Terence Eden

Education

Eden graduated in 2002 from the University of East Anglia with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Computing with Chinese.^[1][2][3] In 2023, Eden was conferred a Masters of Science (Digital and Technology Specialist) in Data and Analytics from the Northumbria University.^[4][5]

Public sector

Eden was previously employed by the United Kingdom (UK) Civil Service in various roles, including as the Open Standards Lead at the Government Digital Service,^[6][7] Senior Technology Policy Advisor at the Data Standards Authority,^[8] and as Lead Cybersecurity Architect of the Central Digital and Data Office^[9]

In 2013, Eden proposed for the UK Civil Service to switch from using Microsoft Office file formats to Open Document Format (ODF).^{[10][11][12][13]}

As Head of Open Technology for NHSX, Eden open sourced the NHS COVID-19 contact tracing app on GitHub in May 2020, under the MIT licence.^[14][15][16]

Eden was formerly a representative to the W3C appointed by the UK Government.^[17]

In January 2020, Eden was appointed to the board of OpenUK.^[18]

Other experience

In 2011, in collaboration with Roger Bamkin, Eden developed QRpedia, a mobile Web-based system which uses QR codes to deliver Wikipedia articles to users in their preferred language.^[19]

Eden previously worked as a Senior Product Manager at O2.^{[20][21][22][23]}

Eden was appointed as a member of the Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Advisory Committee in November 2018.^[24] In 2020, Eden resigned his position and explained that he did so because he did not believe that AMP would improve the web: "The stated goal of the AMP AC is to 'make AMP a great web citizen'... I am concerned that... Google has limited interest in that goal". Eden also emphasised the need for "an open, standards based approach to the web".^[25]

In 2018, Eden demonstrated a flaw in the Verisart blockchain's verification of artwork authenticity by registering himself as creator of da Vinci's Mona Lisa.^[26][27][28]

Eden develops and runs OpenBenches together with Elizabeth Eden.^[29] OpenBenches is an open data website which catalogues memorial benches around the world through crowd-sourced data.^[30][31] As of December 2023, there were more than 30,000 memorial benches recorded on the site.^[32][33]

In 2024, Eden developed ActivityBot, a simple template for creating self-hosted ActivityPub bots.^[34]