Mr Bean logs on

As the Open University enters its fifth decade, it has just appointed its fifth vice-chancellor – a computer wizard called Mr Bean. Chair of the appointing committee, Lord Haskins of Skidby, said Martin Bean was the right man to take the OU into the age of the web-driven knowledge economy.

‘At this critical point in the development of the OU, we need an extraordinary person to lead us in extraordinary times’. Mr Bean is currently head of product management, marketing and business development for the Worldwide Education Products Group at Microsoft in the United States.

A native of Australia, he has spent more than 20 years in global business education and training. So clearly he is the ideal person to turn Harold Wilson’s 1960s vision of a ‘university of the air’ into tomorrow’s ‘university of the worldwide web’.