Ian Forrester
BBC Senior “Firestarter”
Ian Forrester works for the BBC’s R&D Advisory team based at Media City UK in Salford where he enjoys the unique job title of Senior Firestarter. He specialises in open innovation and identifying new disruptive opportunities through open engagement and collaborations with start-ups, universities and early adopters.
Ian was one of the very first BBC employees based in London to make the journey north to Greater Manchester long before the “Media City UK” concept was hatched. He’s been well known in helping to foster the beginnings of the modern Northern tech community supporting initiatives such as BarCamp, Tech North, TEDxManchester and the Thinking Digital Conference.
Ian’s current research is split between:
• The future of public service in the internet age with a particular focus on the re-imagining the current ‘big tech’ business model/narrative of the internet with a more human, ethical and public focus.
• The future of narrative and adaptive storytelling, with a technology called Perceptive Media, a new approach to broadcasting; which seeks to pair the best of broadcast with the best of internet technology.
