Engineer & leader

Builds and grows responsible, sustainable and collaborative technologies and organisations.

Adaptable, practical, dynamic

 

I get stuff done.

My work delivers practical products, services and systems using emerging internet technologies in different contexts and across sectors. I strive to use my skills for public good, serving and respecting the needs of people, society and the environment. I've created and shipped high tech hardware and software in diverse settings, including commercial startups, academia and charities. I've also established and developed organisations, teams and initiatives which build and use technologies to benefit people and communities.

My ideal activity is coordinating and shaping the development of products/services/systems using new technology, to fulfil a meaningful mission.

Check out the things I’ve done (below), and get in touch to discuss how we could work together.

My varied experience enables me to understand and work effectively in new situations and with novel technologies very quickly. A holistic perspective, strong communication skills and empathy ensure I identify and tackle the most important challenges early. As a facilitator or lead, I use the right mix of data and narrative to get people collaborating on the strongest way forward.

Delivering successful projects within remote, distributed teams is a speciality. I operate well in complex, interconnected settings, building bridges between different kinds of technology, people, and organisations. I can work at every level from strategy development to hands-on product detail.

I’m a Chartered Engineer, and hold MEng and PhD degrees in engineering from the University of Cambridge.

My current interests include sustainability (climate, biodiversity, food), maintenance and care, internet technologies for public benefit, and more equitable ownership and control structures for digital platforms.

Things I do

 

  • Overstory - Satellite vegetation intelligence, at scale
    (I'm Engineering Director)

  • CoFarm Foundation - co-creating community farms (which bring people together to grow food, build stronger communities and healthier ecosystems) and driving adoption of agroecology
    (I'm a founding trustee)

  • Now Play This - A festival of experimental game design and playful art
    (I'm chair of the board)

Things I’ve done

 

  • Maintain (formerly Festival of Maintenance) - a community interested in the often hidden work of repair, stewardship, and care which maintains different parts of our world
    (I instigated this in 2018, and coordinated it until 2023)

  • OPEN (the Online Progressive Engagement Network) - 20 national-level digital campaigning organisations, building a sustainable global movement for progressive change
    (I was the CTO 2020-22, establishing OPEN’s first tech strategy)

  • OpenUK - developing & sustaining UK leadership in open technology
    (I was on the board through OpenUK’s reboot, 2020-2022)

  • Doteveryone - the responsible technology think tank
    (I helped shape this as technical principal, across 5 years)

  • Software Sustainability Institute - cultivating better software practices
    (I’m a Fellow)

  • lowRISC - collaborative engineering for open source silicon
    (I managed Google’s OpenTitan through launch, and supported company scale-up)

  • University of Cambridge Trust & Technology Initiative
    (I helped establish this)

  • Digital Life Collective - a co-op to collaborate on tech we can trust
    (I was a co-founding member)

  • Field Ready - local manufacturing to meet humanitarian needs
    (I worked on new products and organisational development)

  • Makespace - Cambridge's community inventing shed
    (I co-founded this, got it set up, and was a director 2010 - 2016)

  • Open Knowledge Foundation - a global civil society network using advocacy, tech and training to open up knowledge for all
    (I was co-CEO alongside the founder through significant growth)

  • Evi - pioneering conversational search
    (I lead the team who trained this. It's Alexa now)

  • CARET - technology and innovation for teaching and research
    (I helped run this and lead a variety of ed tech projects, mostly open source)

  • AlertMe - connected home security
    (I made this! I was employee #1 and took a 3 word brief through to production scale shipping to real customers)

I find many things interesting, and have been lucky to be part of a diverse range of ventures and projects. Connecting different sectors and fields and disciplines is fascinating and rewarding. If I specialise in anything, it is understanding the complex realities of emerging technology systems, in the world at large, with real people, and figuring out how to make things work better.

I am deeply grateful to the many individuals and organisations who have assisted me along the way, and I try to repay their generosity by giving back to others, and supporting communities. In particular, the brilliant people of Doteveryone, the Cambridge Computer Lab, NESTA and the Royal Academy of Engineering have all helped me a great deal in diverse ways.

I’m originally from West Kirby, on the Wirral, and now I live in Impington, Cambridge (the original one).

Latest updates.

 

Find out what I’ve been doing, thinking and reading on my blog.

You can also find me on Mastodon.