Latest - Decades: 1970s

Norman Sanders

Norman Sanders was very much involved in the early days of the computer industry, being rightly called a computer pioneer working alongside other great pioneers like Sir Maurice Wilkes and David Wheeler. Norman says that his working life consisted of helping to get the computer revolution going and he has published five books, numerous papers and articles alongside his work for employers such as Boeing, Metier and Sperry. He was also a technology adviser to Harold Wilson in the 1960s.

Interview with Sir Andrew Hopper

Andy Hopper studied computer science at Swansea under Professor David Aspinall then did his PhD in Cambridge where he worked on the Cambridge Ring.  His LAN company came to the attention of Acorn Computers and was taken into Acorn in 1979.   Hopper was appointed managing director of the Olivetti Cambridge Research lab in 1986.  As MD he helped more than 10 venture operations become independent companies under the benign eye of Olivetti.  On the closure of the lab Hopper focused on his professorship at Cambridge where he developed a strategy to get over 200 ventures from Cambridge University into the market.

Sir Alan Rudge

Sir Alan Rudge has been called one of the top technical minds in the country. He took an unconventional path to the top doing a City and Guilds telecoms technicians course and then a diploma in electrical engineering at a polytechnic. He worked in the USA, taught at a UK university and then ran the Electrical Research Association. He was headhunted to run R&D at BT: his first act was to hand the R&D budget back to the operating units and make his laboratories bid for projects from the rest of BT. So successful was this approach that he doubled the number in BT R&D.