Simon Brown is Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Nano Cluster Devices Ltd. NCD has developed world leading technology for self-assembly of nanowires between electrical contacts, with applications in areas as diverse as integrated circuits and chemical sensing. Dr Brown received a B. Sc (Hons) degree from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand in 1986 and a Ph. D. from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 1990. Since 1998 he has been on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and is currently Associate Professor in that Department. He was heavily involved in the formation of a national Centre of Research Excellence, the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, and is a Principal Investigator. Dr Brown has -12 patents and has published ~70 refereed papers in a variety of areas of semiconductor and solid state physics.