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The Hay Digital Festival

The Hay Digital Festival is a truly remarkable event. Some of the most prolific figures in the world of academia (Tim Harford, Stephen Fry, Simon Schama and many, many more) have been assembled to give a series of lectures over a 10-day period on a vast range of topics, including economics, history, literature and medicine, just to name a few. More information can be found on their website

The Festival is providing an incredible opportunity for anyone to listen to, be inspired by, and interact via Q&A with a greatly varied group of speakers. There is definitely something that appeals to everybody. What’s more, the whole event is free of charge!

After the lectures, many pupils will surely be inspired by what they have heard. To help quench this thirst for more, a group of nine students in the fifth form (Advait Kuravi, Akash Dubb, Aman Aziz, James Corcoran, Jay Patel, Joshua Bobin, Nikash Chekuri, Rohan Tandon and Zayn Aziz) have joined together to form the Hay Digital Festival Committee. We are leading a series of discussions following the lectures to provide a platform to discuss and analyse the talks in detail. Between the nine of us, we will cover 32 of the lectures. A list of these can be found on our Google Classroom, as well as the links to join the Zoom meetings, which will be hosted by members of staff who share an interest in the lecture. The Google Classroom code can be found on Firefly

Following the event, the nine of us will be putting together a booklet outlining what we have covered, as well as helping students further explore the incredibly diverse range of lectures by providing further reading lists, any articles that are relevant, and other ways to explore this sure-to-be inspiring set of talks. 

This promises to be a truly incomparable venture and we, the Hay Digital Festival Committee, are excited and proud to help you discover something or someone interesting and inspiring, which may well be of use to you somewhere down the line. By signing up to even one lecture or by coming along to one of our discussions, you truly are opening the door to an event which could (with the fear of sounding cliché) be utterly life-changing. I really do hope you consider being a part of this greatly beneficial opportunity.

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