Rick Robinson's Email Addresses & Phone Numbers

I work with cities, communities, universities and businesses to create and deliver innovative visions for applying technology to create financially advantageous economic, social and environmental advances. I collaborate with a network of business and community leaders, academics, entrepreneurs and social innovators across the world to create opportunities to form the initiatives, investments and projects that deliver those...

I work with cities, communities, universities and businesses to create and deliver innovative visions for applying technology to create financially advantageous economic, social and environmental advances. I collaborate with a network of business and community leaders, academics, entrepreneurs and social innovators across the world to create opportunities to form the initiatives, investments and projects that deliver those changes; and design the technology solutions to enable them. I share the ideas I develop in my work with thousands of readers around the world through my blog theUrbanTechnologist.com. My expertise includes defining and executing strategy, facilitating co-creation, business development, management, IT architecture and delivery, and urban design. Over the last two decades I worked at the forefront of IBM's programmes to deliver internet, mobile, social media, Cloud computing, big data, analytics and Smart Cities solutions for customers and partners. I'm now building a new, fast-paced team at Amey, one of the largest providers of infrastructure, transport, environmental and social services to cities and communities in the UK. Our role is to drive advanced technology into the services we deliver to make them more effective, efficient and enabling on behalf of the millions of ordinary people who depend on them. I'm directing a portfolio of initiatives to apply technologies such as sensors, analytics, machine learning, wearable technologies and robotics to create better approaches to community engagement; to reduce the cost of public services; to create social mobility, economic development and environmental sustainability; to improve safety; and to invent entirely new ways of predictive, proactive and collaborative working. My professional career builds on my PhD in physics in which I created "predictive analytic" computing techniques to understand the performance of complex high temperature superconducting systems.IT Director, Smart Data and Technology @ Amey make better places for people to live, work and travel: but the way that we live, work and travel is changing, driven by astonishing advances in digital technology. Reporting to Amey's CIO, I am building a fast-paced, expert team in the UK to harness the power of smart data and technology on behalf of our business and our customers, exploring the capabilities and benefits of technologies such as the Internet of Things, Big Data, analytics, social media, Open Data and wearable computing across the transport, energy and utilities, social infrastructure and local government services sectors. It is important in challenging economic times for us to use these technologies to the financial benefit of ourselves and our customers; but also that they help us to deliver the social value now demanded in many of our contracts. Working with a network of partners from the technology sector, universities and the startup ecosystem, my team is driving a set of exciting projects to apply innovative technologies to high-profile services that make a difference to peoples’ lives, in domains such as “Smart Cities” that are capturing the world’s imagination; and making an impact in an area of Board-level strategic priority for a £2 billion business. From January 2015 to Present (10 months) Birmingham, United KingdomNon Executive Director @ I am a non-Executive Director at Innovation Birmingham, Birmingham's primary incubator and support organisation for technology startup companies. I provide advice on technology trends and engagement with large enterprises. From March 2014 to Present (1 year 8 months) Birmingham, United KingdomFounder and Chair of the Steering Group @ The Birmingham Smart City Alliance is a non-commercial collaboration between 20 institutions, businesses and individual innovators in Birmingham that helps good ideas from anywhere in Birmingham connect across the city and region with the people, support and resources they need to succeed. I founded the Alliance in 2013 along with the Chief Executives of Innovation Birmingham and Millennium Point, and a Board Director of SCC, Birmingham's largest headquartered technology company. From 2013 to Present (2 years) Birmingham, United KingdomExecutive Architect, Smarter Cities, IBM Software Group Europe @ Acted as a trusted advisor to CEOs, CIOs and innovation leaders in public sector organisations, businesses and city institutions. In this role I was appointed to Birmingham’s Smart City Commission and founded the city's Smart City Alliance of 15 CEOs, Directors and innovators. Envisioned and designed IBM’s City Cloud platform for Sunderland. I worked with city innovators to define Cloud services to deliver outcomes aligned to city objectives. I helped cities in Europe, US, Asia and Africa to develop similar initiatives. Defined the business case for the “Defense Operations Platform” Software product based on a €20 million European client opportunity and $200 million worldwide pipeline with military forces responding to changes in NATO strategy. From June 2009 to January 2015 (5 years 8 months) Web 2.0 Strategist, IBM Emerging Technologies @ Created opportunities for and delivered "first-of-a-kind" projects worth £10 millions using Web 2.0 and social media technologies for organisations in Public Sector, Financial Services, Transport, Computer Services, Telecommunications