Alastair Donald is associate director of the Academy of Ideas and co-convenor for the Battle of Ideas Festival. He is also a director of Academy of Ideas Ltd.

Alastair is also secretary of the boi charity and convenor of Living Freedom, its annual residential school for young people. He is an experienced cultural programmer having worked in the UK and internationally to develop festivals, exhibitions and curated programmes. He is the co-editor of two books, The Lure of the City: from slums to suburbs (2011) and The Future of Community: reports of a death greatly exaggerated (2008) and is a founding member of mantownhuman, which published Manifesto: towards a new humanism in architecture (2008).