This year Imperial's Beyond Ethnicity Career Conference (BECC) for Minority Ethnic staff and students took place on Friday 27 September 2024 at Imperial's South Kensington Campus. This one-day event was open to everyone in their early career stage including research staff, professional, technical and operational staff, and MSc and PhD students. 

Dates for BECC 2025 and how to sign up will be publicised soon.

Keynote

2024's keynote talk was from Anne-Marie Imafidon, co-founder of Stemettes, an award-winning social initiative dedicated to inspiring and promoting the next generation of young women in the STEM sectors. Since its inception 11 years ago, it has exposed more than 65,000 young people across Europe to Anne-Marie’s vision for a more diverse and balanced science and tech community. In 2022 she released her book She’s in CTRL - a guidebook for women to take back tech.

BECC Talks

  • AI and Creativity – by Dr Hannah Janmohamed, Research Postgraduate Department of Computing and Postgraduate President of Women in Computing, Imperial College London
  • Innovating with Purpose: Women in AI Paving the Way for Inclusive Technology – by Professor Eiman Kanjo, Provost’s Visiting Professor in Pervasive Sensing and tinyML at the Department of Computing, Imperial College London
  • A Day in the life of an AI-Savvy Research Professional–by Danny Mirza, Lead Consultant/Head of Talent Team at Coventry University (London Hub)
  • Social justice and environmental impacts of using AI tools – by Professor Tom Stoneham, Head of Philosophy, University of York

BECC Career Panel

In the afternoon there was a career panel featuring:

  • Mary Ann Russon, technology and science journalist
  • Dr Shamsuddeen Muhammad, Advanced Research Fellow and Google DeepMind Academic Fellow, Imperial College London
  • Dr Khaled Benkrid, Director of Education and Research at Arm Ltd
  • Dr Kanta Dihal, Lecturer in Science Communication, Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication, Imperial College London

Audience

The conference is created for:

  • Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD students
  • Postdoctoral researchers
  • Early career professionals who have an interest in STEMM and business
  • Alumni are also very welcome to attend 

Organisers

The Conference is organised by Imperial As One, the Race Equality Network for Staff and Postgraduate Students at Imperial College London and the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Centre.