and Media. The projects exploited emerging technologies to deliver defined business benefits and improved outcomes. Many were publicised around the world as IBM case studies. Enabled IBM’s businesses and customers worldwide to exploit Web 2.0 by creating and disseminating technical assets and education, marketing collateral and sales offerings within IBM; to customers; and to industry analysts such as Bloor, Datamonitor, Butler Group, and Forrester. Drove feature requirements for REST services, AJAX widgets, Mashups and other Web 2.0 capabilities into IBM’s software product portfolio based on an analysis of market demand and patterns of exploitation resulting in significant changes to IBM product features and plans. From June 2007 to November 2009 (2 years 6 months) Manager, European Architecture Services Practise @ Managed a team of senior IT architects leading major projects in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Responsible for profit and loss for services revenues for the team, and for education, coaching, technical vitality and career development within it. Built new sales channels and operations processes to transform a shrinking integration architecture practise into a thriving business delivering Service-Orientated Architecture and Business Process Management consultancy. Earned £millions in services revenue annually for IBM, and led a team deploying solutions driving software, services and hardware sales worth £100 millions. Directed investment in successful interventions in failing projects worth over £10m in the UK, Canada, Spain, Thailand and Turkey, leading to first deployments of Enterprise Service Bus and Business Process Management technology at major clients. Re-energised morale and team spirit by creating new technical vitality programmes in the parent organisation. From February 2006 to June 2007 (1 year 5 months) IBM Strategy for Service-Orientated Architecture @ Led some of IBM's first Service-Orientated Architecture projects with customers around the world. Attended IBM’s Corporate Technical Recognition Event in Boca Raton, Florida in 2006 in recognition of major contributions to IBM’s SOA customer projects and strategy since 2001. Defined IBM’s first descriptions of SOA and the Enterprise Service Bus, both now widely adopted around the world within IBM and its customers, and contributed to the creation of IBM’s SOMA (Service Oriented Modelling and Architecture) Method. Authored IBM SOA Redbooks that have been downloaded by 10,000s of clients. Created IBM’s first classroom training for SOA, a 5 day course for IT Architects which has been trained many hundreds of IBM and customer professionals worldwide. A set of 5 “SOA business scenarios” contained in the class later became the first 5 IBM SOA Scenarios and were used as the focus of IBM’s SOA marketing for many years. From June 2003 to June 2006 (3 years 1 month) Architect for autonomic Enterprise Service Bus for Leading Global Financial Information Provider @ Created the opportunity to implement a first-of-a-kind autonomic Enterprise Service Bus for a leading financial information provider with £2bn annual revenues by providing technical leadership to the CTO and Chief Architect. Led the technical sales and delivery of a £1.5m pilot project as part of the sale of a £25m managed service offering. The solution is now deployed and operating in Europe, the US and Asia. Agreed requirements with the Chief Architect, business service owners, design authorities, and risk consultants. Delivered a first-of-a-kind ESB solution supporting Web services standards using the IBM WebSphere platform and Tivoli automation technology. The ESB self-detected deteriorations in operation and took compensating actions based on business impact priorities. From July 2004 to December 2005 (1 year 6 months) Architect for centralised WebSphere Infrastructure for Top 5 Global Bank @ Defined a highly available application infrastructure for a multi-£100million programme for one of the world’s top 5 largest banks with £10bns annual revenue. The infrastructure was required to support over 30 business application projects. Many were business-critical; some were required in order to allow the bank to continue operating following changes in regulations for mortgage selling. The two-site infrastructure incorporated hardware and software technology from IBM, Sun, Microsoft, Oracle, ISVs and many other vendors. Led recovery from a crisis situation in the programme to enable delivery of key projects within required deadlines by convincing programme management and the Bank’s Executive leaders to create a self-contained funded project to deliver the infrastructure. Defined the role of that project within the programme, and re-designed the security architecture after identifying that the original solution could not be implemented in the timescales required. From July 2003 to March 2004 (9 months) PhD, Physics @ University of Birmingham From 1993 to 1997 BSc, Physics @ University of Birmingham From 1990 to 1993 Rick Robinson is skilled in: Change Management, Cloud Computing, IT Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, Solution Architecture, SOA, Business Development, SaaS, Project Management, Business Strategy, Team Leadership, Program Management, Integration, Pre-sales, Architecture, ITIL, Web Services, Management, Enterprise Software, Software Development, Technical Architecture, Telecommunications, IT Service Management, Mobile Devices, Websphere, Strategy, ESB, Security, Middleware, Outsourcing, Application Architecture, Project Delivery, Java Enterprise Edition, Agile Methodologies, TOGAF, Leadership, Architectures, Oracle, Technical Leadership, Smart Cities, Design, Consulting, Infrastructure, Project Portfolio..., Start-ups, Governance, Business Transformation, WebSphere