Martyn Gilbert

biography

Martyn is chairman of OpenHub which works with leading players in the construction industry as well as public sector stakeholders to facilitate the integration of physical and electronic infrastructures. He has a keen interest in the mathematics of emergent behaviours and how these can inform improvements in energy reduction, carbon emissions and efficiency.

In 1997, he founded Amino Communications Ltd. which has risen to become the world leader in IPTV. He invented the core technology that permitted Amino to have the marketplace flexibility that has underpinned its success. He presently has a variety of patents in the areas of silicon chip infrastructure, interactive web-based service technology, and wide-area-networking security technologies as well as displays and automotive sensors.

He has been a past board member of The Application Home Initiative (TAHI) and past Chairman of the TAHI Technical Working Group. In that capacity he oversaw and was a primary contributor to the TAHI Open Architecture that has informed much of The European Application Home Appliances (TEAHA) architectural understanding to date. He was also Chairman of the TAHI “Living Space” broadband trial that secured UK government funding to examine the legal aspects of broadband services in the environment of an enlarged EU. He continues to participate in standards work, particularly within interoperability.

In his earlier career, Martyn was the Principle Engineer of the BBC Master Microcomputer, the second generation of the first computer to be widely deployed in UK education. A keen archer and photographer, Martyn also owns an NLP practice for the benefit of victims of abuse, ‘difficult’ children and those suffering from intolerable stress. He is presently undertaking a degree in astrophysics.

Audio

Presentation

Abstract

Which do we value more – a functioning, supportive society that we can afford or clinging on to behaviours that have become our downfall?

There have been endless pilot and trial projects in energy reduction, carbon reduction, assisted living, e-Incusion, remote safety and and security, telecare, telemedicine etc. It is widely acknowledged that the ‘connected home’ is able to offer substantial benefits in all these areas. Yet with very few exceptions, most of these have yet to see substantial market availability. It remains a fact that each of these is largely treated as a ‘silo’ in which the various public and private sector interests plough their own furrow, generally establishing their own electronic infrastructure to the exclusion of other concerns and possibilities.

This is curious because we do not have separate ‘mechanical infrastructure’ for the police, fire service, ambulance service, commercial and private road users; we have a single infrastructure with known rules for the co-operative use of that infrastructure. Within the home, such joined-up thinking is lacking. Why is this? Is it because of any lack of technical competence or the unavailability of the necessary products or services?

Project UK3.0 recognises that immense national benefit is to be had. By the integration of public sector service delivery with a private sector ‘smart home’ ecosystem, the nation can benefit by hundreds of billions of pounds and hundreds of thousands of jobs. To do this, we must overcome simple human frailties: Ego, vested interests, political intrigue, timidity and empire-building amongst others.

Links

OpenHub

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