Ian Taylor

Mr. Taylor lives in London, England. He is Chairman of Living PlanIT SA which is developing an open standards software operating system for urban areas, connecting devices, sensors and infrastructure. Also Chairman of the Rainbow Seed Fund Advisory Board: the Fund invests on behalf of leading British publicly funded research organizations to kick-start ventures emerging from the UK science research base.

Mr. Taylor chairs the UK National Space Academy steering group, a network of teachers and project scientists inspiring learning through the context of space. He is a member of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council which inter alia supports physics and astronomy research and access to large-scale scientific infrastructures and analytical facilities. He is chair of the Development Committee of the British Society for Research on Ageing.

Mr. Taylor was for 23 years a British Member of Parliament and was UK government Science Minister from 1994 – 97. In Parliament, Mr. Taylor chaired the all-Party Parliamentary & Scientific Committee which includes the Parliamentary Engineering Group. He was Chairman of the Space Committee. He sat on the Commission on National Security during the period 2007 – 2009.

Prior to entering Parliament in 1987, Mr. Taylor had 18 years’ experience in providing corporate finance and management advice to companies in the UK, France and the USA.