Speakers

Shaun Fensom trained as an engineer and digital infrastructure pioneer with more than 40 years’ experience in computing, the Internet, and data-centre development. In the 1980s he co-founded Poptel, one of the UK’s first Internet providers, which played an early role in building secure online services for NGOs and public-interest organisations worldwide. Shaun is a co-founder of Cooperative Network Infrastructure (CNI), which enables public and private-sector organisations to share fibre networks and smaller distributed data-centre facilities through a neutral host model. He has long argued for a model of distributed, interconnected smaller facilities that can complement hyperscale approaches while improving sustainability and national control of data. Shaun advises local and regional authorities on digital infrastructure strategy, with particular expertise in shared fibre backbones, edge deployment, and sustainable models for locally controlled computing capacity.”