Adam A. Stokes
Welcome to my personal webpage, where you’ll find a collection of essays on topics I’m actively trying to understand. These are not static publications but live documents that evolve over time as I think in public, refine my views, and respond to new ideas and conversations. If you wish to discuss anything I’ve written, or wish to engage with me on a project or a talk, then please contact me. My primary email address is a.a.stokes@ed.ac.uk.I am Full Professor and Head of the Institute for Bioengineering at the University of Edinburgh and a research-led advisor on robotics, AI, and bioinspired innovation. Outside of the academy I am an active entrepreneur and consultant. I work with organisations to stress-test assumptions about emerging technologies and chart practical paths from prototype to deployment. These essays capture the thinking behind that work—I offer them as a public resource and also as an invitation to collaborate.
My most recent post is shown below, see all essays here.
Techno‑Crofting: Building What We Need at the Edge
What is techno-crofting? There is a tiny brewery on the shore of a sea loch in the north-west Highlands that has been bothering me for years (full disclosure: it belongs to my parents). It bothers me, not because of the beer—which is excellent—but because of what it quietly reflects about technology, supply chains, and the world we are building. This live essay is my attempt to name that reflection and think in public about where it might lead. I am also thinking about writing a book on the same subject; these posts will evolve as the argument sharpens. I don't have many idle moments, but I tore my hamstring whilst participating in the village Highland games yesterday, so I am on enforced bed-rest this week. That has given me time to return to a question I keep arriving at in quieter minutes: how do we build what we need with what we have? A related question—the one the potential book would pursue in more disciplined form—is this: how do you design systems that keep people supplied...