Storyteller extraordinaire Matthew Luhn is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the opening of the virtual staging of KingstOOn 2021 to be held from April 21-25.

Luhn story credits include the Toy Story films, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Cars, Monsters University, Ratatouille, and UP.

He is a writer, story and branding consultant, creative writing instructor and speaker with more than 25 years’ experience.

Luhn has created stories and characters at Pixar Animation Studios, The Simpsons, and several others. Over the years, his clients have also included companies such as Target, Procter and Gamble, Adidas, Sony, Mattel, Facebook, Charles Schwab, Microsoft, Warner Brothers, Google, Salesforce, and Disney.

At 19, Luhn was the youngest animator to work on The Simpsons TV series. Today, he trains CEOs, entrepreneurs, marketing teams and directors on how to use the secrets of great storytelling to captivate an audience, sell a product, idea, service, or strengthen a brand.

“It is indeed an honour to have the likes of Matthew Luhn at our KingstOOn opening. This has been made all the more special, with a welcome by Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who has emphatically articulated the importance of the creative industries, and animation in particular, to the generation of employment opportunities for our nation’s youth,” said Margery Newland, project manager for the Youth Employment in the Digital and Animation Industries(YEDAI), the host agency for KingstOOn.

The prime minister will be joined at the event opening by Tahseen Sayed, World Bank country director for Caribbean Countries, Latin America and Caribbean Region.

The YEDAI project is funded by a US$2-million World Bank loan to the Government for training young Jamaicans in the digital and animation industries

This year’s KingstOOn will also have a film festival featuring an amazing array of diversity centric animated films from the Caribbean and the rest of the world, a business exchange forum and its signature Pitch Boot Camp and Competition for the five Caribbean-based front-runners in the Best Concept category.

Registration is still open and is free of cost. Interested parties are being encouraged to visit www.kingstoonfest.com for more information.