Ben Hammersley

Ben Hammersley (born 3 April 1976 in Leicester, England) is a British internet technologist, journalist, author, broadcaster, and diplomat, currently based in London, England.

As of 2012 he is the UK Prime Minister's Ambassador to East London Tech City, Editor at Large of Conde Nast's Wired UK magazine,, a member of the European Commission High Level Expert Group on Media Freedom,, and a non-resident fellow of the Brookings Institute

He is also a freelance reporter for the BBC, and a consultant to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Hammersley previously worked as the first Internet reporter for The Times, where he was shortlisted for one of the British Press Awards, and as a reporter for The Guardian and the UK arm of MSN. During his early career, he specialised in technology journalism. Hammersley often reported from dangerous countries, including Iran and Afghanistan. He travelled undercover to interview the Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in 1999, for which he was banned from Burma. This ban was lifted by the Burmese authorities in August 2012

Hammersley then simultaneously moved toward war correspondence and technological innovation - reporting from war zones and writing technical book for publishers such as O'Reilly Media. He is credited with inventing the word 'podcasting', leading on to 'podcast' and 'podcasts', in 2004. He has also previously been Director of Digital at Six Creative, Principal of Dangerous Precedent. and Director of Campus Party USA.

Hammersley is a Fellow of the RSA, Royal Geographical Society and the British-American Project and a member of the Savage Club and Frontline Club, and the Transatlantic Network 2020., and a trustee of the London chapter of the Awesome Foundation. In August 2011 he was made a fellow of the UNAOC. As a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences he is a judge of the Lovie Awards.