Author: KrisRampersad

Dr Kris Rampersad is an award winning Independent International MultiMedia Content Creator/Producer, Innovator, Scholar, Educator, Journalist, Researcher, Development Strategist and Adviser. With a PhD in Literatures in English, she is a UNESCO and National Geographic certified educator/facilitator and Commonwealth Professional Scholar developing innovative multimedia tools, techniques and teachings that are user friendly and adaptable from pre-school to policymaking. She is pioneer of the new genre the MultiMedia Micro Epic which adapts the traditional long form epic for new short form multimedia. It was introduced to the Commonwealth Scholars at Interchange 21 hosted by the British Council through the MultiMedia MicroEpic Biopic, One Night To Bloom. Blending conventional and new media, she is adapting this innovative approach to the epic form through other creative representations that include fiction, poem-songs, children’s fables and fantasy literature along with documentary and non-fiction, storifying and case stories that reach from pre-school to policy makers. This includes other components, mDNA, Mothers, MotherCultures, MotherContinent with retries and unites lost heritage interconnections and To the Anthropocene, An Ode – both part of the evolving triadic MultiMedia MicroEpic form. Dr Kris Rampersad has developed a number of initiatives to accommodate conventional modes of oral and literary expression to empower civil society, grassroots communities and the professional sectors in using new media and award schemes to recognize women, journalists and writers. This includes developing an online multimedia museum, galleries, learning journeys and tours. Her pioneering blog Demokrissy now housed at her website GloCal Knowledge Pot www.krisrampersad.com was named a winner in the BBC/UNESCO Communications Initiative Policy Blogging for New Media in the early transition from conventional to new media. She wrote a Twitter banter series, Letters To Lizzie, engaging with Queen Elizabeth, the head of the Commonwealth, on post colonial concerns which is also being developed for New Media. She also developed an innovative technique for multistakeholder interface and engagement for policy action and implementation. She has been engaged by local to global NGOS, intergovernmental institutions, academia, media across the UN Commonwealth, European Union and InterAmerican systems and public and private sectors to strengthen and enhance their impact education, outreach and advocacy using conventional and new media. She has worked with higher education institutions, scientists and agriculturalists to empower themselves and develop their skills, outlooks and capacities utilising new media. As a journalist she has been awarded by the World Health Organisation/ Pan American Health Organisation for Excellent in Health Reporting; and nationally for Social/Economic Commentary and is a National Gold Medal recipient for contributions to development of women/journalism. She is the author of groundbreaking interdisciplinary studies/books, Finding a Place which traces the interplay of oral and literary traditions in the development of a post colonial literary sensibility, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (gender leadership and socio-cultural minority factors), LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago, the official commemorative publication of the 50th Jubilee Anniversary of Independence, described as ‘an innovative approach to literature’. She wrote the children’s fable, I the Sky & me the Sea, the Adventures of Munnie Butterfly & Danny Dragonfly, one of an adventure series that explores interconnected natural and cultural heritage through Festival Fables. She has also written and contributed to numerous journals, conferences and think tanks and has a number of unpublished works that are also being prepared for New Media. She holds a PhD and BA First Class Honours and the British Council prize for Literature from the University of the West Indies, fellowships to Cambridge University UK, the Foreign Press Centre of Japan and the Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. She won the Indian Institute of Mass Communication’s Rajasthan Patrika Award for top student. She won a Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation Award for Excellence in Health Journalism. She also holds a National Award gold medal for the development of Women and Journalism. She partnered with Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott in an award scheme for literature drama and film and is working on another innovative initiative that examines her engagements with both Nobel Literary Laureates of the Caribbean Sir Vidia Naipaul and Derek Walcott. She served as the President of the UNESCO Education Commission and also variously as Vice President of UNESCO’s Programme and External Relations Commission for four consecutive terms, and the Intergovernmental Committee in Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH - Consultative Body, independent member/Vice President) which screens applications for the ICH lists and registers. She has worked with many grassroots across the UN and Commonwealth systems and has close knowledge of indigenous and other marginalised communities of Latin America and the Caribbean as the Maroons, Rastafari, Mestizo, Garifuna, Indian and Afro Caribbean communities. She was instrumental as a UNESCO trainer/facilitator and international advocate in the increased presence of Latin America on UNESCO’s heritage lists, including the inscriptions of Jamaica’s Blue and John Crow Mountains as World Heritage Site, and Reggae on the UNESCO Register of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. She has conducted, contributed to and participated in numerous think tanks of media, culture, gender and sustainable development of the United Nations, Commonwealth, InterAmerican, European Union and Caribbean. For Knowledge, Research, Information Services and Resources, Digitisations, and Digital Skills enhancements, policy, strategy and advisory services and to collaborate and support in community and diaspora initiatives, make contact at www.krisrampersad.com and social media Facebook: KrisRampersad1, Twitter @krisramp, LinkedIn/Instagram/Pinterest/YouTube KrisRampersad.. Email [email protected]