Latest - Decades: 1980s

Professor Alan Dix

Professor Alan John Dix is Director of the Computational Foundry at Swansea University and Professorial Fellow at Cardiff Metropolitan University. He is an author, researcher, and university professor, specialising in human–computer interaction (HCI). He is one of the four co-authors of the university level textbook Human–Computer Interaction. His research interests are eclectic and include HCI, creativity, AI and Data. He is a member of the SIGCHI academy and a fellow of the British Computer Society and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

Dianne Murray

Dianne Murray has been a Usability and Interface design consultant for more than thirty five years. She was one of the earliest researchers in HCI in the UK, through her time at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington since the early 1980s. Her roles in consultancy included evaluation of research proposals financed by the UK Government and the European Commission as well as validation of interface design solutions. As an academic she lectured in several UK universities, such as King’s College, London, City University, London and University of London. She was a founding editor of Interacting with Computers journal and subsequently its Editor-in-Chief until 2015.

Alan Newell

Alan Newell is Emeritus Professor at Dundee University. He has spent over forty years conducting research in Human Computer Interaction, primarily into supporting elderly and disabled people. He founded and headed the Dundee University’s School of Computing, and later set up the Queen Mother Research Centre, an important academic group, researching digital systems for older and disabled people. In 2000 He was awarded an MBE, for services to IT and communication for people with disabilities. 

Brian McBride

Brian McBride was elected President of the CBI in 2022, bringing nearly 50 years’ experience of executive and advisory roles in major technology and commercial enterprises.  Brian’s career tracks and illuminates key developments in information and communications technology and how it has changed our lives: from office automation and mainframes to personal computers, mobile phones, internet and online services.  From his current position and experience he offers views on a range of contemporary issues.   

Linda Macaulay

Linda Ann Macaulay is Professor Emerita of Information System Design, University of Manchester. Professor Macaulay’s research interests are concerned with how technical system design can be informed by the needs of users and groups of users and fall into the four main areas: Human Computer Interaction; Requirements Engineering; e-Commerce and e-Business; and Facilitated Collaboration.

In 1999 she was the first female Professor to be appointed to the Department of Computation at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. She is twice holder of the prestigious IBM Faculty Award. She is a Fellow of the British Computer Society. Her memoir ‘Hello Computer’ is a personal history of computers from 1967 to 2017.

Tim Johnson

Tim Johnson is perhaps best known to those in IT as the co-founder of Ovum, one of the foremost analysts of the industry, that subsumed another familiar name, Holway, and still produces reports, now as part of Datamonitor. 

Tim describes himself as a researcher, a role he has been carrying out since becoming a science correspondent in 1963, producing material on key technologies, markets and issues in various media, through the nationals press and his own brands like Ovum, Point Topic, and Look Multimedia.? His pioneering work includes some of the first publications on packet switching, expert systems, video cassettes and the use and applications for data communications across 17 European countries.?

Tim comes from a line of ancestors involved in technology and media and his father wrote a report recommending the installation of a computer in the design department of Roll Royce in 1953. 

David Thorpe

David Thorpe overcame a (slightly) wayward youth and the lack of a maths O level to become a local authority accountant and COO of EDS in the EMEA region.  He made his mark in the IT when he headed the implementation of a new computer system for a London Borough.

He eschewed the opportunity to be employee number three at Capita but moved to Honeywell Information Systems working on large-scale implementations in the public sector. This drew him to the attention of EDS, the outsourcing company, and he rose quickly as the public sector in the UK turned to outsourcing its IT.

For the past 20 years he has chaired or directed 20 companies, often in the IT sector.  David’s fascinating career story covers key issues and developments in the industry, including the role of IT and outsourcing in the public sector, the rise of IT’s role in business transformation and the contrasting cultures of industry leaders. 

Larry Benjamin

Larry Benjamin is a consultant ophthalmic surgeon with a passion to exploit IT for surgery and administration in health.

He says previous resistance to the use of IT among staff is largely overcome among younger people who are IT savvy. Data capture and analysis has, however, have a long way to go.

He has worked with Orbis, the international charity working to make eye care available everywhere. His father was Alan Benjamin OBE a leading member of the UK computer industry from the 1960s.

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. 

Chris Little

Chris Little is in his 50th year of applying IT to numerical weather prediction at the Met Office.  He has been involved in many of the most important developments in weather and climate modelling over that time and is still there working on international collaboration projects.   Chris has programmed some of the most powerful supercomputers of their days and instigated the use of a wide range of graphic devices for forecasters and researchers. He spent three years at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (based in Reading) that extended weather forecasting beyond a few days with the application of the first Cray supercomputer.