What is Speakezee?
Speakezee is a new platform which brings together event organisers and academic speakers.
At its heart is the desire to help more academics engage with the public and to make it easier for organisers to find relevant experts to talk at their event, whatever the size.
Academics at all levels recognize that public engagement is an essential part of their role in professional development and demonstrating pathways to impact for research evaluation. Speakezee will generate records of invitations and feedback to provide evidence for that evaluation.
It also allows academics to advertise their specialist talks to other academics who organise departmental seminars and provides a simple synopsis of colleagues with examples of their research interests.
Anyone can Speakezee!
Pop-up speaking events are appearing around the world in venues like cafes, pubs, schools and social clubs. Now, anyone can organise a speaking event and find experts to talk on specific subjects.
Speakezee helps uncover the experts with the right background for speaking events as well as a providing simple search function for academics who are best qualified to comment on specialist issues for the media.
How does it work?
Speakers create a simple profile which focuses on subject expertise and speaking experience. The more complete the speaker profile, the more likely you will be contacted by an organiser.
Event organisers can find and shortlist speakers using a quick and simple search. Once an organiser has found the perfect speakers they can contact them directly to discuss speaking at their event.
The best profiles will include videos of previous talks and evidence of the expertise within the speakers subject area.
What’s next for the project?
Speakezee is brand new and only in its first phase. We plan on releasing new features in the near future, making it more useful for a wider audience and building the ideal platform for speaking events across the world.
Who is behind the project?
Speakezee.org was conceived and created by Bruce Hood, professor, author and former Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer 2011.