New Media Sector Champion Joins Digital Mission

As the Digital Mission to New York gathers pace, the agendas are printed, the bags are packed and some of the UK's top digital businesses head to the airport, there's a new addition to the party.

Aleks Krotoski, recently appointed by the UKTI, supporters of the Digital Mission, as New Media Sector Champion. Over to Aleks, for a proper introduction..

Hello all, I'm Aleks Krotoski, the UKTI's New Media Sector Champion, and I'll be joining the Digital Mission next week in NYC.

My job as New Media Sector Champion is to find out what you folks need and to see how we can develop strategies to deliver them. Expect a lot of chat and probing questions. Some of these may be on the record, 'cause I'm also coming along to Web 2.0 under my other hat, as a Tech journalist for The Guardian. I hope to speak with many of you about your companies under the guise of both areas, taking home lots of fresh ideas, new relationships, new bridges and new opportunities, plus a pile of audio for the Tech Weekly podcast.

I've been at The Guardian for five years, as one of the three gamesbloggers and as a paper tech writer. My beat is social media, playful web and interactivity, so I feel very excited to wallow in all of the crossmedia cross-overs that are emerging on both sides of the Atlantic. I've also been an academic for most of that time, working towards a PhD in social psychology at the University of Surrey examining how information spreads around the web.

Really look forward to meeting you all! I'll be sitting on the panel at the Web2Open session on Thursday and will be chairing the afternoon session on Monday. See you all soon!

[Pic courtesy of psd]