David Wood

Principal, Delta Wisdom

Far Beyond Smartphones:
Lessons From Disruptive Technology, Open collaboration, and Breakthrough Mobile products

David Wood has spent more than 20 years envisioning, architecting, implementing, supporting, and avidly using smart mobile devices (devices that can also be called "personal electronic brains"): ten years with PDA manufacturer Psion PLC, and then ten more with smartphone operating system specialist Symbian Ltd. He was centrally involved in preparations and planning for the open source Symbian Foundation. Over that time, many lessons have emerged, highly relevant to the H+ mission to explore how humanity will be radically changed by technology in the near future:

What factors cause both spurts and slowdowns in technology development? What enables new technology visions to "cross the chasm" towards mainstream adoption? Given the history of improvements in smart mobile devices over the last 20 years, what can we realistically expect in the next 20 years? How credible is the vision of mobile devices helping billions of people to collect data that can be used for science and advance human knowledge? To what extent can technological progress be foreseen, and to what extent is the process chaotic, risky, and even dangerous?

David Wood spent ten years with PDA manufacturer Psion PLC, and then ten more with smartphone operating system specialist Symbian Ltd, where he was co-founder and executive vice president.

His background includes: many years building and integrating UI system software and application frameworks in 16-bit and 32-bit versions of “EPOC” software (later named “Symbian OS”); growing and directing the technical consulting teams that worked with leading phone manufacturers to create the world’s first successful smartphones; and defining and running development programs to stimulate and nurture the fast-growing Symbian partner ecosystem.

From the first half of 2008, he was involved in preparations and planning for the independent open source Symbian Foundation. He served on the Leadership Team of the Symbian Foundation as “Catalyst and Futurist” until October 2009. I continue these same roles from within Delta Wisdom.

He has an MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University and an honorary doctorate in science from the University of Westminster.

In September 2009 he was included in T3's list of "100 most influential people in technology": http://tech100.t3.com/list/80-61/.