Bill Thompson | |
---|---|
Born | William George Thompson 6 October 1960 Jarrow, County Durham, United Kingdom |
Nationality | English |
Occupation | Technology writer |
William George Thompson (born 6 October 1960) is an English technology writer, best known for his weekly column in the Technology section of BBC News Online and his appearances on Digital Planet , a radio show on the BBC World Service. He is also an honorary senior visiting fellow at City University London's Journalism Department [1] and writes for BBC WebWise.
Born in Jarrow, County Durham, Thompson grew up in Corby, Northamptonshire. He graduated from St Catharine's College, Cambridge in philosophy and with a diploma in computing in 1984 and worked at Acorn Computers. [2]
He was a correspondent for the technology programme The Big Byte on BBC Radio. He began to write for The Guardian in 1990, and in 1994 went to work there (having previously worked at Pipex, the United Kingdom's first commercial Internet service provider) as head of new media, setting up the paper's website, which he argued should not be paywalled. [3] He left in 1996 to work as a freelance writer and consultant. In November 2009 he took on a role as head of partnership development for Archive Development projects at the BBC, working with Tony Ageh (formerly of The Guardian ), the then Controller of Archive Development at the BBC. [4]
He acted as contributor and expert on Digital Planet from its launch as Go Digital in August 2001 to its final broadcast in March 2023. After the end of Digital Planet, in April 2023, Mitchell and Thompson returned with a new technology podcast, The Gareth and BillCast. [5]
Thompson is a trustee of the Britten Sinfonia, [6] and a board member of the Writers' Centre Norwich. [7] In 2010, he was nominated for the Prudential Arts and Business Board Member of the year award. [8] In October 2016, Anglia Ruskin University awarded Thompson an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree. [9]
He is chair of Centre for Doctoral Training advisory board and a member of the main advisory board of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton. [10]
He has two children. [11]
Thompson has also written books for children:
Cambridge is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately 55 miles (89 km) north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became an important trading centre during the Roman and Viking ages, and there is archaeological evidence of settlement in the area as early as the Bronze Age. The first town charters were granted in the 12th century, although modern city status was not officially conferred until 1951.
The East of England is one of the nine official regions of England. This region was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics purposes from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Essex has the highest population in the region.
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1989–1995) and Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993). He also starred in the sketch series Alfresco (1983–1984) alongside Laurie, Emma Thompson and Robbie Coltrane, and in Blackadder (1986–1989) alongside Rowan Atkinson. Since 2011, he has served as president of the mental health charity Mind.
Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a public university in East Anglia, United Kingdom. Its origins are in the Cambridge School of Art, founded by William John Beamont, a Fellow of Trinity College at University of Cambridge, in 1858. It became a university in 1992, and was renamed after Oxford University Professor, Author John Ruskin in 2005. Ruskin gave the inauguration speech of the Cambridge School of Art in 1858. It is one of the "post-1992 universities". The motto of the university is in Latin Excellentia per societatem, in English Excellence through partnership.
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The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a 320-acre (130-hectare) campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution for 2021–22 was £295.5 million, of which £30.2 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £370 million, and had an undergraduate offer rate of 85.1% in 2021.
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Digital Planet is a radio programme broadcast on the BBC World Service presented by Gareth Mitchell. Alternating as contributors are Bill Thompson, Ghislaine Boddington and Angelica Mari, who comment on items in the programme and discuss them with Mitchell. The show, broadcast weekly, covers technology stories and news from around the world.
Nicholas Crane is an English geographer, explorer, writer and broadcaster. Since 2004 he has written and presented four television series for BBC Two: Coast, Great British Journeys, Map Man and Town.
Adrian Philip Ramsay is a British politician and co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales alongside Carla Denyer. He was previously the deputy leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2008 to 2012. He served as a Norwich City Councillor from 2003 to 2011.
James John Mayhew is an English illustrator and author of children's books, storyteller, artist and concert presenter/live art performer.
Michael Zev Gordon is a British composer of Jewish descent.
Gregory Mark Wood CBE has been at the helm of several financial services and technology start-ups, both in the UK and New York City.
Mark Thompson is a British astronomer, television presenter and writer best known for being one of the presenting team on the BBC show Stargazing Live and is a regular face on Good Morning Britain.
Gareth Mitchell is a Welsh technology journalist, lecturer and former broadcast engineer.
Our Hunting Fathers, Op. 8, is an orchestral song-cycle by Benjamin Britten, first performed in 1936. Its text, assembled and partly written by W. H. Auden, with a pacifist slant, puzzled audiences at the premiere, and the work has never achieved the popularity of the composer's later orchestral song-cycles, Les Illuminations, the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and the Nocturne.
Sir Jonathan Michael Thompson, is a British civil servant who served as the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) from September 2012 until April 2016, when he succeeded Dame Lin Homer as Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive of HM Revenue and Customs. He became Chief Executive of the Financial Reporting Council after leaving HMRC in Autumn 2019.
Jerome Paul Booth is a British economist, author, emerging markets investor and Chairman of New Sparta. He was previously Head of Research at emerging market asset manager Ashmore Group plc. He is Chairman of Anglia Ruskin University, and a former Chairman of UK Community Foundations (UKCF).
Stephen Heppell is a British educationalist, writer and speaker. He held professorships at Anglia Ruskin University and Bournemouth University, and he currently holds the Filipe Segovia Chair of Learning Innovation at Universidad Camilo Jose Cela in Madrid. He was an advisor to the British Government's Department for Education co-authoring 'The Stephenson Report' and chaired their Education Technology Advisory Group.