
Professor John Darlington is a professor in the Department of Computing at Imperial College London and head of the Social Computing Group and director of the London e-Science Centre based there. Professor Darlington has a long and distinguished track record, both in the development of novel software technologies and in the creation of facilities to improve the accessibility and ease of use of computational resources.
In 2005 Professor Darlington and the London e-Science Centre led the influential UK e-Science Core Programme project: "A Market for Computational Services". This project, collaborative with Sun Microsystems, developed an architecture to support the reconstruction of the Internet as a series of open markets in use-on-demand, pay-per-use services, including Web Services, brokering organisations and utility computing platforms. This work foreshadowed many recent developments in Cloud Computing.
Professor Darlington has a long-term interest in the power of the Internet and Cloud Computing to promote radical economic and social change. The Social Computing Group and the London e-Science Centre are currently engaged in a number of projects developing innovative Internet and Cloud-based services in a range of academic, social and commercial areas. The group are particularly interested in Cloud-based Internet services that empower the citizen and enhance their interaction with commercial or public bodies.