Founder and Director, Sociability
Co-founder, School of Everything
Head Gardener, Mindapples
Andy Gibson is an award-winning social entrepreneur, campaigner and consultant specialising in the social applications of new technologies. He’s founder and director of the innovation consultancy Sociability, co-founder of “education 2.0″ start-up, School of Everything, which won both a New Statesman New Media Award and a Prime Minister’s Catalyst Award in 2008, and founder of the “5-a-day for your mind” campaign, Mindapples. In 2009 he co-authored his first book, Social by Social, a practical guide to using social technologies for social good, and in 2010 published a follow-up policy pamphlet, Local by Social, a guide to digital innovation in local authorities for NESTA and the IDeA.
Andy advises private and charitable organisations and the UK Government on the social and commercial opportunities presented by new technologies. He’s an associate of Futuregov and The People Speak, and was a mentor and project leader for Social Innovation Camp. He occasionally appears in lists like the Courvoisier Future 500 and the Wired 100, and is also a fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs and a Fellowship Councillor at the RSA.
Andy used to be a historian, but he drifted. After studying the history of the Reformation and the Enlightenment at Cambridge, he ran the national teacher recruitment campaign Those Who Can, Teach, won a Web Marketing Association Award for Skillset Film and produced five acclaimed storyboard guides to the media industries. These days he specialises in strategic consultancy, experience design and project leadership for a range of commercial and non-profit clients, focusing particularly on how new technologies and experiences can be used to engage new audiences, change culture and build new business models.
He writes about technology, media, education, democracy and mental health, gives occasional presentations, speaks in public and facilitates events. If he had any free time he’d make music, learn hundreds of new things and occasionally write comedy. He’s slowly realising that studying the history of periods of rapid social and technological change has been the perfect preparation for navigating the swirling waters of the information age.
Follow Andy on Twitter (@gandy), or connect with him on various professional networks including LinkedIn, School of Everything, Courvoisier Future 500 and New Media eXchange.
Questions? E-mail andy[at]sociability.org.uk
