about kate cooper
Based in Birmingham all my adult life, I have worked in the EU, the United States, Hong Kong, Malaysia and South Africa as well as the UK. I've advised blue chip companies on how to foster innovation and enable effective communication since the early-1980s, and been a Senior Fellow at Warwick University. I am also an experienced facilitator.
In the spring of 2009, I asked leading scientists in the West Midlands, many of professorial rank, to respond to the John Brockman question What are you optimistic about? Over 80 of them did so. Compiled into a stimulating and thought-provoking book, their responses give a refreshing and positive vision of the future, how science acts for the common good. The launch of The New Optimists: Scientists view tomorrow's world and what it means to us will be at the 2010 British Science Festival. Regular updates about this project are here, and the early stages here.
In September 2009, I began writing a blog for the Birmingham Post.
I am also a Trustee of Lench's Trust, an almshouse charity founded in 1526, one of the oldest charitable organisations in Birmingham.
I held a Senior Fellowship (1998-2000) and then Associate Fellowship (2000-05) at the Warwick Manufacturing Group where I was subject leader for innovation. From 2007-08, I was interim Secretary to the the modern-day Lunar Society.
I was instrumental in instigating the Alan Turing Institute, now CICADA and helping them to get their £3M initial funding. My unique contribution is to bring together academics — here mathematicians, engineers and computer scientists with industrialists and enable them to see fertile common ground.
Photo (above) used with kind permission of Professor Nick Higham FRS.
In You Unlimited (1995, 2000, new edition pending) I wrote about the unconventional route (it involved a paddling pool and Col Gaddafi) by which I became a 'portfolio professional' (their somewhat grandiose term) and my article for the 2009 edition can be read here.
A timeline of personal milestones against a backdrop of historical events, can be read here. It was written for a lunchtime session The trouble with working women for Birmingham Future in April 2010.
The terms and conditions for using extelligence.org are here.