Mark Skipper joins the team
Today we're celebrating Mark Skipper's first day with Aptivate. In fact Dr Skipper has been working with us for over a year now, as a volunteer and as an independent consultant in IT and training; this is his first official day as staff.
Mark has plenty of practical experience of both IT and education. As senior lecturer in computer science, researcher and IT trainer he has worked at Xerox PARC, De Montfort University, Imperial College London, and INRIA Rennes. As independent IT consultant he has worked with large organisations like IBM and the BBC as well as with many very small ones. Somehow, into this full career, he managed to squeeze two years in Kenya, with VSO, as trainer and capacity builder for a rural IT college.
His technical wizardry is balanced with a deep passion for the human aspect of learning, change and development. In addition to a PhD in programming language theory (but really about supporting different points-of-view in software development) he has a Certificate in Education For Sustainability from Schumacher College and lots of training in Nonviolent Communication.
"I'm thrilled to be working with Aptivate", says Mark, "they're a great team bringing fun and participation to development projects through IT".
When not working for us, you'll find him doing facilitator training for Cambridge Carbon Footprint, communication consultancy for the Cambridge Climate Change Charter, or growing vegetables, tending his chickens or installing Ubuntu. He tweets as axiologic and blogs, occasionally, as Bitterjug.
Congratulations to Aptivate and Mark. It sounds like a great fit! I am excited about seeing the combination of climate change awareness, programming skills and NVC practice in one person. it's just the kind of confluence of abilities and consciousness that we need to meet the challenges of today. Good luck to you.
[...] of the Mathare participants? For that purpose we had a three day long work shop with an amazing Dr Mark Skipper from Aptivate on inquiry led learning in an inquiry-led way – sort of training for trainers. I [...]
[...] of the Mathare participants? For that purpose we had a three day long work shop with an amazing Dr Mark Skipper from Aptivate on inquiry led learning in an inquiry-led way – sort of training for trainers. I [...]