Keynote Speakers
Ann Cotton
Ann Cotton is Executive Director of CAMFED, the charity she founded to campaign for female education to give girls in Africa the skills and opportunities they need and deserve uk.camfed.org (http://uk NULL.camfed NULL.org/)
In 1991 Ann was in the Nyaminyami District of Zimbabwe researching for her MA at The University of Cambridge and studying why so few girls beyond age 12 went to school. Accepted by the University of Cambridge to do her PhD, she faced a choice – to continue in academia or to apply her skills to international development? She chose the latter and at our Brighton Conference she will tell us why.
Was Ann influenced by her Welsh grandmother who was passionate about education, yet who left school aged twelve to care for her father, who was brain-damaged in a mining accident? Or her experience as a young mother of three children with the responsibility to provide secure and happy childhoods? Or the enduring memory of utter powerlessness in the face of the terminal illness of her baby daughter?
In 2008, she was awarded the Women of the Year “Window to the World Award” which salutes women whose courage and determination have brought attention to an international issue. She joins an impressive roster of previous recipients, including Jasvinder Sanghera, who campaigns for victims of forced marriage, domestic violence and honour killings, and Zimbabwean human rights crusader Thabitha Khumalo.
Ann believes that vulnerability unites us all. CAMFED gives young women the power to inspire others who are facing the same problems they used to face. They offer us all the opportunity to work for a more just world – an opportunity we cannot afford to ignore. Open and honest, optimistic and determined, Ann’s own story is an inspiration. Driven by social and entrepreneurial consideration for others, Ann Cotton is a truly remarkable woman.
Sandi Toksvig
Sandi Toksvig is a writer and broadcaster with a distinguished career in TV, theatre and in the media. She is happy to speak at a wide variety of special occasions – in fact, making people happy is one of the things she does best. In 2007 she was voted Broadcaster of the Year by the Broadcast Press Guild and Channel 4’s Political Humorist of the Year.
After six years at Mamaroneck High School, New York, Sandi attained a First Class honours degree in Archaeology and Anthropology at Girton College, Cambridge. At Cambridge she was awarded the Theresa Montefiore Memorial Award for outstanding academic achievement. She appeared in a variety of Footlights shows and was the director, writer and performer of the first all-female Cambridge Revue.
Her theatre credits include a season with the Nottingham Playhouse, one with the New Shakespeare Company at Regents Park and The Pocket Dream which she also co-wrote at the Albery Theatre, London and the musical Big Night Out with songs by Dillie Keane. Sandi was one of the original members of the Comedy Store Players.
Television credits include No 73 (TVS), Behind the Headlines, The Big One with Mike McShane, Have I Got News for You?, Island Race with John McCarthy, Whose Line is it Anyway? and Call My Bluff.
She has written 18 books including Whistling for the Elephants, Flying under Bridges, The Gladys Society, The Travels of Lady Bulldog Drummond, Great Journeys and Island Race (co-written with John McCarthy).
Her children’s books include Tell The Fuhrer it’s Shakespeare, The Troublesome Tooth Fairy, Super Saver Mouse, If I didn’t have elbows, If this has never been invented, Goodness Gracious and Tales from the Norse’s Mouth.
Eclectic and varied in style, but always with an original, fresh and individual approach, Sandi is well-known as the current chair of BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz. She also appears in I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue and is the presenter of the travel programme, Excess Baggage.
Sandi writes regularly for the Sunday Telegraph and readers of Good Housekeeping magazine look forward to her column which is called – rather aptly – “The Last Word”.
