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Latest - IT Sector: Artificial intelligence

A man with grey hair smiling. He is wearing a blue polo shirt.

Jeremy Brassington

The early experience of rejection gave Jeremy Brassington a drive which led through impressive exam results to studying chemistry at Oxford. Despite a well-received thesis on blood proteins, he found academic research unappealing, and instead qualified as an accountant.   Describing auditing as “the dullest subject on earth” he turned to banking, eventually focusing on tech venture funding and turning around failing businesses such as Oxford Molecular. “It taught me how not to run a business,” he says.

In 2003, Jeremy moved into Assistive Technology, redesigning an assistive listening device for the hard of hearing. Having had learning difficulties himself, he realised could help students with dyslexia, language problems and other disabilities.  “It was the first time I had run a business that was doing good,” he says. He managed it for the next 15 years, launching in 30 markets worldwide.

In 2019, Jeremy founded Habitat Learn, an Edtech group which combines automated note-taking and transcription with a smartphone app that helps disabled students take notes in lectures and is now pioneering digital education for all students. He hopes it will become a unicorn.

Richard Little

Richard Little is a serial angel investor who learned to be an entrepreneur by watching his father and trained for a life in technology by studying languages.  Richard built and successfully exited his own business in the 1980’s and 90’s, applying cheaper new technology in financial services.  His first big idea failed but the second one worked, and he says that is not a bad formula for building a business.

In the 21st century he has turned his hand to helping others’ companies grow by leveraging investment with his acquired expertise.  Richard believes that helping small companies grow is good for the economy and society, as well as being a rewarding occupation.  His current portfolio includes Cloud, AI and EdTech.

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 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.

Paul Fullagar

Paul Fullagar says he has been a user of IT rather than a developer of IT but he has written applications and run companies developing and selling packages mostly in the financial sector. He qualified in business studies and as a chartered management accountant. He has written applications in Algol and Fortran IV. He has helped several ailing software package companies to recover through looking at their overall position with helicopter vision. He is a business angel in many software and healthcare companies.

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.

Sir Michael Brady

Sir Michael Brady is Emeritus Professor of Oncological Imaging at the University of Oxford, having retired in 2010 as Professor of Information Engineering.  He is co-Director of the Oxford Cancer Imaging Centre.  He is distinguished for his work in artificial intelligence, and for his outstanding contributions to developing computer-based post-processing for a variety of medical images.  He combines his work in oncology with a range of entrepreneurial activities.  He was Deputy Chairman of Oxford Instruments, and also a founder of successful start-ups such as Guidance, Mirada Medical, Optellum, Perspectum Diagnostics, ScreenPoint Medical, and Volpara Solutions among others.  Sir Michael was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineers, Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, Fellow of the Institute of Physics, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and Fellow of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence, and also he is Membre Étranger de l’Académie des Sciences.  In addition to this numerous academic fellowships and prizes he received a knighthood in 2004 for services to engineering.