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The stories of the pioneering people behind IT

This expanding database contains more than 200 oral histories recorded by the Archives of IT team. They tell the extraordinary story of how the Tech industry has transformed our lives, in the words of the people who made and are making it happen.

You can filter interviews by subject area below or use the Search button at the top of the page. If you know who you are looking for, use our A-Z list here.

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Professor John Tucker

Professor John Tucker is one of the select few academic computer scientists who are also passionate about the history of computing; being a noted authority on both.  After studying maths at the newly opened University of Warwick in the ‘70’s John was captivated by interests in mathematical logic and computability and pursued studies in the UK and internationally before returning to Wales.

At Swansea, his course on the history of computing teaches undergraduate students the skills essential to the workplace, of how to learn about and communicate on unfamiliar subjects. Furthermore, it extends our understanding of “invention and innovation in Computing” and nurtures his fascination for the subject.  He has expanded his work to include the collection of hardware and documents in the Swansea Computing Collection and the study of the role of science and technology in the industry and society of South Wales.

Dr Timothy Walker CB

Dr Timothy Walker managed the Alvey Programme from 1987 to 89, which researched advanced computing technologies.  Alvey paralleled Japan’s 5th Generation project and aimed to improve the UK’s performance / competitiveness in Information Technology. 

Dr Walker was a formidable academic over-achiever in his formative years.  After an early spell in university teaching and research he held top level posts, managing transformation in areas such as Industry (Alvey), Nuclear Energy and Immigration.  He advocates closer working between industry and universities and strong leadership in managing Government driven change.

Since retiring from the Civil Service he has remained busy with voluntary and charitable roles and uncovering local history. 

Dr Juliet Webster

Uninspired by her teachers, Dr Juliet Webster left school to take a secretarial course. She also signed up for A’level sociology — a subject not then on the school curriculum.

It was the beginning of a lengthy and prolific academic career studying the gender dynamics of job automation, digital labour, and how employment has evolved since technology began to appear in the workplace.

“What drew me in was the sociology of industrial relations and the Marxist theory of capital,” she says. “I was really interested in the lessons for the twentieth century from the early introduction of machinery.”

Topics she has examined in her many academic papers include virtual work, the gig economy, equal pay, people skills and social sustainability. She is particularly interested in how technology has impacted women’s lives.

Juliet’s career has also spanned practical action in NGOs, and policy making, including for the European Commission Directorate General for Employment. She currently has her own consultancy in London,Work & Equality Research, and is Adviser for the Gender and ICT Programme, IN3, at the Open University of Catalonia.

Juliet does not discourage young women from careers in technologies such as computer science. But she is concerned about the current trend towards flexible working, which includes an increase in short-term contracts, content farming and offshoring. “These practices blur the boundaries between work and home life, and can erode pay and conditions,” she says.

Professor Yorick Wilks

Professor Yorick Wilks is a British computer scientist who has contributed to a wide range of academic fields, including philosophy, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, natural language processing, and machine translation. He is Emeritus Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Sheffield, and Visiting Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Gresham College in London, a position created for him. He is a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute, Senior Scientist at the Florida Institute of Human and Machine Cognition, and a member of the Epiphany Philosophers. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, and of the Association for Computing Machinery. He is a Fellow of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence, and of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. In 1997 he led the team that won the Loebner Prize for machine dialogue; in 2008 he got the Zampolli Prize of the European Languages Research Association; and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Association for Computational Linguistics. In 2009 he got the Lovelace Medal of the British Computer Society for contributions to meaning-based understanding of natural language.