Digital Biota 2

TDV's goal is to create information and entertainment services that exploit the convergence of multiple media. Richard's role at TDV is as the architect of TDV's convergent products and the person responsible for cutting himself on the bleeding edge of technology and advising the rest of the company where to (and not to) go. This strategy is limited only by the supply of metaphorical elastoplast.

With a background as a behavioural ecologist, computer scientist, amateur Egyptologist, strategic IT/IS consultant and ski-bum, Richard is supremely and solely qualified as a dilettante, one who much prefers leaving the hard work of actually implementing things to others.

His involvement with A-Life stems from two main causes: firstly, a long-held belief (itself emergent) that traditional reductionist approaches to information system design and implementation are ultimately self-limiting and that, to create truly effective and responsive (carefully avoiding use of the word "intelligent") information systems, we need to look to biological models of how organisms and ecosystems interact and evolve. The vehicle for this groping in the dark is the architecture of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (h2g2), TDV's forthcoming headline guidance and information service. The second cause is that, as he hasn't got a real life, an artificial one may prove an acceptable substitute.



Richard Harris is Research Director and one of the founding partners of the Digital Village, the digital communications and media company set up by a group of leading technology, media and creative thinkers from the on-line, television, literary and games industries, under the creative direction of Douglas Adams. TDV's goal is to create information and entertainment services that exploit the convergence of multiple media. Richard's role at TDV is as the architect of TDV's convergent products and the person responsible for cutting himself on the bleeding edge of technology and advising the rest of the company where to (and not to) go. This strategy is limited only by the supply of metaphorical elastoplast. With a background as a behavioural ecologist, computer scientist, amateur Egyptologist, strategic IT/IS consultant and ski-bum, Richard is supremely and solely qualified as a dilettante, one who much prefers leaving the hard work of actually implementing things to others. His involvement with A-Life stems from two main causes: firstly, a long-held belief (itself emergent) that traditional reductionist approaches to information system design and implementation are ultimately self-limiting and that, to create truly effective and responsive (carefully avoiding use of the word "intelligent") information systems, we need to look to biological models of how organisms and ecosystems interact and evolve. The vehicle for this groping in the dark is the architecture of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (h2g2), TDV's forthcoming headline guidance and information service. The second cause is that, as he hasn't got a real life, an artificial one may prove an acceptable substitute.