Latest - Decades: 2000s

Sir John Chisholm

Sir John Chisholm started his IT career in management roles at early software and systems companies like Scicon, CAP Scientific, and Sema. In 1991 he became Chief Executive of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, later rebranded as QinetiQ. He is perhaps best known for this role in leading QinetiQ to become an internationally successful technology services company, which floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2006. He became Chairman of QinetiQ in the same year.

Ian Watmore

Ian Watmore started his career in the IT industry as a programmer in the consultancy Arthur Anderson in 1980. He was trained by Anderson and mixed systems development with consultancy. He was the youngest equity partner in the consultancy in 1990. His work included fixing problematic public sector systems, helping South Africa develop an effective voting system and managing the UK partners who became the Accenture consultancy. He became the first Government CIO and introduced Direct.gov and helped introduce centralised .gov.uk web services.

Sir Peter Rigby

Sir Peter Rigby left school and joined the computer industry working for NCR, Honeywell and the Diebold consultancy. In 1975 with £2,000 of his own money he launched SCR, a recruitment agency for IT staff. Seven years later he sold the company for £1 million. He ploughed the cash back into growing IT enterprises with his eye always on developing a large organisation. He has kept the company privately owned by his family in order to preserve the values he sees as vital in business.

Doron Swade MBE

Doron Swade. He is an engineer, historian, museum professional and scholar who publishes and lectures widely on the history of computing, curatorship and museology. He is the author of more than eighty articles and four books. At the Science Museum in London he was curator of computing and responsible for the national computing collection. He is a leading authority on the works and life of Charles Babbage. During his tenure at the London Science Museum he directed, managed, fund-raised and publicised the construction of the first mechanical calculating engine from original nineteenth century designs by [Charles] Babbage. In 1989 he founded the Computer Conservation Society and in 2009 was awarded an MBE for his services to the history of computing in the New Year’s Honours List.

Peter Kirstein CBE

Peter Kirstein is a British computer scientist. He is often recognised as the father of the European Internet. Professor of Computer Communications Systems at UCL in London. He was appointed Commander of the British Empire in 2003. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. In 2003 he was awarded the Postel Award by the Internet Society, and in 2006 he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Royal Academy of Engineering

Andrew Stott

Andrew is an international thought leader in open data. Most recently, between 2004 and 2010, as Deputy Chief Information Officer and then Director of Digital Engagement at the Cabinet Office, he delivered the globally leading data.gov.uk, in which a large number of government datasets were made available online for the first time. He has led UK Digital Engagement programmes, and is now an expert adviser, speaker and consultant on open data and e-government, both in the UK and worldwide.

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Sue Daley

Sue Daley is the big data and AI expert at techUK, the trade body for IT vendors.  She is a leading figure in the development of ethics for the digital world.  Her aim is to build a culture of trust and confidence between all the parties providing and handling data.  She began her career in government relations, representing clients to government and parliament.  She was a senior policy advisor at the Confederation of British Industry where she helped run the CBI’s EBusiness Council.  She worked for five years for Symantec, the IT security expert company.   In 2019 she was voted one of the UK’s top 100 experts on big data.  In 2016 she swam the English Channel in just under 24 hours.