Nick Read

Nick Read studied computer sciences at Trinity College, Dublin. Since then he has worked for the past 12 years in the Irish and UK IT service industry and has worked extensively in the US, Europe and in Asia, taking responsibility for pan-European and global projects involving security and design consultancy on enterprise class IT systems. He was responsible for the design, implementation and operation of large scale corporate networks. In recent years he has taken an increasing interest in the application of networking and connectivity solutions to institutional and educational problems, particularly in the developing world and transitional economies.

Until 2007 he was the Managing Director of a specialist network services company operating in the UK, Ireland and Europe but has since concentrated on IT related education consultancy work with a particular focus on the establishment of real TCO (total cost of ownership) of ICT in education.

Nick has undertaken ICT and education related consultancies to in Krygyzstan, Uganda, Kenya, Uzbekistan and Mongolia and he was a researcher for the ADB-funded RETA on ICT in Basic Education in 6 Central Asian Countries. He was also one of the lead facilitators at the ADB funded conference Optimizing ICT in Education, which took place in Manila in October 2007. During 2009 he operated as Team Leader in Armenia for three ICT training contracts as part of the World Bank-funded Education Quality and Relevance Project (EQRP). These contracts trained almost 600 informatics teachers in general secondary schools and 384 general subject teachers in high schools in the potential use of ICT across all curriculum subjects. He has co-authored and developed the highly successful e-VOLUTION^TM interactive ICT self study package for teachers, which has now been translated into Armenian and tested and evaluated by almost 1,000 teachers in Armenia. e-VOLUTION^TM is now used in every Marz (district) in the country. More recently he has worked on a software development assignment for the National Curriculum Development Centre in Rwanda and is currently (2012) working with the Rwandan Education Board on an online textbook management system to streamline the process of textbook purchasing and distribution of books direct to schools.