Tim Unwin is UNESCO Chair in ICT4D, and Emeritus Professor of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is also an Honorary Professor at Lanzhou Univeristy in China.

He was Secretary General of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) from 2011-2015, and was Chair of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission from 2009-2014, having been a Commissioner since 2004. He serves on the ITU's m-Powering Development Advisory Board, the UK Department for International Development’s Digital Advisory Panel, the UN University – Computing and Society International Advisory Board, and the World Economic Forum’s Internet for All initiative’s Steering Committee. He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the Globalization, Ageing, Innovation and Care Network at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He has written or edited 15 books and more than 200 academic papers and chapters, many of which focus on the use of technology in development practices. His edited book, Information and Communication Technologies for Development,was published by Cambridge University Press in 2009, and his latest book entitled Reclaiming Information and Communication Technologies for Development was published by Oxford University Press in 2017