Abstract

It is now 30 Years since I completed my PhD Dissertation on the “Evolution of Stochastic Automata” at the Cambridge Statistical Laboratory under the creative and inspirational leadership of Professor Peter Whittle. The seminar reviews the ways in which the conceptually rich theme of Stochastic Self-Organisation took me from working on strategic modelling projects for British Telecom in Cambridge to environmental networking in the Russian Arctic Kola Peninsula, as well as the World.s 1st Supersonic Car! I’ll give overviews of projects that I worked on including KolaNet (Quick Response to possible Nuclear Accidents), ThrustSSC (1st Supersonic Car), EIGER (Computer Telephony Integration & Multimedia Networking), and the British Telecom LRPM (Long Range Planning Model). The topic of self-organising systems is still being actively researched in the context of neural, genetic and biological research programmes. The seminar briefly explores the ways in which a fuller understanding of stochastic self-organisation may further contribute to the development of business, government, education and society during the coming 20 to 30 years!