Ben Hammersley
| Ben Hammersley FRSA FRGS | |
|---|---|
 Ben Hammersley, September 2006 |
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| Born | 3 April 1976 Leicester, England |
| Occupation | journalist, futurist, technologist |
| Nationality | British |
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[BenHammersley.com BenHammersley.com] |
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Ben Hammersley (born 3 April 1976 in Leicester, England) is a British internet technologist, journalist, author, broadcaster, and diplomat, currently based in London, England.
As of 2011 he is the UK Prime Minister's Ambassador to East London Tech City[1][2], Editor at Large of Conde Nast's Wired UK magazine,[3], and a member of the European Commission High Level Expert Group on Media Freedom,[4]
He is also a freelance reporter for the BBC, and a consultant to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.[5]
Hammersley previously worked as the first Internet reporter for The Times, where he was shortlisted for one of the British Press Awards, and as a reporter for The Guardian and the UK arm of MSN. During his early career, he specialised in technology journalism. Hammersley often reported from dangerous countries, including Iran and Afghanistan. After travelling undercover to interview the Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 1999, Hammersley simultaneously moved toward war correspondence and technological innovation - reporting from war zones and writing technical book for publishers such as O'Reilly Media. He is credited with inventing the word 'podcasting', leading on to 'podcast' and 'podcasts', in 2004.[6] He has also previously been Director of Digital at Six Creative,[7] Principal of Dangerous Precedent.[8] and Director of Campus Party USA.[9]
Hammersley is a Fellow of the RSA[10], Royal Geographical Society[11] and the British-American Project[12] and a member of the Savage Club and Frontline Club, and the Transatlantic Network 2020.,[13] and a trustee of the London chapter of the Awesome Foundation[14]. In August 2011 he was made a fellow of the UNAOC.[15]. As a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences he is a judge of the Lovie Awards[16].
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[edit] Family and education
Ben Hammersley is the eldest of three children and was educated at Loughborough Grammar School, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, from which he dropped out after a year. He later worked at Associated Press Television News where he became a producer. Citation needed
[edit] Life and work
[edit] Multimedia reporting and broadcasting
In 2003, Hammersley blogged from Afghanistan.
In 2006, Hammersley was embedded with both British and American troops in Afghanistan, shooting video for The Guardian as a multimedia reporter for Guardian Unlimited.
In June 2007, Hammersley was the reporter in an experiment in multimedia journalism for the BBC. Reporting from Turkey in the run-up to the general elections there, he reported for BBC World, and the BBC World Service, while also placing behind the scenes video online. A 30 minute documentary entitled "Turkish Journey"[17] was later shown on BBC World and BBC News 24.
In August 2007, he was reporting for the BBC World Service from Mindanao in the Philippines, notably staying with the Philippine marines on the island of Basilan as they searched for members of Abu Sayyaf.
Hammersley writes and presents documentaries on BBC Radio 4's documentary strand Analysis, covering Facebook in November 2007,[18] and personal genetic testing in December 2008.[19]
Hammersley also contributed the multimedia reporting chapter to the book International News Reporting, published by Blackwell Publishing.
After returning to London in late 2007, Hammersley started working as the Foreign Correspondent for the UK arm of MSN, starting with coverage of the 2008 Pakistan General Elections.
[edit] Photography
Ben Hammersley works in two very differing photography fields: conflict coverage, and fashion and portraiture. Apart from the photography taken during multimedia reporting trips, in 2007 he travelled to Beirut to photograph Hezbollah, and to the Philippines to cover the Basilan conflict.
Hammersley's portrait and fashion photography is mostly studio based. He held two exhibitions in Florence, Italy during 2007, and is currently working on long-form story based fashion imagery in London.
[edit] Writing, speaking, and technology
Hammersley was the author of six technical books and programmers' guides, notably with O'Reilly Media. He has been influential in the Social media and RSS communities, writing the first book on the latter subject. Other books have covered Blogging and the inner workings of Gmail. Latterly, his writing has moved onto foreign news and multimedia reporting techniques.
Between 2004 and 2006, he designed, built, and maintained the weblogs of The Guardian, including Comment is free. He is attributed with the first warchalking in the wild, on a street corner in Kensington, London in June 2002, where he ran one of the first wireless community network in London.
Hammersley also regularly contributes to congresses and conferences, such as the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention and the Global Investigative Journalism Conference. In May 2008, he hosted and co-organised the geeKyoto conference in London.
