Multi-Grammy Award winner Nile Rodgers has been announced as guest speaker at London Tech Week, which runs until September 11 The musician, composer and self-confessed tech enthusiast will lead discussions on diversity and inclusion at the event, which this year is being presented as a virtual global showcase.

Rodgers is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a three-time Grammy Award-winner, and the chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Other keynote speakers include Eric Schmidt, former CEO & Chairman, Google  and Jack Dorsey, CEO and Co-Founder of Square and CEO of Twitter. There will be additional contributions from Caroline Dinenage MP Minister of State for Digital and Culture and Matt Hancock MP the Secretary of State for Health.  

The Digital Economy Council and Tech Nation will publish a preview next week (September 8) of its Bright Tech Future report, out this autumn, which will reveal the extent to which tech companies have returned to hiring in recent weeks. The report will show tech now employs 2.93m people and that five cities outside London now have more than a fifth of their workforce employed in the digital tech economy.

“Tech is playing an ever-increasing role in all sectors, demonstrated in the UK’s great tech story, where opportunities for investors and UK businesses looking to export in sectors like healthcare, finance and education continue to grow,” says Gerry Grimstone, Minister for Investment.

To register for London Tech Week,  accessible virtually between September 1 -11, click here .

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Internationally acclaimed Danish composer Jesper Kyd will be honoured with the 2018 Nile Rodgers Global Creators Award at Canadian Music Week in Toronto, which takes place from 7 – 13 May.

The BAFTA award-winner and Billboard / MTV VMA nominee has created brand-defining original soundtracks for multiple blockbuster franchises including Assassin’s Creed, Borderlands, Hitman, Darksiders and State of Decay.

Renowned for crafting unique cinematic and atmospheric musical scores combining a diverse array of instrumentation and processed sounds, Kyd is being honoured for his nearly twenty-year career in video games scoring.

“I’ve been a Jesper Kyd fanboy for years,” said Rock and Roll Hall of famer and multiple Grammy Award-winning artist, producer, arranger and guitarist Nile Rodgers (CHIC, Daft Punk, David Bowie, Duran Duran).

In 1998, Rodgers launched Sumthing Distribution and Sumthing Else Music Works, a boutique distribution company and record label that’s found considerable success in soundtracks for popular video game franchises such as Resident Evil, Borderlands, Gears of War and Halo. Previous recipients of the Nile Rodgers Global Creators Award include entertainment industry luminaries Paul Shaffer, Spike Lee and Tony Visconti.

An original modern artist and musician for a new generation immersed in digital FX and interactive entertainment, Jesper Kyd first started composing music for visual media in the experimental European demoscene, performing at so-called ‘demo’ video game parties including a broadcast stint on MTV Europe.

At 19 he became part owner of a video game developer which later evolved into IO Interactive, the studio behind the popular Hitman series that chronicles anti-hero Agent 47’s missions to eliminate underworld criminals, and Freedom Fighters, an alternative universe depicting a propaganda-fueled Russian army invasion of New York.

During this early period of Kyd’s career he composed and recorded some of the first live orchestral and choral scores heard in video games, including the symphonic scores for Hitman 2, Freedom Fighters and Hitman 4 featuring the Budapest Symphony Orchestra and Hungarian Radio Choir, while also blending operatic performances and signature electronic sounds into memorable hybrid scores.

“I love exploring new music styles and mixing different genres together,” says Kyd. “Finding a unique approach adds depth, which can truly define the score and the game or film.”

JESPER KYD CREDITS:

Hitman: Codename 47 (2000)

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (2002)

Freedom Fighters (2003)

Hitman: Contracts (2004)

Hitman: Blood Money (2006)

Assassin’s Creed (2007)

Borderlands (2009)

Assassin’s Creed 2 (2009)

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood (2010)

Assassin’s Creed Revelations (2011)

Borderlands 2 (2012)

Darksiders 2 (2012)

State of Decay (2013)

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (2014)

Borderlands: Claptastic Voyage (2014)

Warhammer: Vermintide (2015)

Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe 3D (2015)

Robinson: The Journey (2016) Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (2018)

State of Decay 2 (2018)

Tumbad (2018)

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