Dr Harold Elletson is the Chairman of the New Security Foundation and a director of E3 Communications, a communications consultancy providing specialist marketing and public affairs advice to the education and training sector. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee of eLearning Africa, an annual international conference on technology-assisted learning in Africa, which he helped to establish.
He is enthusiastic about the new opportunities technology is creating for education and has chaired roundtable discussions, involving experts from Europe, North America and Africa, in both Nairobi and Accra, on the use of e-learning in the fight against HIV Aids and other diseases. He recently also chaired discussions, including ministerial meetings, at Microsoft’s ICT Best Practices Forum in Ouagadougou in 2008 and a session on eLearning and Post-Conflict Situations at eLearning Africa in Dakar in 2009.
A former Member of the United Kingdom Parliament (from 1992-1997), Harold Elletson served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the early stages of the peace process and was also member of the Select Committee on Environment. He served as a member of the Lancashire Education Authority (the Education Committee of Lancashire County Council) before being elected to Parliament where he represented the interests of schools and colleges in his constituency in discussions with Ministers and on the floor of the House of Commons.
Dr Elletson was the Director of the NATO Forum on Business and Security, which he created with support from the NATO Science Programme. Delegates from over 60 different countries attended the Forum, which brought academics, businessmen and political leaders together to discuss the implications of the new security environment.
He is currently the Chairman of The New Security Foundation, which conducts research into the implications of the new security environment for civil society. The New Security Foundation provides an international forum for dialogue between the public and private sectors and offers analytical insight and information about new security conditions. The Foundation hosts regular events and conferences, including an annual International Forum on Technology-Assisted Learning and Training for Defence, Security and Emergency Services.
He is also the Editor of New Security Learning, a quarterly magazine on developments in security learning sector.
An international public affairs consultant, who has advised many leading companies on aspects of their business in various markets, he has also written widely on political and historical subjects. His first book, The General Against the Kremlin, was published by Little Brown. Dr Elletson holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Bradford, where he is an honorary research fellow.