We have a fantastic lineup of speakers and panelists for the Media140 Perugia Journalism event. Here are the biographies and pictures of the people you’ll be hearing from. More profiles will be added over the next couple of days.

Tom Loosemore, Head of 4ip, Channel 4
		Tom Loosemore is head of Four Innovation for the Public Fund (4IP) at Channel Four in London. He was previously senior advisor of digital media strategy at UK media regulator Ofcom, head of broadband at the BBC (where he was one of the authors of the 10-year strategic vision entitled Building Public Value) and a journalist of the UK edition of Wired. In 1998, Loosemore launched the local information website upmystreet.com. In his spare time he has been instrumental in launching award-winning e-democracy websites including theyworkforyou.com and faxyourMP.com. 4IP is a pilot £50 million creative fund that aims to re-invent how publicly-valuable content is conceived, funded and delivered for British audiences on new media platforms. The objective is to nurture new talent, champion new voices and fresh perspectives, give people who can reinvent public service media the tools and resources they need to do it. twitter: @tomskitomski

Kevin Marsh, Editor-in chief, BBC College of Journalism
		Kevin Marsh is the Editor of the BBC College of Journalism website: www.bbc.co.uk/journalism. Before that, he was Editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today from November 2002 to March 2006 – Today broadcasts to over 6 million listeners each morning. In 1998, he developed and launched Broadcasting House – the first new News programme on Radio 4 for a decade. His programmes have won seven Sony awards and an Amnesty International award. He’s a Visiting Fellow at Bournemouth University Media School. twitter: @kjmarsh

Mark Glaser Marsh, Executive Edior, MediaShift
		Mark Glaser is the executive editor of MediaShift, a website that tracks how weblogs, podcasting, citizen journalism, wikis, news aggregators and online video are changing our media world. MediaShift includes commentary and reporting to tell stories of how the shifting media landscape is changing the way we get our news and information, while also providing a place for public participation and feedback. twitter: @mediatwit

Moeed Ahmad, Head of Social Media, Al Jazeera
		Moeed Ahmad is the head of new media at the Al Jazeera Network. He joined the company in 2005. His primary responsibility is to develop Al Jazeera’s new media strategy focusing on distribution, contribution and audience engagement especially in the internet and mobile mediums. The new media team has successfully launched a number of initiatives such as Al Jazeera’s Twitter feeds, YouTube channels, Creative Commons repository, Facebook and iPhone apps. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 2003. He is a proponent of Open Source technologies and is particularly supportive of initiatives such as Creative Commons which enable knowledge and media to be shared. twitter: @moeed

Meg Pickard, Head of Social Media Development, Guardian
		Meg Pickard is the Head of Social Media Development for Guardian News & Media, responsible for developing and supporting existing and new social web strategy and interactive experiences. She comes from a background in social anthropology and in the mid-nineties conducted ethnographic fieldwork into community participation and cultural identity first in Bolivia and subsequently online. Since then, she has worked in New Media including a long stint at AOL, plus consulting roles with a range of small startups, global brands and non-profit organisations. Meg’s particular areas of interest are community engagement and the emergence of new forms of collaborative and participatory media, which are inspired by her ongoing curiosity about the cultural, social and psychological aspects of online interaction plus an enduring personal passion for publishing and participating online. She describes herself as a creative geek, is one of the longest-running bloggers in the UK and lives in London and online. twitter: @megpickard

Jillian York, Author, Global Voices
		Jillian York is a Boston-based writer, researcher, and activist. Her primary interest is issues of free speech online in the Middle East and North Africa. Secondary interests include issues of race and identity, journalism and social media. Since 2008, she has worked as the Project Coordinator for the OpenNet Initiative at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. She is also on the Middle East and North Africa team at Global Voices. Founded in 2004 by a group of pioneering international bloggers, Global Voices aggregates, curates, and amplifies the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore. She writes regularly for The Huffington Post and is on the Committee to Protect Bloggers. twitter: @jilliancyork

Josh Young, Social News Editor, Huffington Post
		Josh Young is social news editor of The Huffington Post. He also writes a blog entitled networkednews. twitter: @jny2

Robin Good, Publisher, MasterNewMedia.org
		Robin Good is a communication technology and skills explorer and pioneer. He is the publisher of 10-year old MasterNewMedia.org, an online guide, translated in four languages, focusing on helping professionals learn how to communicate more effectively with new media technologies. Robin Good is among one of the very first individuals who has created a sustainable online publishing business around his desire to freely share his own interests, passions and character. With no external funding or support, he has been able to grow an audience of over a million individuals per month, his work has been mentioned in over 100 Amazon-listed books and he has just passed the one millior dollar mark in revenues generated by his premium advertising partnership with Google. As a new media innovator and explorer, Robin Good has been the promoter of innovative ideas and news ways of communicating and creating value online: back in 2004 he has been first to put forward the concept of real-time news curation, which he labeled “newsmastering” and has been promoting the concept of “X-events”, a new approach to creating strong communities of interest by bridging physical events and social media and by creating a continuum of activities and interaction between the two. twitter: @robingood

Luca Conti, Founder pandemia.info
		Luca Conti is founder and director of the Italian blogging website Pandemia and contributor to the technology and new media insert Nòva24 of the Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore. twitter: @pandemia

