Prof. Tim Unwin
Professor of Geography of Royal Holloway, University of London and UNESCO
United Kingdom
Tim Unwin (born 1955) is Chair of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK, UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, Director of the ICT4D Collective and Professor of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. From 2001-2004 he led the UK Prime Minister’s Imfundo: Partnership for IT in Education initiative based within the Department for International Development, and from 2007-8 he was Director and then Senior Advisor to the World Economic Forum’s Partnerships for Education initiative with UNESCO. He was previously Head of the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London (1999–2001), and has also served as Honorary Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) (1995-1997). He has written or edited 15 books, and more than 200 papers and other publications, including “Wine and the Vine” (Routledge, 1991), “The Place of Geography” (Longman, 1992), as well as his edited “Atlas of World Development” (Wiley, 1994) and “A European Geography” (Longman, 1998). His research has taken him to more than 25 countries across the world, from Estonia to Sierra Leone, and Ethiopia to Singapore, and he has worked on subjects as diverse as the role of banknotes as expressions of national identity, and the historical-geography of viticulture and the wine trade. He was founding editor of Journal of Wine Research and Ethics, Place and Environment. Over the last decade his research has concentrated on information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D), focusing especially on the use of ICTs to support people with disabilities, and to empower out of school youth. His latest collaborative book, entitled simply ICT4D, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2009. He also serves as Academic Advisor and External Examiner of the Institute of Masters of Wine, and is a Fellow of Education Impact.