Bio
Tom Barraclough is a consultant, researcher and founder working at the intersection of law, public policy and technology, with international experience working inside, alongside, and across from government agencies.
He is fascinated by the power of technology to empower people and communities, and the role of governance, governments and regulation to maximise technology’s positive impacts.
Following a long history of tinkering with computer settings, over-engineering research workflows, and abandoned attempts at learning to code, he is now using large language models, local servers, APIs, open source software and digital public infrastructure for projects related to personal interest, tech policy, and digital legal systems.
Work overview
My work has taken place across three overlapping phases:
- Global technology policy and regulation (since 2018): I established the Brainbox Institute in 2018 with a co-founder and other team members along the way.
- Digital implementation of law and regulation as code (since 2020): I co-founded technology company Syncopate Lab in 2023 with friend and collaborator Hamish Fraser.
- Working in medico-legal systems (since 2011), particularly related to the experiences of people navigating New Zealand’s healthcare system and holding public institutions to account (see Medico-legal system design and disability).
My work throughout this period has been informed by my own attitudes and experiences with institutional, regulatory and governance systems, including my diagnosis with type 1 diabetes in 2002 at the age of 11, and more recent diagnosis with ADHD in 2025 at the age of 34.
About this site
In place of a CV, this site serves to illustrate my accomplishments and work history, as well as giving an overview of the interconnections between various subjects that I have worked on from time-to-time.
The site is also a hobby project for me as I teach myself more and more about how software and internet technologies work, and how to use them, especially through self-hosting. To prepare this site, I wrote in markdown using Obsidian, then published with Quartz (with some minor edits) via Github and Cloudflare.
Key facts
- Graduated Bachelor of Arts (Politics) and Bachelor of Laws with first-class honours from the University of Otago in 2013.
- Second-highest grade in my year group for honours dissertation. I examined whether the personhood of the Whānganui river (te Awa Tupua) was legislative recognition of “the rights of nature” in law in New Zealand (with 24 citations according to Google Scholar).
- [#to-do]