed by how adaptable and capable small people are!
Steve Smith
Steve is a highly experienced producer, director and founder of Beakus – an animation studio based in Lewes, East Sussex. Established in 2010, Beakus is also an IP generator of new animated series for both pre-school and kids. Projects include ‘Olobob Top’ (78 x 5′ for BBC, ABC & S4C) and ‘Big Lizard’ (52 x 7′ for BBC, FTV & RTBF). Beakus also co-produces ‘Yakka Dee!’ (146 x 5′ for BBC) and provides service work for select clients, such as WildBrain for ‘Brave Bunnies’ (104 x 5′). Over a 20-year career Steve has directed and produced animated commercials, short and long-form content, educational content for digital and in-gallery exhibition, feature animation, stings, idents, and full TV series. He has also sat on juries for the British Animation Awards and BAFTA.
Vishaal Virani
Vishaal started his career as an NHS doctor, and subsequently transitioned into healthcare strategy consulting. He worked in strategy consulting for four years, with a particular focus on due diligence for private equity firms, and corporate strategy for hospitals and medical technology companies.
He then chose to pursue a longstanding interest in leveraging digital health to meaningfully improve patient outcomes – initially as business development and client success lead at Ada Health, a venture-backed AI health technology company; and then managing digital health solutions for a FTSE 100 consumer healthcare company that owns global brands such as Durex, Nurofen and Dettol. Vishaal now works at YouTube, where he is building out the brand new Health offering to empower millions of YouTube users and NHS organisations across the UK and beyond.
Vishaal is also a co-founder of Doctorpreneurs, the world’s largest community of medical innovators, governor of the Royal Free NHS Trust, guest lecturer on digital health at London Business School and UCL Global Business School for Health, advisor to various health tech startups, and serves on the Our Future Health Technology Advisory Board.
Host and Event Producer:
Rachel Bardill
Rachel is a digital product, marketing, brand and franchise expert with over twenty years experience in the kids, family and teen genre at a VP level in the BBC and now as founder of Bar Digital. She is an audience expert and uses that knowledge to build the right strategies and creative executions. She has developed products (CBeebies apps are the biggest in the UK), games, video, social content and brand franchises for some of the biggest kids brands in the world and is committed to working with the kids media industry to drive creativity, innovation, business strategies and revenue growth.