Helen Shaw
Managing Director, Athena Media Ltd
Ireland
Helen understands the power of radio, but also that a clear policy is the key to its continued success. Winner of a Gold Sony award , she led the digital transformation in RTE Radio (Irish Public Broadcasting ) and launched RTE's fourth national radio service, Lyric FM, featuring arts and classical music.

The public right to know in a sea of global media.

Global media dominates our media lives and that content is dominated by a handful of media conglomerates. As convergence takes places and more and more content moves into mobile applications like our phones and hand-set what happens to the public space and the public right to knowledge and information? Is there a future for public broadcasting or will it become a dinosaur of media's industrial age? What are the factors which will support the survival and development of information media which is not designed for profit whether traditional public broadcasting models or new ones to suits the digital age? Helen Shaw looks at how a new model for public media can grow and considers how it can benefit from digital technology rather than be destroyed by it.

Helen Shaw is managing director of Athena Media Ltd, a media production, consultancy and training company. She reported from Northern Ireland for the Irish Times in the mid 1980s and returned to Belfast ten years later as a news editor for BBC Northern Ireland. She won a Gold Sony award for her work there. She was Director of Radio, RTE and a member of the RTE Board for five years, until September 2002, when she was awarded a one year fellowship at Harvard University researching media globalisation. She established Athena Media in September 2003 and recently completed a consultancy review of radio licensing in Ireland for the Irish Government. She is writing a media guide to Ireland and working on a series of factual film documentaries. She is a trained BBC TV director and has completed Screen Training Ireland's Creative Documentary Masterclass programme.

Academic Qualifications: Helen was awarded her Bachelor's Degree in English and History at University College Dublin in 1982 and her postgraduate in Journalism at Dublin City University in 1983. She returned to UCD for her Master's Degree in European Integration and was awarded a First Class MA in 1993. She spent a scholarship year at the Journalist in Europe Programme, Paris, France 1990-1991 and she is a fellow of the Weatherhead Center of International Affairs, Harvard University, where she conducted advanced research in media globalisation and the impact of ownership on information. She is a PhD candidate at DCU in Communications where she conducts research on media globalisation.

Career Achievements: Helen has worked in media for over twenty years first as a journalist with The Irish Times then a producer with RTE Radio and later as a news Editor with the BBC at BBC Northern Ireland. She was appointed Director of RTE Radio in September 1997 and at the age of 35 took charge of public broadcasting radio in Ireland with responsibility for over 350 staff and an operational budget of Euro 40 million. She led the digital transformation in RTE Radio and launched RTE's fourth national radio service, Lyric fm, its arts and classical music service, in May 1999. Helen has been an award winning journalist and broadcaster in print and radio.

Associations and interests: Helen is the vice-president of the Irish chapter of the International Women's Forum, a Washington based women's leadership initiative, and she works with the IWF as a leadership mentor. She is also a founding member of the organisation in Ireland and has, in the past year, helped to develop the network in Northern Ireland. During her period as Director of Radio she was vice-president of the European Broadcasting Union's radio committee from 1999-2002 and led initiatives on digital broadcasting. She is a frequent commentator on media issues and has addressed conferences in the US and Europe on her work. She is one of the authors of a forthcoming book on media, democracy and censorship and she is a guest lecturer at Dublin City University's graduate programmes in media, journalism, globalisation and international affairs. She addressed the Association of International Broadcasters in Prague in May 2004 on the issue of media, state and freedom of information.
http://www.athenamedia.ie