Dr Robert Gittins is one of three Knowledge Exploitation Officers working for RIVIC, and operational with members at Bangor and Aberystwyth Universities.

Robert started as a surveying assistant in local authority and progressed to development engineer for business and industrial parks – designing contracting and managing infrastructure schemes. From there Robert moved to private civil engineering work, eventually as contracts and company director for enterprise level development schemes for central government and local authorities’ projects. In a move away from Civil Engineering to Computer Science, Robert studied and gained a BSc and PhD in Computer Science at Bangor University and on completion undertook a number of roles in developing European, Wales Government and defence sector funded projects. In recent times Robert managed the North Wales region of ‘ITWales ‘, and more recently ‘Virtual Reality Link’ (VRLink) for business - based at the School of Computer Science at Bangor.

Robert is active in ‘The Chartered Institute for IT’ (BCS), a founding member of their Animation and Games Specialist Group (2011).  His interests are in the development of communication tools for remote business and learning development activities, particularly in the development of 2D and 3D virtual learning environments.