Barry Hardy

I was born in Ireland, have lived in both the US and England and now live in Switzerland.

I obtained my Ph.D. in 1990 from Syracuse University initially working in the area of computational chemistry, biophysics and computer-aided molecular modelling and design. I began working with virtual communities and environments in 1994 and have organised numerous international communications projects in the chemical, life and medical sciences. I also have developed technology solutions for internet-based conferencing, tutor-supported e-learning, laboratory automation systems and computational chemistry and informatics. I have been a National Research Fellow at the FDA Center for Biologics and Evaluation, a Hitchings-Elion Fellow at Oxford University, the CEO of Virtual Environments International and have chaired the EU-supported Eurotron Virtual Conferences in Glycobiology.

I am currently serving as a manager for Douglas Connect (http://douglasconnect.com/) where I am managing knowledge management activities including the provision of certified management training programs and the management of communities of practice in focused areas of scientific and business expertise (discovery, innovation, knowledge management, safety) for the life science and pharmaceutical industry. I am additionally involved in the development and application of collaboration support, ELNs and knowledge assessment and audit solutions for supporting R&D.

My current R&D work involves leadership and coordination of a novel 3 year EU FP7 Health program research project “OpenTox” (www.opentox.org) developing an integrated Predictive Toxicology Framework for computer-based toxicology predictions and risk assessment of chemical entities, thus enabling the faster development of safer new chemical products and medicines with reduced use of animal experiments. I am also leading the requirements analysis, design and piloting of collaboration services as application leader for the new EU funded SYNERGY FP7 ICT Knowledge Management project - Supporting highlY-adaptive Network Enterprise collaboration thRouGh semanticallY-enabled knowledge services.

In 2003 I founded the InnovationWell Community http://innovationwell.net/ and the eCheminfo Community http://echeminfo.com/ and continue to be involved and passionate about their development.

You can contact me via email at the following address: barry.hardy -at- douglasconnect.com