Simon Gfeller is a leader in content strategy and educational innovation, with a background as an opera singer, actor, and voice-over artist. He now focuses on digital learning, bringing creativity and strategic insight to his work. For the past three years, he has led content and instructional design at ELSA Speak, an AI-powered language app, scaling its reach to 1.7M monthly users. He also launched ELSA Communities, a forum for underserved EFL/ESL learners. 

Simon's work includes developing communication skills training for Oxford Summer Courses and delivering workshops on English pronunciation. He advocates for empathy, creativity, and critical thinking in education. 

Read about Simon's session: From the Stage to the Classroom: Bringing Language Learning to Life using Performers’ Skillsets

Fabiana Parano has created and performs Stories in a Bag. An English teacher, a teacher trainer, a storyteller, an actress and a playwright, Ms. Parano has majored in storytelling and educational theatre both in English and Spanish. 

Her experience includes telling tales and performing plays to all kinds of audiences (children, adolescents and adults.

Read about Fabiana's session: The Long-lasting Impact of Experiential Storytelling

Jeremy Harmer has spent a lifetime in ELT as a teacher, trainer and writer. He has worked in the UK and Mexico and online for over thirteen years at the New School, New York for their masters in TESOL. He has written or co-written a number of course books, graded readers, and methodology titles including The practice of English Language Teaching, How to Teach English and Fifty Communicative Activities. He is also a fiction writer with his trilogy The Volcano at San Miguel published by Wayzgoose press. Away from teaching and writing Jeremy is a musician playing in the folk tradition (where he has issued 5 CDs) and for orchestras in the western classical genre.

Read about Jeremy's session: When We Sing Together

Ben Crystal is an actor, author, and creative producer, and Associate Artist with www.ShakespeareNorthPlayhouse.co.uk. His first book Shakespeare on Toast (Icon 2008) was shortlisted for the 2010 Educational Writer of the Year Award. Ben has played the titles role in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Macbeth, Henry V, Pericles, Timon of Athens, and Richard II. His TEDx talk was called Original Practices: Shakespeare’s Craft. For more: www.bencrystal.com/about  

Read about Ben's session: Art imitating Life, imitating Art