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Latest - Business Sector: IT

Professor David Duce

Dr David Duce worked for the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory most of his working life, starting there in 1975 programming an ICL mainframe in Fortran. He implemented a structured Fortran with a colleague and has keep a keen interest in formal methods. He became deeply involved in the realm of graphics and with graphics standardisation. He is not a fan of AI preferring model-based computing where you can see why the system can to its conclusions. Latterly he worked at Oxford Brookes University.

Dr Gopi Katragadda

Born in Bangalore in 1968, Dr Gopichand Katragadda comes from a long line of engineers on his father’s side, while his mother’s family background is in the arts. This combination has helped him bring a high level of creativity and breadth of vision to engineering achievements, he believes.
Gopi attended Iowa State University and did his doctoral research at NASA. In 2000, he returned to India as Chairman and Managing Director of GE India Technology Centre — the group’s largest R&D facility, which he helped become a world leader in intellectual property generation.

In 2014, he joined Tata Sons as Group Chief Technology Officer and Innovation Head, where he promoted collaboration with corporations such as Airbus and forward-thinking in the group’s subsidiaries and university partners. In 2019, Gopi set up Myelin Foundry, an AI company aimed at transforming human experiences and industry outcomes.

Rodney Hornstein

Rodney Hornstein started work as a programmer at IBM during his vacations in 1958 and worked there, off and on, until 1962. He joined LEO computers programming the LEO ranges and later selling them and becoming director of marketing. He lived through the turmoil of first the merger of English Electric and LEO (EEL), shielded by his boss from the turbulence. He was also shielded when EEL merged with Marconi Computers. The big bang was the formation of ICL in 1968. He lived through the often brutal years of the Jeff Cross era from 1972 to 1977 but lost faith and his natural optimism when ICL began to implode into confusion in 1979.

Rodney then spent seven years outside the IT industry but did encounter Sir Arnold Weinstock head of GEC. He was headhunted to run an ICL spin off, DAP, which he had re-engineered from a £30,000 production cost to about $5,000 and sold it into the US and UK markets. He ran Alphameric, as CEO for 5 years, chairman for 4 years, building a profitable company from a near wreck. By 1999 he became an angel investor often acting as chairman of the board. His normal optimism about technology is being tested about the current developments in AI, but he heads an AI start up with a different approach.

Richard Hopkins

Richard Hopkins is a distinguished engineer at IBM and an authority on Hybrid Cloud, AI and Quantum computing.  He started as a systems engineer in 1990 based in the north east of England.   He has worked for IBM all his working life.  He has great admiration for Louis Gerstner who turned around an ailing IBM in the early 1990s. 

From his 33 years experience of building complex systems at IBM, Hopkins sees quantum computing far closer than many think and AI still prone to hallucinations and is inaccurate.   But both are coming and the key will be not the technologies themselves but their useful adoption. 

Dennis Blackwell

Dennis Blackwell was a key figure in the British computer industry for over 50 years, in a career that spanned and contributed to some of the most important commercial initiatives of the period. He worked for the UK flagship manufacturer, ICL, and its forbears for 25 of those, starting with English Electric in 1959 and contributed to industry institutions including the British Computer Society (now known as BCS) and the Worshipful Company of information Technologists.

Campbell McGarvie

Campbell McGarvie left school in 1962 with few paper qualifications despite having shown early academic promise. Taking a tedious job as a bank clerk he spent the next four years attending night school and missing out on much of the decade’s excitement. But his efforts paid off when he was hired by Burroughs now Unisys, leading to a long and successful career in the IT industry. In addition to many senior positions, he has held a number of non-exec directorships and is a past Master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists.

Dr Andrew Rogoyski

Dr Andrew Rogoyski is Innovation and Partnership Director of the AI Institute at the University of Surrey. He has experienced several winters where interest in AI has nearly evaporated but is excited to now be in a summer of interest as big tech pours fortunes into development, some fruitful and some futile. 

In March 2023 he tried to co-sign the letter from 1,000 people calling for the suspension of development in the AI tool ChatGPT but couldn’t as the server crashed. Among those who did manage the sign the letter were Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak.

Sir Bill Thomas

Sir Bill Thomas spent 25 years working in diverse roles in Systems Designers, SD-Scicon and their acquirer, Electronic Data Systems. The British companies merged into and, some would say, transformed the US giant, EDS, and Bill eventually ran the EMEA operation and then oversaw its transition into Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services.  Bill was determined in his youth to study Mathematics and work in Defence, inspired by his father’s service career.  He combined an active passion for sport with doing enough at school to get started on his career plan and had early roles in mathematical modelling and signal processing, first in Marconi and then SD. 

Within EDS, Bill applied his skills to business management and achieved a notable success in a ground-breaking transformation deal with Rolls Royce.  Building on that success he was involved in developing the EDS business model, then managing a large part of the company, becoming the first British member of the Executive Committee.  Since 2009 Bill has pursued a portfolio career as chair and NED in tech and other businesses and charitable bodies.  He was an advisor to the Labour party in opposition on defence procurement and small businesses.  He was knighted in the 2020 New Year Honours list. 

Peta Walmisley

Peta (or Pepita to be formal) Walmisley is well known to many in IT through her association with important industry institutions, seemingly popping up wherever there is an organisational challenge to be sorted out.  Peta worked for the British Computer Society (now the BCS The Chartered Institute for IT) from 1968 to 2004 in various roles, most recently as External Relations Manager. From 1987 to 2001 She was also secretary of the The Council of European Professional Informatics Societies (CEPIS, the representative body of national informatics associations throughout greater Europe). From 1987 to 1992 she helped found The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists as the clerk. With 50 years in pivotal roles around the industry she has some unique insights into its history.

Peta’s previous experience perhaps explains how she found this part in the IT industry; conjuring up an image of an accomplished and formidable multi-talented manager, with finely honed interpersonal skills and a diverse range of interests. She trained with Hardy Amies in Savile Row, and worked for an Australian Americas Cup Team in Newport, Rhode Island (and is a keen sailor).  As an Aspen ski lodge au pair she was known as the Red Bomber on the slopes and in a California bank put out fires (in the photocopier room).