Cybernetics Education Package

Omar's trajectory into cybernetics began at sixteen when he met Janos, a Hungarian who fought in and later fled the Hungarian Revolution, who introduced him to Stafford Beer's Brain of the Firm. That foundation was built upon from the age of eighteen by David Dewhurst, whose mentorship over the years has been instrumental in helping him apply cybernetic thinking to almost any domain. This culminated in a master's thesis utilising Beer's Viable System Model to examine the structural deficiencies of the British Armed Forces and how excessive hierarchy constrained viability in complex counterinsurgencies. Currently in the final stages of a PhD in Complexity Science and a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Complexity in Social Sciences, Omar applies cybernetics to a range of projects across the Middle East and in defence studies.

From a Rolls-Royce apprenticeship modelling jet engine mass flow, Mike pivoted from mechanical engineering to electronics and joined British Telecom as a line manager at 22, running an operational unit of 300 by 26. Intrigued by the social dynamics of power and communication, he studied Industrial Sociology and later headed BT's Investment Appraisal unit, before founding BT's first internal consulting unit where he led 80 professionals in diagnosing strategic governance and operational improvements. Inspired by Doris Lessing's work, he focused heavily on the human element of organisational development. He launched his own consultancy, working at board level to drive transformations across sectors from aviation to finance. Today, cybernetics is his life pathway -- navigating an ocean of uncertainty, fuelled by the same curiosity he had as a boy, striving to become an ever-more effective steersman.

David's career has spanned more than 25 distinct roles -- from gardener and Tesco cleaner to Student Union President and Governor of Brunel University, from management consultancy and school inspection to lecturing. He has shared perspectives on economics at three major festivals, Speakers' Corner, and the Palace of Westminster, and advocated for equality at the Oxford Union. He holds a BSc in Psychology and an MSc from the original Chelsea College course, where his dissertation focused on the novel challenge of teaching cybernetics to children. He later consolidated this with a PhD in Cybernetics, specialising in its conceptual foundations and inherent learning problems. As Secretary and then Vice President of the Cybernetics Society from 2003 to 2021, his published work continues to explore the reframing of Requisite Variety and the subtle pitfalls of systems modelling.

Jon dreamed of being an inventor as a child. Despite a mediocre performance in secondary school, he pursued Engineering Science at Exeter University where he encountered Grey Walter's mechanical turtles -- machines that mimicked living behaviour -- igniting a lifelong fascination with the interplay between biology and engineering. This led to a PhD with the ambitious goal of building an electronic brain. He eventually left academia for Yorkshire, immersing himself in cooperatives, organic food, and fair trade, helping establish a whole-food shop, a processing business, and "Out of this World," a supermarket promoting ethical consumerism. During a period of organisational crisis at Suma, he reached out to Stafford Beer, beginning a transformative 17-year friendship and an introduction to the Viable System Model which has since occupied a significant portion of his intellectual life. Together with Angela Espinosa, he lectures, consults, and provides international training through Metaphorum, now a cooperative.