He attended King Edward VI Five Ways, a grammar school in Birmingham, then moved to Canada.
Laughton was formerly Pro-Principal of Queen Mary and Westfield College and Dean of Engineering of the University of London.
He put great emphasis on the fact that the United Kingdom is an island and therefore cannot rely significantly on imported energy.
Apart from participating in many international forums and writing many technical papers relating to the field of energy, Laughton has spent the last decade informally scouring Britain for out-of-the-way inventors.
Part of Laughton's motivation is sheer Christian charity, but there's also a more fundamental message he wants to convey to his academic colleagues.