About Tim

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Tim Burgess left for Jakarta two weeks later. The son of an Australian diplomat, he spent most of his childhood living in various places in Asia and Europe. In his second year of university, he dropped out and began working in IT, working in various positions in Melbourne and Sydney. He completed his Computer Science degree in 1999 and then on a scholarship from the University of Hawaii, gained a Masters degree. While living in Hawaii, he started developing an interest in Japanese language and culture. He visited Japan three times, travelling extensively throughout the country and then in February 2004, moved to Kyoto and became a full-time Japanese language student.

Thinking about the uniqueness of Kyoto and digital platforms such as the iPod, the release of iTunes 4.9 in July 2005 and the associated enhanced podcast technology was a revelation. Three days after the iTunes 4.9 release, he recorded the first episode of Kyoto Podcast - one of the first enhanced podcasts in the world. Kyoto Podcast was picked up by many people discovering podcasts for the first time and after the launch of the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) in Japan in August 2005, Kyoto Podcast was selected as an iTMS staff favourite.

The first 20 episodes contained soundseeing, animations, interviews, discussions, music and many other Japan related aspects. It takes special advantage of the enhanced podcast format to show the listener images in addition to audio. From Episode 16, a new video podcast was introduced. In 2005, a total of 19 episodes were produced on a weekly basis. Returning to Australia, Kyoto Podcast was suspended although a listener episode was released in early 2007 - a 'Facecast', formed from personal photos submitted by many listeners worldwide.

In 2009, Episode 20 was released - in widescreen video format designed to take advantage of YouTube's recently introduced widescreen feature. Presently based in Townsville - Australia, Tim is currently working on future episodes...