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Speaker Biography
Ed Brown
CEO, ADIT North East
A former nuclear physicist, Ed was one of a team of three who developed the ENIGMA fuel performance code to model the behaviour of fuel in nuclear reactors. This software became the industry standard in the UK and was sold internationally.
Ed moved into an IT career from there, an was the IT Director at the Sizewell B nuclear power station where he conceived and implemented a variety of state of the art business and engineering IT systems, including Europe’s second largest document and knowledge management system.
Following this success, Ed was offered a role with the “Innovation Unit” of the UK Department of Trade and Industry, as a senior industrial advisor. Ed was “Regional Industrialist for the North East” and was responsible for developing Innovation and Technology Policy for the North East of England and chaired committees overseeing both policy development and the use of European Structural Funds (ERDF) in the areas of innovation and technology. Ed was a judge of the national SMART awards for leading technology ideas for both the North East and Yorkshire regions. He also chaired the UK Government’s Knowledge Management Committee which had Board level members from industry and across Government: this committee made a significant input into the Government’s highly regarded Second Competitiveness White Paper. He was also a member of a number of UK Government Committees on people development, shareholder value, intangible assets and regional economic development. As well as the UK Government, Ed has also worked with Government agencies in France, Belgium, USA, Canada, Australia and Korea.
Building on these roles, Ed co-founded a number of new businesses in the areas of creativity, knowledge management and international technology networks. These businesses had great success in the UK, Europe and the USA and Ed was a co-signatory with the Senator for the PACA region of France (Pierre Lafitte) on a technology collaboration agreement, which has been regarded as highly successful for both businesses and academe in both regions. Ed's experiences have been sought after and he is often asked to present to conferences internationally including several after-dinner speaking engagements.
Ed’s long standing interest in the development of broadband services led him to accept the post of CEO of Adit North East, one of the UK Government’s Regional Aggregation Bodies responsible for public sector broadband aggregation. Over the past 3 years, Adit North East have worked for public bodies across the UK and due to its success, Ed was asked to also become CEO of Adit Yorkshire and the Humber. Together, these 2 companies have procured over £300m of projects, including a major scheme to deliver next generation broadband services and (FTTC) infrastructure in the Objective 1 South Yorkshire area.
Ed has recently moved on to take the Adit concept into the private sector and is working with a number of major international service providers and equipment manufacturers to bridge the gap between current market forces and fragmented public sector requirements in developing a true next generation broadband infrastructure in the UK.
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