Sophia Smith Galer

Host

Award-winning journalist, writer, speaker, and content creator, credited for pioneering astute, engaging journalism on TikTok. Sophia began her career reporting across the BBC World Service, BBC Radio 4 and BBC World News and building Webby-winning BBC social media channels before joining VICE News as a senior reporter until February 2024. She produces and presents content on a range of topics including linguicide, innovation and disruption, health and technology, generational communication, gender equality, how to navigate mis-and-dis information, and the state of influencer culture and its ethics. She was the first journalist to report the misuse of political ads on TikTok during the 2020 US election, which was broadcast in her first television documentary The TikTok Election. She was awarded a British Journalism award for ‘Innovation of the Year’ in 2021, and in 2023 she became a Visiting Fellow for Brown University’s Information Futures Lab where she has developed resources for combating misinformation and misogyny in British schools. In 2024, she was named the winner of the Georgina Henry Award at the Women In Journalism awards for Digital Innovation. As part of the International Center for Journalists’ Disarming Disinformation Solutions Challenge, she developed Sophina, her AI tool that helps experts and journalists write video scripts and amplify their work online.

Rachel Parris

Special Guest

Award-winning musical comedian, actor, improviser and presenter. Rachel was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Entertainment Performance and beat Tiffany Haddish, Ellen DeGeneres and Amy Schumer to become Female First’s Comedian of the Year. She is best known for both her viral satirical segments on The Mash Report and Late Night Mash which have had over 100 million views, and as one of the founding cast members of the award-winning improv group Austentatious. She has also appeared on Live At The Apollo, Would I Lie To You, Mock the Week, and Q.I and is a regular on radio shows I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue and The Now Show.