Advisory Board

Professor Dan Fleming

Professor Dan Fleming has been closely involved for over 30 years in the development of media education worldwide. He gained the first PhD to be awarded by a Scottish university in the then new field of film and media studies, and was active in the Association for Media Education in Scotland. The author of the books Media Teaching (Blackwell) and Powerplay: Toys as Popular Culture (Manchester University Press) and editor of Formations: a 21st Century Media Studies Textbook (Manchester University Press), Dan has held a research fellowship at British Telecom In England (working on their pre-internet video-on-demand trials), has been a visiting lecturer in the Cyberculture unit at the Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil, was a member of the team that set up the first joint British/Japanese MA in International Media Studies, and worked extensively in community video in Scotland and Ireland in the 1980s and early 90s, including the management committee of Derry Media Access in Northern Ireland. Dan retains a strong interest in the role of grassroots media and popular culture in relation to the 'social imagining' of conflict and transformation. He was Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland prior to taking up his current position as Professor of Screen and Media Studies at the University of Waikato, where he directs 'Mediarena' , a new research and development facility in creative technologies and participatory cultures. He is writing a book about film-maker Vincent Ward and co-writing a book about the popular media, fandom and the imagining of new technologies (including Transformers toys and Formula One motorsport). Dan also farms alpacas on his block at Rotoorangi in the rural Waikato.

Ian Wedde

Ian Wedde is a freelance writer and curator, the author of fiction, poetry, collections of essays and art books. From 1994-2004 he was head of art and visual culture at Te Papa where he initiated a number of commissions and projects involving digital media. From 2003-2007 he was chair of the trust board of the Moving Image Centre, subsequently MIC Toi Rerehiko, during its strategic transition to functions organised around performance space at Galatos and research and exhibition space on K Road. In 2006 he received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate award, and in 2007 a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Auckland. He is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Auckland and is currently writer in residence at the Michael King Writers' Centre. His most recent book is Bill Culbert: Making Light Work (AUP NZ/ RGAP UK).

Pete Rive
Chair of the Advisory Board

Founder / CEO of RainRaker. Pete is a futurist who has been researching and consulting in innovation, knowledge management, and collaboration since 1999. He has over 25 years experience in production and post production in the screen industry, and has worked in new media, including virtual reality for the last ten years. For over a decade he ran a successful boutique editing house, The Original Cut, that edited high end commercials for many international and top New Zealand companies including Telecom, BNZ, ASB, Lion Breweries, AirNZ, BMW, Audi. Pete is the past President of Film Auckland (www.filmauckland.com), and led a trade mission to China and Korea in 2007. He is currently the Chairman of Film Auckland's Innovation and Digital Content Cluster subcommittee. He has been a futurist for an upcoming TV series and consulted to Auckland Plus, and the Auckland Metro Project's Innovation and Leadership group; Auckland City Council's broadband advisory board; Clemenger BBDO; Education NZ, and Saatchi & Saatchi  Worldwide.

Pete has a MA (hons) in Political Studies from Auckland University, where he studied the English forerunner to the Internet in 1984, and was one of 6 selected for a post graduate Diploma in Broadcast Communications. He is currently enrolled as a PhD candidate, with a scholarship, at Victoria University's School of Digital Media Design researching innovation and knowledge collaboration in the virtual world, Second Life. He has presented at an international conference of the IEEE in the Knowledge Economy and has been published in the Hand book of Research on Virtual Workplaces and the new nature of business practices, (2008). In 2009 he presented at the 2nd Digital Media Summit in Auckland on Crowd Sourcing and Innovation. His latest venture RainRaker is an innovation and collaboration suite of products  and services for the Enterprise.