| Andrew Karney | |
|---|---|
| Born | Andrew Lumsdaine Karney 24 May 1942 Dovercourt, Essex, England |
| Education | Rugby School, Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Chartered Engineer, Businessman |
| Spouse(s) | Beryl Karney, (formerly Beryl Goldwyn} |
| Children | 1 |
| Ethnicity | British |
| Notable credit(s) | Tiri, Chairman, former director Guardian Media Group plc, and Logica plc |
| Official website | |
Andrew Karney, FIET, FRSA is a British electrical engineer, businessman and company director. He is chairman of the board for the international NGO, Tiri.[1]
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Karney studied engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge. He started his career working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency - UNRWA in Lebanon and Gaza in 1964 and 1965.[2] He was honoured by the United Nations Secretary-General, U Thant in 1969.
Karney worked as a development engineer at Standard Telephones and Cables on a team headed by British engineer, Tommy Flowers, who designed Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer, used to break German wartime codes. He played an important role in the development of the world's first fully electronic digital telephone exchange, which was developed as an Anglo French collaboration and was installed in Moorgate in the City of London in 1967.[3] He also worked as a senior scientist at the central research laboratories of the UK General Electric Company on the development codecs for high speed (140Mbps) digital transmission systems which were used to test the transmission cababilities of helix wave guides (and later of optical fibres) and electronic telephone exchanges. During this time he filed a number of international patents[4][5][6] which were used by developers of the first digital telephone switching equipment in the UK, the US, Canada, France, Sweden and Japan.
In 1973 he joined Logica, an international systems company. He was project director of the European project based in Paris to bring the Internet to Europe from 1975 to 1976.[7] INRIA in France, Euratom in Italy, the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom), ETH Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) and the Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire, commonly known as CERN, actively participated in the project and it was there that the World Wide Web was initiated by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. In 1984, Karney became a main board director responsible for the telecommunications and media sectors as well as operations in Italy and Asia. During this time he was responsible for the development of the Customer Service System for British Telecommunications (the largest IT project in Europe at the time[8]) and the development of early Text Messaging (SMS) for mobiles[9]. Also in this year, together with others, he founded Cable London plc - one of the first Cable TV operations in the UK, which was subsequently became part of Virgin Media.
On leaving Logica[10] Karney became a director of NASDAQ quoted Integrated Micro Products,[11] later acquired by SUN Microsystems, chairman of Language Line Ltd,[12] a language resources company founded by Lord Michael Young (politician), an independent director of the Guardian Media Group.[13] Baronsmead VCT3[14] and a number of high technology companies. In 2005 he was appointed chairman of the trustees of the international NGO Tiri,[1] which seeks practical solutions to making integrity work in governments, civil society and business. In 2009 he joined Medical Aid for Palestinians as a trustee[15] which works for the health and dignity of Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees.
He is a chartered engineer, fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, a Freeman of the City of London, a fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce and a member of Chatham House. He is also an expert on the Middle East.
Karney is one of six children. His father was Gilbert Henry Peter Karney vicar of Embleton, Northumberland, his grandfather was Bishop Arthur Karney, the first bishop of Johannesburg. His mother was Celia Karney (nee Richardson) granddaughter of John Wigham Richardson a Victorian shipbuilder and founder of Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson shipbuilders on Tyneside. Karney is married to the former prima ballerina Beryl Goldwyn and they have one son Peter Karney born in 1972.