Peter Thomas

Following an education at Leeds, Cambridge and Hull Universities, Peter Thomas was appointed as Professor of Information Management at the age of 32. He established the world’s first research centre in the human factors of mobile and personal communications in 1994, and was Executive Director of a $100M research institute funded by the Australian Federal and State governments and multinational IT companies. He has undertaken numerous research and consultancy projects, generating over AU$15 million in research and development funds. Peter has advised government and multinational businesses in financial services, leasing, telecommunications, publishing, media and education, providing services including research management, futures research, strategic planning, social media marketing, new business development, communications strategy and technology development.  He has led international missions to India, working with the Indian Government on technology agreements, and to Japan, working with technology companies including HP and NTT, and with Japanese universities. Peter was previously CTO of the e-business division of a UK FTSE100 global task management company and served as director of several UK-based consulting and technology companies. Peter’s current interests are in the use of mobile, social and open source technologies in higher education to deliver engaging student experiences, and in the use of reputation media to reshape academic publishing.  Peter is adviser to, and co-founder of, a number of technology start-ups in the food and education markets, and creative director of Medicine Unboxed, an international social enterprise funded by the Wellcome Trust that is changing the way medical care is understood by patients, professionals and policy-makers. He recently founded, and is Executive Director of, the Leasing Foundation, a charitable and research organisation based in the City of London with operations across Europe, Africa and Asia.