From left: Arlan Hamilton, founder of Backstage Capital, with Ann O’Dea, founder of Inspirefest, speaking on stage this year. Image: Conor McCabe Photography
Ahead of next year’s event, the Inspirefest podcast returns on 23 October for season two with a behind-the-scenes look at the sci-tech festival.
After the success of the inaugural season of Inspirefest: The Podcast, science writer Claire O’Connell and the Bureau production team are back for a second season. The Digital Hub is also returning as an anchor sponsor for the second year.
The previous season featured 11 of the biggest names to descend on Dublin for the 2017 event, including software developer and diversity advocate Tracy Chou, and musician and robot obsessive Ana Matronic.
The second season is set to drop on Tuesday 23 October, including even more guests, with a total of 15 episodes set to air. An episode will then be released every following Tuesday, starting with the ‘investment rockstar’ that is Arlan Hamilton.
In the space of a few years, she went from homelessness to managing Backstage Capital, a $5m fund for underrepresented founders. That umbrella covers women, people of colour and the LGBTQ community.
Earlier this year, she said she and Backstage Capital were raising $36m to address the anomaly whereby only 0.2pc of venture capital funding goes to black women.
We all got in one single elevator after recording the podcast ?#TBThursday pic.twitter.com/PA9NcVyxnF
— Antonio Altamirano (@antonio) July 12, 2018
An impressive line-up
Speaking ahead of the first episode, the Inspirefest team said: “We’re super-excited to bring you this taster of what you can expect from season two of Inspirefest: The Podcast. Guided by our host Claire O’Connell, each of the 15 episodes features behind-the-scenes conversations and insights from Inspirefest speakers and special guests, including Anne-Marie Imafidon, Anne Looney, Easkey Britton, Arlan Hamilton and many more. Subscribe today!”
To give you a sense of what you have to look forward to, here is the line-up for the 14 other episodes that will be released over the coming weeks.
- Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon
- Dr Shaun O’Boyle
- Dr Easkey Britton and Beckey-Finn Britton
- Elaine Burke
- Eoin Murphy
- Ian Harkin, Taylor Denise Richardson and Aoibheann Mangan
- Dr Jessamyn Fairfield
- Peter Brabazon
- Heather Massie
- Prof Louise Kenny
- Tim Leberecht
- Dr Anne Looney
- Philip Bromwell
- Liz Collins and Claudia Collins
The episodes will be available wherever you get your podcasts, including iTunes, Stitcher and SoundCloud. In the meantime, you can check out a preview of what’s in store below.
It’s back! Inspirefest: The Podcast returns for a second series on 23/10/18. Subscribe today on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud. Proudly supported by our anchor sponsor @TheDigitalHub ???@akabureau @claireoconnell @aimafidon @annelooney @Easkeysurf @ArlanWasHere @Backstage_Cap pic.twitter.com/yUxhNzu6Np
— Inspirefest 2019 (@InspirefestHQ) October 16, 2018
Inspirefest is Silicon Republic’s international event celebrating the point where science, technology and the arts collide. Ultra Early Bird tickets for Inspirefest 2019 are available now.
