Johnny Ryan

Johnny Ryan is a digital thought leader with a think-tank and academic background.

His new book A history of the Internet and the digital future, published by Reaktion in Europe, and University of Chicago Press in North America, examines the five decades of trends that are shaping the emerging digital environment for business, politics, and media. He consults for organisations to introduce centrifugal thinking, helping them to adapt to the digital era. He is also a senior researcher at the IIEA, a think tank, where he leads work on the digital future.

He grew up in Dublin, Ireland, and was educated at University College Dublin and at the University of Cambridge, from where he received his PhD. From 2008-2010 he was an O'Reilly Foundation Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge University. He has spoken on digital issues at high level government, academic, and industry fora, and international fora including the United Nations, OSCE, NATO, and the European Commission.

Johnny Ryan was the author of the 2008 strategic report The Next Leap, which was launched by the Irish deputy Prime Minister and set out a strategy for Ireland's digital sector to capitalise on the digital media boom.

His first book was the most cited source in the European Commission's official impact assessment that decided against pursuing an EU-wide system of censorship.

He has written in BusinessWeek, Business & Finance, Ars Technica, NATO Review, and OpenDemocracy.

Johnny Ryan is co-founder of Reformcard.com, an online initiative to monitor implementation of political reform commitments.

Further topics are
A dummies guide to Digital change, the story from the beginning
The future of audiences beyond Push and Pull
Hope and opportunity for the music industry
iWar cyber security