ACU vice-chancellor summit 2024:

Bill Rammell was the first person in his family to go to University, developing a real personal commitment to the capacity of Higher Education to transform lives. Bill studied French at Cardiff University. At the end of Bill’s course he was elected President of Cardiff University Students’ Union. Bill was elected as a Labour Councillor in Harlow in 1985, becoming Chair of the ruling Labour Group. In 1997 Bill was elected as Labour MP for Harlow. Bill went on to serve as a senior minister at the Foreign Office, the MOD and as Higher Education Minister. After losing his seat in Harlow in 2010 in 2011 Bill became Deputy Vice Chancellor at Plymouth University (Internationalisation and the Student Experience) and in 2012 Bill became Vice Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire, serving successfully as Vice Chancellor for 8 years. Whilst Vice Chancellor Bill also served as an elected member of the Universities UK Board, and as Chair of Million Plus (The Coalition of modern universities). From 2021 to 2022 Bill served a term as President of the University of Kurdistan Hewler, based in Iraqi Kurdistan. Since September 2022 Bill has worked as President of Zoom Abroad an innovative EdTech Company specialising in international student recruitment and partnerships. Bill is also still active in Labour politics, and is a member of the Labour International Group.

Mr Kailash Satyarthi, a prominent social reformer and Nobel Peace Laureate, stands out as an exceptional leader and an unwavering advocate for the marginalized and voiceless. He was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for his tireless crusade against the oppression of children and youth, and his unwavering commitment to ensuring every child's right to education. With Satyarthi Movement for Global Compassion, he exemplifies a life guided by compassion, setting an unmatched standard in the field of social reforms. He has played a pivotal role in shaping ground-breaking legislations worldwide, intending to eradicate violence against the powerless. Through Bachpan Bachao Andolan, he has been instrumental in liberating more than 115,000 children from child labour, slavery, trafficking and other forms of exploitation and developed a successful model for their education, rehabilitation and reintegration into society. The Global March Against Child Labor, which he led, galvanized support in 103 countries resulting in the adoption of ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labor. He is also the founding president of the Global Campaign for Education, an exemplary civil society movement working to end the global education crisis. He successfully spearheaded a countrywide movement to make education a Constitutional Provision which subsequently paved the way for the Right to Free and Compulsory Education in India in 2009. Mr Satyarthi is credited for establishing GoodWeave International, a first of its kind certification and social labelling mechanism for child labour free carpets in South Asia. He has worked to advance ethical business practices, to help businesses liberate their supply chains from child labour. He has been at the forefront of driving child related agendas into the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which resulted in the UN Secretary General appointing him an SDG Advocate in 2021. Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation is ensuring an end to exploitation of children in India and around the world. In 2016, Mr Satyarthi launched Laureates and Leaders for Children, a platform bringing together Nobel Laureates and global leaders committed to working together for the world’s most vulnerable children. Alongside former child labourers and students, he also launched the 100 Million campaign in 2016 to inspire and mobilize young people to stand up and act for their own rights and the rights of their peers. Mr Satyarthi has received several prestigious awards including the Parliamentarians for Global Action Defender of Democracy Award (2009-USA); Alfonso Comin International Award (2008-Spain); Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award (1995- USA); Medal of the Italian Senate (2007-Italy); Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Human Rights Award (1999-Germany); Wockhardt Foundation, Lifetime Achievement Award (2019);Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice (2019); Rotary International Award of Honour (2022-USA); Honorary Doctorate Degree for Social Justice and Education, Amrita University (2022- India) among many other accolades. In 2017, he received the Guinness World Record for Largest Child Safe Guarding Lesson. 

Lord Ranger of Northwood is a member of the House of Lords. He has been a leading figure in the development and communication of innovate, technology led services and has a unique record of working in politics, the public and private sectors over the last twenty-five years. He has been a trusted adviser to senior politicians, chief executives and boards and has led teams through major project delivery, large scale transformational programmes, reputation and communications crises, as well as driving corporate and public affairs campaigns. Kulveer was part of the team that delivered the London Oystercard and spent four years working for the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, leading the transport and environment briefs and establishing the Digital London Office. His time at City Hall included preparing for the 2012 Olympics, making the case for Crossrail, leading on ground-breaking initiatives such as the cycle hire scheme and Tech City. Most recently he was a senior executive at Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, and established and led the strategic corporate communications function across Northern Europe, APAC and India. Kulveer has sat on various boards including Transport for London and Bristol 2015 European Green Capital City and is currently a member of the West Midlands Digital Advisory Board and the board of techUK. He is an international public speaker, a regular broadcaster for TV and radio and a passionate Tottenham Hotspur FC fan.

Professor Moses Oketch was educated at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he received his Master’s and PhD degrees focusing on economics of education. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree from University of Nairobi. He started his academic career as Assistant Research Professor of Public Policy and Education at Vanderbilt University (USA) in August 2002. He then took up academic post at the Institute of Education (IOE) at the start of 2004. Prior to merging with UCL in 2014, IOE was a constituent college of the University of London. Prof Oketch’s research interests include the contribution of tertiary education to development and higher education finance, among others. He has published more than 100 papers, books, reports, book chapters and working papers in the field of education and international development and supervised many doctoral and master’s students. He has been a Visiting Professor at University of Pennsylvania (USA), Hiroshima University (Japan), taught a summer course at University of Bonn (Germany), and served as Director of Research at APHRC (Nairobi). He also spent two and a half years working in government on secondment as a Senior Research Fellow at United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). He is currently Professor of international education policy and development at University College London (UCL) and Co-manages UCL’s Centre for Education and International Development.

Kathryn Bailey oversees operations, communications, policy, and partnerships at the Ethical Data Initiative. The Initiative is hosted by the University of Exeter and the Technical University of Munich, and focuses on building research capacity, providing educational support, and offering a neutral platform for discussions around data ethics and governance. Kathryn’s expertise is in ICT, international development, data, and economics communications. During her career, Kathryn has coordinated communications and outreach as the Head of Communications and Partnerships for Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN). She has also managed the OECD Development Centre's multilingual publications program and PR strategy as Publications and Media Relations Officer, worked as a Project Officer on the OECD Environmental Performance Review team, and co-founded a tech start-up where she was responsible for overseeing all aspects of running the operational side of a small-to-medium-sized enterprise. She is Editorial Advisor for Taylor&Francis’ f1000 Agriculture, Food and Nutrition open research gateway, and holds a BA Hons in French, Linguistics and Translation from the University of London Institute in Paris.