Conrad Wolfram
| Conrad Wolfram | |
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Conrad Wolfram in transmediale 10 talking about Wolfram Alpha.
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| Born |
10 June 1970 Oxford, England, United Kingdom |
| Residence | United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Pembroke College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Strategic and international director, Wolfram Research |
| Known for | education reform |
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| Website | |
Conrad Wolfram (born 10 June 1970) is a British technologist and businessman known for his work in information technology and its application. In 2012, The Observer placed him at number 11 in its list of Britain's 50 New Radicals.
Wolfram's father Hugo Wolfram was a textile manufacturer and novelist (Into a Neutral Country) and his mother Sybil Wolfram was a professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is the younger brother of Stephen Wolfram.
Born in Oxford, England, in 1970, Wolfram was educated at Dragon School, Eton College and Pembroke College, Cambridge, from which he holds an MA degree in Natural Sciences and Mathematics. He learned to program on a BBC Micro. He is married to primary care ophthalmology consultant Stella Hornby and has a daughter Sophia Wolfram.
Wolfram has been a prominent proponent of 'Computer-Based Math'- a reform of mathematics education to "rebuild the curriculum assuming computers exist." and is the founder of www.computerbasedmath.org.
He argues, "There are a few cases where it is important to do calculations by hand, but these are small fractions of cases. The rest of the time you should assume that students should use a computer just like everyone does in the real world.". And that "School mathematics is very disconnected from mathematics used to solve problems in the real world". In an interview with the Guardian he described the replacement of hand calculation by computer use as "democratising expertise". He argues that "A good guide to how and what you should do with a computer in the classroom is what you'd do with it outside. As much as possible, use real-world tools in the classroom in an open-ended way not special education-only closed-ended approaches."
In 2009, he spoke about education reform at the TEDx Conference at the EU Parliament. and again at TED Global 2010 where he argued that "Maths should be more practical and more conceptual, but less mechanical," and that "Calculating is the machinery of math - a means to an end."
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