Paul Lefrere, Ph.D. is a professor at Finland's Centre for Vocational Education at the University of Tampere and is a well-known practitioner and thought leader in e-learning. He is serving as a Principal and Senior Fellow with Strategic Initiatives, Inc. and has participated in a variety of strategic planning and positioning projects with Strategic Initiatives, Inc.

Dr. Lefere worked at the British Open University for 25 years. He rejoined the British Open University after serving as Executive Director e-Learning, Microsoft EMEA for two years. He was also Director of Networking and Partnerships, Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards, University of Wales and British Open University. He is widely recognized for his insights on reusable information objects and related tools; knowledge creation, innovation and exploitation; and Web-based learning services. He leads R&D in all of those in major international projects which from 2009 include ROLE and TARGET (highly relevant to Competence 2.0).

Dr. Lefrere’s association with the British Open University has led to a variety of new, mass-market Open University courses and other breakthroughs in technology-based teaching. He has worked with a wide range of relevant organizations, including IMS Global Learning Consortium, IEEE LTSC, CEN/ISSS, NSF, JISC and European Commission’s PROMETEUS. He has worked with many European corporations.

Dr. Lefrere frequently is invited to speak on topics relating to e-learning, knowledge management, and new approaches to competence development at international meetings. He and Dr. Norris have collaborated in a number of books, monographs, and articles on transformation e-knowledge, Action Analytics ® and Competence 2.0 ® and in founding the Competence 2.0 Community of Practice.