Julian Assange, Editor, Wikileaks
		Julian Assange is a member of the advisory board of Wikileaks and is viewed in some quarters as its founder and driving force. Wikileaks is a website that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, or religious documents, while attempting to preserve the anonymity and untraceability of its contributors. Within one year of its December 2006 launch, its database had grown to more than 1.2 million documents, leading to many front-page newspaper articles and political reforms. The site won the 2008 Economist magazine New Media Award and the 2009 UK Amnesty International Media Award for the 2008 publication of Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances, a report by the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights about police killings in Kenya. twitter: @wikileaks

David McCandless, Information is Beautiful, Infographics
		David McCandless is a London-based writer, author, designer and creative director. He has worked across magazines, newspapers, advertising, TV and web for over 25 years, exploring anything “strange and interesting”. Recently, he has championed the use of infographics and data visualisations to explore new directions for journalism and design – and to discover new stories in the seas of data now surrounding us. His blog and book Information Is Beautiful are dedicated to visualising ideas, issues, knowledge, data – all with the minimum of text. twitter: @davidmccandless

Ben Marsh, UK Snow Map
		Ben is a freelance web developer based in Leicestershire in the UK, and is the creator of the #uksnow Twitter snow map mashup. His clients include Vodafone, lastminute.com and Mountain Dew. twitter: @benmarsh

Chris Thorpe, Technology Consultant, Guardian
		Chris Thorpe is the Developer Advocate for the Open Platform at The Guardian. His background as a research scientist and his early involvement in Open Access publishing, makes him fascinated and passionate about what happens when data, content, platforms, identity and pretty much anything opens up. He spends his time at The Guardian working on the best ways to integrate The Guardian’s content, data and APIs with other people’s technology and businesses as part of the drive towards building the distribution and engagement channels of a mutualized newspaper. twitter: @jaggeree

Derek Dukes, Co-founder & CEO Dipity
		Derek Dukes is the CEO and Co-Founder of Dipity the leading interactive timeline and interactive topic search platform. Derek is responsible for product strategy and oversees day to day operations of the company. Prior to founding Dipity, Derek was the VP of Products at VideoEgg where he managed the deployment of their video hosting platform on social networks such as Bebo, Hi5 and AOL. He also managed the launch of VideoEgg’s ‘EggNetwork’ ad network and first wave of ‘Engagement’ ads. As 10+ year veteran of Yahoo! and the 6th company hire, Derek was the product manager of the Yahoo! Ad System developing programs for beaconing, behavioral targeting, streaming media ad serving and ad measurement. Derek spent the last 5 years on the consumer side of the product working on pioneering interactive journalism through Yahoo! FinanceVision (now TechTicker) and Digital Home Services (now Yahoo! TV Widgets) and holds patents in the areas of online advertising and interactive content systems. twitter: @ddukes

Mark Rock, CEO Audioboo
		Mark Rock is the founder and CEO of Audioboo, a mobile audio platform that launched in March 2009 and counts The Guardian, FT, Times, Rory Cellan Jones of the BBC and Stephen Fry amongst its core users. Mark has strong held views as to the importance of technology platforms in stemming the ongoing decline of journalism over the next few years. He was previously the co-founder of Static2358, which created the channel branding for TV channels such as C4, FilmFour, Sky One and StarTV in Asia, as well as owning & launching the successful interactive TV games channel, PlayJam in the UK, France and USA. twitter: @markrock

Claire Wardle, Freelance trainer/researcher
		Claire Wardle is a freelance trainer and researcher and is currently working with the BBC College of Journalism. She designed and continues to deliver the one day training course for BBC journalists on social media and web tools. Previously Claire was an academic at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies where she remains an honorary lecturer. twitter: @cward1e

Guy Degen, Journalist: Web, Video, Radio, Mobile
		Guy Degen is an Australian freelance journalist and is based in Germany. He travels widely contributing stories to international broadcasters. Guy is regularly commissioned by UN agencies as a freelance multimedia producer and blogs for the Frontline Club. He also trains journalists in developing countries. twitter: @fieldreports

Adam Westbrook, Freelance multimedia journalist
		Adam Westbrook is a freelance multimedia journalist, lecturer and founder of the UK Future of News Group. After more than three years in radio news, covering everything from floods to the war in Iraq, Adam went freelance to see what he could make happen in the digital revolution. He is now Journalist-in-Residence at Kingston University, London and the author of several ebooks, including “6×6 skills for Next Generation Journalists” and “Newsgathering for Hyperlocal Websites”. Alongside his blog he writes for Duckrabbit and Journalism.co.uk, and produces multimedia for editorial and commercial clients. He set up the UK Future of News Group in November 2009, which now has nearly 300 members and has spawned five local groups throughout the UK. Adam loves experimenting with digital storytelling and is launching a new multimedia twitter: @adamwestbrook

Christian Payne, Freelance multimedia journalist
		An experienced journalist, Christian Payne (AKA @Documentally) maintains and host blogs and podcasts with readers and listeners in over sixty countries. With a hand in social media, citizen journalism, professional photography and audio & video podcasting, his recent projects have included documenting the plight of Iraqi refugees for the United Nations; Video Blogging for the British Council in Pakistan and Hong Kong and working alongside Reuters on groundbreaking projects with Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Christian shows by doing, he helps organisations place themselves on the platforms and devices of their audience to get them engaging. Christian mainly blogs at www.OurManInside.com and http://Documental.ly twitter: @documentally