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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 Nigel Gilbert CBE

Dr Professor Nigel Gilbert CBE holds a distinguished chair in Computational Social Science having been a Professor of Sociology at the University of Surrey. Nigel brings a fascinating insight into how IT an help us understand society. His prolific output includes Agent-based Models (Sage Publications 2008); a technique used to model behaviours such as clustering of populations, the dynamics of opinions in society and the operation of the housing market.   

Nigel is a polymath.  He wanted to do computer science at university but nobody was offering such a degree yet so he studied engineering at Cambridge with management studies thrown in, Nigel’s first program was for his father, a biophysical chemist, helping him understand through simulation how haemoglobin picks up and releases oxygen in the blood.  This around the time that Crick and Watson were building computer models (and note the parallels with Dennis Noble).  He was a lecturer in sociology at York University and joined the newly formed University of Surrey as part of a small sociology department in 1976.  He made a name for himself using a microcomputer to cut through the complexity of rules for social security benefits that were beyond human comprehension.  As a result the topic was  in the Alvey project. 

Lisa Goodchild

Lisa Goodchild’s experience in – and passion for – all things digital is unrivalled. For more than 20 years she has lived, loved and been a major player in the industry making waves in far-reaching arenas, from fashion, finance & tech to online advertising and non-profit.

Throughout her career, Lisa has brought excitement to her projects, making ‘it’ happen, with her agency social media consultancy Digiwoo, for the likes of Hewlett Packard, British Airways, Goldman Sachs, Panasonic & Ted Baker, & also in her capacity as an advisor to notable names such as PR guru Lynne Franks, June Sarpong MBE, Shaa Wasmund MBE & MOBO Awards founder Kanya King MBE. Lisa also mentors for Google & Virgin as well as being a Marketing Academy Alumni and a Marketing Academy Apprenticeship Charity Trustee.

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Roger Graham OBE

Roger Graham OBE helped to develop 3,000 IT jobs and £500 million of shareholder value in his IT career. He helped develop and sell one of the most important software packages for modern banking: MIDAS. He started work in the IT industry in IBM rising to be account manager for Ford UK. He left IBM after four-and-a-half years to join BIS, then a small software start up. MIDAS handled currency transactions when they were deregulated and also gold transactions. He left BIS in the early 1990s and has acted as a non-executive advisor to over 24 companies in 22 years.

Professor Sir Iain Gray

Professor Sir Iain Gray was appointed Director of Aerospace at Cranfield University in 2015. In this role he draws on his 30 years in the aerospace manufacturing and engineering sector, ultimately leading Airbus in the UK.

Sir Iain also spent seven years as Chief Executive of UK Innovate, previously known as the Technology Strategy Board. The post included responsibility for an annual budget of £500m and interacting with some 5,000 large and small businesses across all sectors.

Dame Wendy Hall CBE

Dame Wendy Hall is a British computer scientist and Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, and an Executive Director of the Web Science Institute.  She was Dean of the Faculty of Physical Science and Engineering at the University of Southampton from 2010 to 2014.  Between 2002 and 2007 she was Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science, where she was founding Head of the Intelligence, Agents, and Multimedia Research Group.  In 2000 she was awarded a CBE and became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.  She is also a distinguished Fellow of the BCS, a Fellow of the IET, and of the City and Guilds of London Institute, and holds a number of honorary degrees.  She became a Dame Commander of the British Empire in the 2009 UK New Year’s Honours list, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in the same year.