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Latest - Area of Interest: The networked society

Colin Knight

Colin Knight learned the value of failsafe technology early in his career, developing algorithms for the release of munitions from RAF “V Bombers”. This focus on non-stop reliability has remained his priority through a wide-ranging career spanning financial trading in the City post Big Bang, the revolution in mobile communications, predictive modelling of networks and risk management. Colin has worked extensively across Europe, Asia Pacific and the US, including a spell in Moscow during the height of the Cold War. Given his time again, he says he would favour roles at US-based companies because they are more innovative, entrepreneurial and financially rewarding.

Colin is a past Master of the Information Technologists Livery Company. But his proudest achievement has been his charitable activities deploying IT to improve the lives of sick and disabled children and their families. Work must be fun, he insists — you will never get a successful team with unhappy members.

Portrait photograph of a man in a suit jacket and tie wearing glasses

Tom Ilube CBE

Tom Ilube CBE is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist and was named as the most influential British person of African-Caribbean origin by the Powerlist 2017.  After working for big consultancy companies, he was CIO of the innovative Internet bank Egg and founded a series of companies in personal identity and cybersecurity. In 2005 Tom launched a project to found the Hammersmith Academy, focusing on tech and creative skills, and he is the founder of the African Gifted Foundation, a UK education charity focused on science and technology in Africa.

Professor Michael Mainelli

Professor Michael Mainelli’s life story is a fascinating journey from 1958 Seattle to Alderman and Sheriff of the City of London.  His Irish mother and Italian father came from lines of engineers and his experience spans computer scientist, accountant, and management consultant.  His education reflects expansive interests, including a Doctorate as a mature student, alongside his busy professional assignments. 

He established City think tank and venture firm Z/Yen in 1994 and Michael has advised on and managed a host of challenging projects, for a multitude of clients from the first complete digital map of the world; to the UK Ministry of Defence commercialising its £100M technology business; and setting up City indices. He recommends small teams to solve big problems and his mass of publications includes bestselling books.

Professor Nick Jennings

Professor Nick Jennings is an internationally recognised authority in the areas of artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, cybersecurity and agent-based computing.

He is the Vice-Provost for Research and Enterprise and Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Imperial College London. He was the UK’s first Regius Professor of Computer Science (a post bestowed by the monarch to recognise exceptionally high quality research) at the University of Southampton and the UK Government’s first Chief Scientific Advisor for National Security. 

Professor Edwin Candy

Professor Edwin Candy cut his teeth helping build command and control radio systems in his native Australia.  He worked for the Australian subsidiary of Pye, the Cambridge UK-based electronics company.  He spent a year seconded to Digital Equipment Corporation in the USA where he learned about computer architectures.   By the 1980s he was a business manager at Philips which had taken over Pye.  He moved to the UK in 1987 and conceived and created the Universal Mobile Telephone System 3G specification with 25 partners.  This standard was the basis for 3G mobile communications incorporating Internet services.

Professor Alan Bundy CBE

Professor Alan Richard Bundy, CBE, FRSE, FRS, FREng, FACM is Professor of Automated Reasoning in the School of Informatics at Edinburgh University.  Throughout his long and illustrious career he has worked mostly as a researcher in artificial intelligence, mathematical reasoning and representations of knowledge.  Alan helped set up the UK Computing Research Committee and has been the Vice-President of the British Computer Society, among many other contributions to important bodies.

Alastair Macdonald CB

Alastair Macdonald CB spent 32 years as a civil servant working on advice to ministers and executing policy for the IT industry. He was the civil servant in charge of the IT82 awareness campaign initiated by Lord Ken Baker. Macdonald was in charge of the privatisation of BT, a world first which started the liberalisation of the telecommunications industry. He was in charge of the Y2K efforts to avoid a catastrophe with the change of date at the start of this century. He took part in the decisions to widen the offering of mobile phone networks in the UK from two to four vendors.

Robert (Bob) Kowalski

Robert Anthony Kowalski is a logician and computer scientist, a distinguished Research Fellow and Emeritus Professor of Computational Logic in the Department of Computing at Imperial College, London.  He was elected a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 1991, a Fellow of the European Co-ordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence in 1999, and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2000.  He received the IJCAI Award for Research Excellence in 2011.  He received the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Award for Eminent Scientists for 2012-2014.

Eva Pascoe

Eva Pascoe was co-founder of Cyberia, the first Internet café in London, in1994. During her career, Eva pioneered women’s participation in online business, online secure payments, e-commerce fashion solutions, and electronic customer relationship management. She is currently the chair of Cybersalon.org, a non-profit digital think tank she co-founded in 1997. She works with a retail practice, developing strategies for large and small international retail companies supporting young fashion brands with women founders, like Bluebella.com and Thefoldlondon.com. In 1995, jointly with Gene Teare, she was awarded the Sunday Times Technology Award.

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