Ideas Roadshow was founded in 2012 by Howard and Irena Burton.
Howard is a documentary filmmaker, author of six books and numerous essays. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and an MA in philosophy and was the Founding Director of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Irena is executive editor and producer of all Ideas Roadshow content and in charge of our publishing and production company Open Agenda Publishing. She is a qualified barrister and solicitor, court interpreter and lecturer.
The Idea Behind Ideas Roadshow
What we did and what we’re doing is innovative. Deliberately so. We realized that there was a great opportunity to use the affordances of digital media technology to harness a wealth of important personal insights from the research front lines that had never been captured before.
We started off doing that exclusively in a filmed conversational format, but additional possibilities soon became apparent to us—grouping together and contrasting key concepts and approaches of different researchers to the same themes and ideas—which led to the creation of ideas Roadshow’s “short docs”.
Finally, once we became fully familiar with the editing and production process of digital media, we began to also turn our attention to the creation of feature-length documentary films on a wide range of topics.
But as we’ve extended our reach through different content avenues, we remain committed to the same guiding principles that we began with: to use the power of film to accessibly present a wealth of fascinating research ideas to a broad general audience in a clear and compelling way.
The sky is the limit! Following a strong review in The Economist, our seriously-entertaining programmes have been on board as in-flight entertainment to captivate and stimulate passengers around the world.
Here are a few of the many airlines that have added some food for thought to the IFE menu: Air France, Air New Zealand, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Delta, Emirates, Garuda Indonesia, Qatar Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia and WestJet.
Following strong demand, it was an obvious step to offer our content for educational use as well. For this purpose, we’ve developed four digital resource platforms (“Portals”) which each offer an extensive library of curated videos with accompanying print materials across a wide range of subjects.
Ideas Roadshow’s Portals have been endorsed by The London Book Fair International Excellence Award, The Highly Commended BETT Award and many educators around the world.