He coined the term podcasting, in an article for The Guardian/[20] It was later the New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year for 2005.
Hammersley also built, but no longer runs, the website for the Serpentine Gallery in London. He also works on digital strategy for the Frontline Club, of which he is a founder member.
[edit] Campus Party USA
In August 2010 it was announced that Hammersley would be the director of the first Campus Party USA. He hopes to draw 10,000 technology enthusiasts to the event which will be held in Silicon Valley, California in 2012.[21]
[edit] Athletics
Hammersley is an ultramarathon runner. Having completed the Marathon des sables, and the 100km del Passatore he is now coached by Jason Koop of Chris Carmichael's Carmichael Training Systems. In October 2007, Hammersley suffered a major fracture of his right fibula, caused by massive pronation of the foot. In October 2008, his left leg suffered the same injury. Hammersley subsequently took up boxing.[22]
[edit] Bibliography
- Hammersley, Ben (2003) Content Syndication with RSS, O'Reilly Media (ISBN 0-596-00383-8).
- As contributor, (2004) Spidering Hacks, O'Reilly Media (ISBN 0-596-05777-6)
- Hammersley, Ben (2005) Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom, O'Reilly Media (ISBN 0-596-00881-3).
- Hammersley, Ben (2005) Hacking Gmail, John Wiley & Sons. (ISBN 0-7645-9611-X)
- As co-author, (2005) Hacking Movable Type, Wiley
- As co-author, (2005) RSS and Atom Hacks, O'Reilly Media
- As contributor, (2008) International News Reporting, Blackwell Publishing
- Hammersley, Ben (2012) "64 Things You Need to Know Now For Then", Hodder & Stoughton (ISBN 978-1444728606).
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/tech-city-gets-uk-made-smartphone-app-1040095
- ^ http://prigg.thisislondon.co.uk/2011/11/silicon-roundabout-speeds-up.html
- ^ Parsons, Michael (24 April 2009). "Video: Marc Newson's Lockheed Lounge"Wired UK. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2009-04/24/video-lockhead-lounge.
- ^ "European Commission - Press release Digital Agenda: high-level group to discuss freedom and pluralism of the media across the EU". 2011-10-11. http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/1173&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en. Retrieved 2011-10-16.
- ^ http://puffbox.com/2008/06/19/hammersley-prototypes-foreign-office/
- ^ [ Berry, R. (2006). Will the ipod kill the radio star? Profiling podcasting as radio. Convergence: The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies, 12(2), 143]
- ^ "Ben Hammersley's return to old-fashioned blogging Looking for some guys, for a thing, with the stuff". Benhammersley.com. http://benhammersley.com/post/449864520/looking-for-some-guys-for-a-thing-with-the-stuff. Retrieved 2010-04-18.
- ^ [1]
- ^ http://blog.campus-party.com.br/index.php/2010/08/24/em-pouco-menos-de-um-ano-estados-unidos/
- ^ http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mrbenhammersley
- ^ http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mrbenhammersley
- ^ http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mrbenhammersley
- ^ "About Our Participants - Getting Involved - British Council - TN2020". British Council. http://www.britishcouncil.org/tn2020-getting-involved-about-our-participants.htm. Retrieved 2010-04-18.
- ^ http://www.awesomelondon.org/london-trustees/
- ^ http://www.unaoc.org/2011/08/fellowship-news-announcing-24-new-fellows-for-the-fall-2011-unaoc-fellowship-programme/
- ^ http://lovieawards.eu/judges/
- ^ "Our World: Turkish Journey". Video.google.com. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2718296695098987532. Retrieved 2010-04-18.
- ^ "Programmes | Analysis | With Friends Like These". BBC News. 2007-11-08. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/analysis/7081638.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-18.
- ^ "Programmes | Analysis | Me and My DNA". BBC News. 2008-12-11. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/analysis/7777110.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-18.
- ^ Ben Hammersley (2004-02-13). "Why online radio is booming | Media | The Guardian". London: Technology.guardian.co.uk. http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1145689,00.html. Retrieved 2010-04-18.
- ^ http://blog.campus-party.com.br/index.php/2010/08/24/em-pouco-menos-de-um-ano-estados-unidos/
- ^ "Judgement Day III - 27th February - Eventbrite". Seebenfight.eventbrite.com. 2010-02-27. http://seebenfight.eventbrite.com. Retrieved 2010-04-18.
